Why did Katharine Hepburn hide in the bushes to spy on Jane Fonda?
It can often be daunting for an actor to meet one of the all-time greats, never mind end up working with them. She may have been the daughter of a legend, but that didn’t make it any easier for Jane Fonda to grasp the unique enigma that was Katharine Hepburn.
The only person in history to win four Academy Awards for acting, an icon of ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood, and comfortably among the most naturally gifted performers to ever grace the silver screen; when they shared the screen in On Golden Pond, Hepburn’s reputation had already been preceding her for decades.
She was every bit as famous for her attitude as her onscreen exploits, though, with Hepburn well known for her active disdain of publicity and celebrity, and she was also fond of dishing out a withering verbal takedown in the direction of anyone or anything that left her even remotely dissatisfied.
When production began, Fonda already had two Oscars of her own, and On Golden Pond was a passion project in every sense of the word. She’d purchased the film rights to Ernest Thompson’s play so that she and her old man could play father and daughter in their first picture together, which turned out to be the last he made before his death.
Hepburn was a tough customer at the best of times, and when she found out there was a scene where Fonda’s character backflips into the water, she demanded to know if she was planning to do it herself. Petty, sure, but a challenge that had been laid down and one that demanded to be met.
“She looked at me and asked, ‘Are you going to learn to do the backflip?'” Fonda told Oprah Winfrey. “And I had no intention of learning to do the backflip; I’m terrified of going over backwards, and I hate cold water. But what was I going to say, no? So I said, ‘Of course.'”
Fonda knew that she’d have to put up or shut up, so she practised during her downtime to ensure she could pull it off. In most cases, her word would have been enough, but Hepburn made a point of lurking in the shrubbery to guarantee that her co-star wasn’t all talk.
“On the days I wasn’t shooting, I’d go out there and practice my flip,” Fonda explained. “And Katharine used to hide in the bushes on the shore and watch. One day, I finally did a backflip! I was covered with bruises, and I crawled up on the shore. And she was standing there. ‘You made me like you, Jane’, she said. ‘I’ve watched you day after day. You know, you’ve got to conquer your fears. Otherwise, you’ll get soggy.'”
It was a test more than anything, with Hepburn seeing if Fonda was worthy of her respect. As it turned out, she was, even if the taskmaster felt compelled to watch from a safe distance to gain a first-hand appraisal.
