Katherine Hepburn 1907-2003

[Jeff Wilson]

A moment of appreciation for Katherine Hepburn, who died a couple days ago. Her connection to Welles comes through radio, where she appeared with Welles in an early Campbell Playhouse production of "A Farewell to Arms," which is now sadly lost. Welles pursued Hepburn for a Campbell production of "The Philadelphia Story," but this eventually fell through. Given that Joseph Cotten starred in the stage production, one can easily imagine Welles in the Dexter-Haven role, with Hepburn and Cotten as the other leads.

[Noel Shane]

Hepburn had a few other, less tangible, connections to Welles than just the radio program. She also signed her first contract in movies with RKO, was something of a rebel while she was there, collaborated in an adaptation of a Tarkington novel, and was eventually swept out of the studio (albeit after a longer stay and under more mutual circumstances) as a flop whom they were glad to be rid of. Although the studio was run by Pandro Berman during her tenure, the box office failures that marked Hepburn's latter '30s output were part of a continuing trend which kept RKO financially precarious and its executives -- Berman and those after him -- wary of risk-taking. As it turned out, Katherine left RKO and Hollywood just months before Welles would arrive.