The on-set rivalry that led to one of Katharine Hepburn’s best performances: “It was like dog eat dog on that picture”
Katharine Hepburn shared the screen with many an Old Hollywood legend during her illustrious career. Spencer Tracy was her favourite. The two shared an off-screen relationship, which, although mysterious to many outsiders, lasted for four decades. They starred in nine films together, and she was instrumental in keeping him in front of the camera even as he became increasingly reclusive late in life.
Another frequent co-star was Cary Grant. They made four films together – Sylvia Scarlett, Bringing Up Baby, Holiday, and The Philadelphia Story, and remain one of the most iconic romantic pairings in cinema history. However, Hepburn wasn’t always the easiest of collaborators. She was fiercely independent and ambitious, and when her career was on the rocks in the mid-1930s, she had all the more reason to feel insecure about up-and-coming stars that her studio, RKO, might be eyeing as her successor.
In 1937, she was cast in the lead role in Gregory La Cava’s showbiz drama Stage Door, playing to type as a disdainful upper-class aspiring actor who moves into a shabby boarding house with other theatrical hopefuls. She instantly butts heads with her roommate, a streetwise dancer played by Ginger Rogers. It starred several other female stars as fellow boarders, including Gail Patrick, Andrea Leeds, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, and Ann Miller. It was, in many ways, a precursor to All About Eve, featuring a story of rivalries between female actors at varying stages of their careers.
It was also eerily close to reality. At the time, Rogers was ascendant at RKO, having established herself as a bankable musical star in the Fred Astaire hits The Gay Divorcee, Top Hat, and Swing Time. The studio was hoping that Stage Door might prove her mettle as a dramatic actor, and even though Hepburn was promised top billing, it was no secret that RKO was pitting its two stars – one ascendent, the other supposedly on the decline – against each other.
That tension played out on set. Rogers claimed that she had tried to start things off on a collegial note by sending Hepburn a platinum suit pin for her birthday, only to receive no reply. Years later, when Rogers confronted the star about it, Hepburn said that she had no memory of it and must have given it away to someone.
Miller remembered that the atmosphere on set was decidedly chilly. “It was like dog eat dog on that picture,” she said, “Even though everyone was very friendly. They were writing the script on the set and I remember there was quite a lot of tension between Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn.” She recalled that Ball and Arden singlehandedly saved the production by constantly cracking jokes to lighten the mood.
The film was a modest success at the box office, but critics were much more receptive, lavishing it with praise, especially for its performances. It was nominated for four Oscars, though Leeds was the only actor to earn a nod from the Academy. The reception helped convince RKO that Hepburn still had the goods, so they cast her opposite Cary Grant–one of the most beloved stars of the moment–in Bringing Up Baby. The film was a disappointment at the box office, even though it has become a defining screwball comedy, and it would take a stint on Broadway and return to Hollywood in The Philadelphia Story to revitalise her screen career.
Meanwhile, Rogers benefited from Stage Door even more, earning respect as a dramatic actor. She began to appear in more non-musical films, and even won an Academy Award in 1941 for her performance in Kitty Foyle. Although Stage Door is all but forgotten today, it contains some of Hepburn’s and Rogers’s best performances, due in no small part to their fractious off-camera relationship.
