Why Katharine Hepburn found acting to be humiliating: “Idiot’s profession”
As an industry, Hollywood is notoriously harsh on the people it makes famous. For many female actors, that ‘biological clock’ feeling extends into their careers, with countless producers and studio executives shunning women once they reach a certain age, no longer seeing them as attractive and desirable leads. Many older women get typecast – and most aren’t even what we’d consider elderly; many women find opportunities drying up in the film industry when they’re as young as 40.
How many rom-coms can you think of led by women over 40? And how many have achieved widespread success? Many female actors turn to plastic surgery, extreme diet plans, hair dye, and other forms of treatment to keep them from looking their real age, and you can hardly blame them – Hollywood is a tough industry that’ll gladly chew you up and spit you out if you’re no longer needed.
Even Katharine Hepburn, one of the most acclaimed female actors ever and a four-time Oscar winner, couldn’t escape the feeling of being past her sell-by date, to put it plainly. The actor began performing as a child, just for fun, but by the time she went to college, she found herself drawn to the school’s theatre productions, which she soon started to perform in.
During the 1920s, she frequently appeared on stage, but it was her appearance in 1932’s The Warrior’s Husband that led her to transition from the stage to the screen. Her first movie role was in A Bill of Divorcement, directed by George Cukor, and she would soon work with him again in films like Little Women, Holiday, and The Philadelphia Story.
Hepburn’s career continued at a rapid pace, and she quickly became one of the most iconic faces in Hollywood. Her first Academy Award came in 1934 with Morning Glory, and her last came in 1982 with On Golden Pond. Evidently, Hepburn’s career lasted decades, with her final movie appearance coming in 1994 with Love Affair, but it wasn’t always plain sailing.
She told Channel 4 when she was 75, “I drifted into acting. I think it’s a sort of idiot’s profession. I would’ve loved to have been a painter or a writer. Selling my deteriorating self is very humiliating work. If they don’t want you anymore, they dump you. I know goddamn well that’s true. I’ve been dumped and picked up again. I would’ve liked a more private profession.”
While male actors are also at risk of getting “dumped” by Hollywood, it’s a well-known fact that women experience much more age-based prejudice in the industry – and in general. Hepburn’s film roles in the 1960s and onwards were much less frequent, and the kinds of roles she took on were much different to the ones she played in earlier years. While every performance Hepburn gave was highly acclaimed, with the actor continuing to assert herself as a true Hollywood heavyweight, she still found it difficult to navigate an industry that has never been particularly reliable.
As she got older and developed various issues, including a tremor, Hepburn still had to perform to the general public. In these moments, she clearly wished for more privacy—something that being a famous actor doesn’t exactly grant you.
