Rating: 
Summary: Superb and surprisingly funny
Review: Anyone who wants to believe that Katharine Hepburn was as fascinating in life as she was on the screen - and put me on that list - will love this book. A. Scott Berg's memoir, Kate Remembered - and please note that the author informs at the onset that this is a memoir, not an official biography - captures a Hepburn who is always on, always ready with a pithy one-liner, always capable of a grand gesture, but who never seems fake or dishonest. It was impossible for me to read this without hearing her distinctive voice every time Berg quoted her.Although this does repeat some of the material in Miss Hepburn's own two forays into writing, and perhaps they have more of an authoritative voice since they came from her pen, it is worth reading for the gaps it fills and for Berg's tender treatment of his subject. To be honest, it is worth the entire cover price just to read about the surreal dinner party the evening that Michael Jackson came to dinner. Hepburn's one-liners interspersed with Jackson's silence and the other guests' continually failing attempts to make conversation is laugh-out-loud funny. When it became obvious that Jackson had never even seen a Hepburn movie (but said how much he loved them), I was laughing so hard, I dropped the book. Berg grabbed me on page one, and held my interest through the end. Read it. By the time you reach the end, you will probably want to go out and rent several of Hepburn's movies, if you don't have them already.
Rating: 
Summary: just an opportunist selling his supposedly best "friend".
Review: As a KH fan I couldn't be more disappointed.
This book is just another way to serve Mr. Berg's career. He talks more about himself than KH. He uses weird excuses to end up talking about his Pulitzer price and his dull career (who cares about Mr.Berg???).
The book won't give you any new information about KH!!! I don't need to know about dull intimacies that have no interest whatsoever for any true KH fan. It is just pure bragging of Mr.Berg.
After reading this book I don't know KH any better (all info is already known by real fans) but instead I definitively know that Mr.Berg is not the kind of person I would invite for tea time.
Had Mr. Berg wanted to pay a homage to KH, he could have done it writing other things about her that might have been more interesting.
I suggest not to waste your money.
Rating:
Summary: "Cold Sober, I Find Myself Absolutely Fascinating"...Agreed
Review: Before this book, published just days after her death last year at 96, I felt there wasn't much more I needed to know about screen legend Katharine Hepburn. I had read Barbara Leaming's comprehensive family tree biography and much earlier, the late Garson Kanin's remembrance, "Tracy and Hepburn". Like so many others, I was taken by her headstrong heiresses, liberated career women, lovestruck spinsters, devouring mothers and domineering queens. Her angular cheekbones, her often haughty behavior, her whinnying laugh, her hands-on-hips posturing - all ingrained in my movie viewing memories. I recalled her first TV interview with Dick Cavett in 1973 when she asserted quite accurately with characteristic candor, "Cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating". No argument here. Author A. Scott Berg, who became Hepburn's confidante in her last twenty years, has painted a portrait of an irascible woman whose defiant, New England character had not changed much in her nearly hundred years of living. She made no apologies for the life she led and the values she espoused, nor did she need to as lovably eccentric as she was. Hepburn was ahead of her time in her views on female empowerment but amazingly old-fashioned when it came to the dynamics between men and women, as epitomized by her loving, sometimes abusive relationship with the alcoholic and tormented Spencer Tracy, an affair she recalls in the book with a percolating mix of nostalgia and unfiltered honesty.
Much more than a standard biography, Berg's eminently readable book does a wonderful job of showing off her sarcasm and biting wit. Hepburn's razor sharp sense of humor informs her memories of getting sick while filming "The African Queen", being pursued by germ-conscious Howard Hughes, and in one hysterical account, rebuffing Michael Jackson's obtuse request for publicity shots. Her views on the current crop of actors are similarly merciless in ribaldries - Meryl Streep (apparently her least favorite actress with her methodical approach described by Hepburn as "Click, Click, Click"), Glenn Close ("She's got these big, flat, ugly feet" said Hepburn after seeing her onstage), Melanie Griffith ("lethargic"), Arnold Schwarzenegger ("I don't understand him" as Hepburn was referring not to his audience appeal but to his English). I found her interest in TV journalist Cynthia McFadden quite interesting with Hepburn obviously envisioning her as the granddaughter she never had and someone she entrusted to be the executor of her will. The last pages chronicling an enfeebled Hepburn's last months are inevitably sad but resonant of a life fully lived, for one could never feel sorry for Hepburn. She would have never tolerated that. Berg is quite the biographer having covered the lives of Lindbergh and Sam Goldwyn among others, but this is a much more intimate account like Graham Greene's "Travels with My Aunt". A charming book of a most unusual friendship captured by Berg with great heart and just enough sentiment to make you want to rent "Summertime", "Holiday", "The Lion in Winter", "Bringing Up Baby", and on and on and on...
Rating:
Summary: Friendship with Kate
Review: I just finished the audio version of this book -- it's a gracefully written story, superbly well read by Tony Goldwyn. I've also read the 100+ readers' reviews, all provocative. I can't agree with those who feel that Mr. Berg is self-serving or self-involved in this story, or that he overshadows Kate in any way. Nor does he idolize his subject. Perhaps, in the beginning, he was somewhat star-struck, but who wouldln't be? As the friendship proceeded, it grew steadier and stronger, and to last to the end, as it did, shows that it was based on genuine affection.
No amount of self-interest could have sustained a friendship this long. Beyond access to some private papers, Mr. Berg didn't "need" Kate to further his own career -- he wasn't an actor or director or producer, but a writer, with a reputation already well established when he first called on Kate. And there's no way Kate could have helped him to win his Pulitzer Prize. Only a first-class writer could have done that.
Rating:
Summary: What he left out...
Review: I read most of the other reviews before starting the book, and I have to agree with most of the good ones. However, after finishing the book last night, and after staring at the ceiling when I went to bed, I began wondering about that poor woman who spent the last months (years?) tethered to an oxygen bottle. Why? Did she have emphysema? Did she have COPD? And why, if she was so physically active, would she be plagued with such problems. Those questions, and the tossing and turning, made my poor wife leave the bed and go into another room to read her book. Then I remembered. The author mentions that both Hepburn and Tracy were smokers, at least back in the 50's or 60's. Ah hah! A smoker. (Of course, it would be expected that a young woman seeking emancipation in the 20s would take to the habit.) But, then the questions came hammering through. If she was a smoker, she would have had her little rituals that would have been associated with the habit. "I hope you don't mind me smoking, darling." There would have had to have been such dialogue about this, and she would have been militantly defensive about the habit. What bothers me is that the author said absolutely nothing about this--maybe for a good reason, because she had quit by the time he knew her, but there is an unkinder thought lurking that he might have purposely avoided mentioning this filthy habit. (You now know my bias--reformed smokers are the worst.) Anyhow, this is no big deal, and I do not want to detract from this intimate look at a truly outstanding woman. But, I sure wish I knew if the smoking was what did her in.
Rating: 
Summary: Kate or Scott?
Review: It took me a while to figure out what bothered me about this biography, and then decided that it's because the book is as much about Scott Berg as it is about Kate Hepburn, and I don't really care all that much about Scott. As other reviewers have noted, much of this material has been covered by other biographers and in books by Hepburn herself (if you haven't read her story of the Making of the African Queen, go find a copy).
If you want to read about how Hepburn interacted with others (generous, funny, demanding, imperious - pick one depending on the setting), you might learn something from this book. If you want to learn about how Berg made the most of an invitation to dinner, and, perhaps, what about him so interested Hepburn, this book is worth your time.
It was interesting that at one point Berg sort of looks down on Warren Beatty using a private piece of information about Howard Hughes for his own gain, information which Berg had gotten from Hepburn, when Berg's whole book is private information about various people which he's using for gain. I guess the difference is that Berg had Kate's permission. For my taste, I would have rather read more about Hepburn, and less about the biographer.
Rating:
Summary: Great Stories About A Great Star
Review: Kate Remembered is not a traditional biography. It is told from the author's point of view about his friendship with the aging star. I personally found Scott Berg's unconventional format very refreshing. So many times I have read a biography only to find them filled with dates and boring details. I enjoyed the way Scott Berg brought Hepburn's biography to life. It was interesting to hear his first hand account of how he watched the last phases of Kate's life unfold, as she told him stories of her early life. Instead of reading just another cold biography, we were treated to glipses of Hepburn as a real person, with a real friend who was able to tell her story.
If you love to read biographies, this is one of the best ones out there. A great story about one of our greatest stars.
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Aunt
Review: On June 3, 2004, Sotheby's opened an exhibition of Kathryn Hepburn's property which will be auctioned off from her estate. Sotheby's had inquiries from all over from fans to advanced collectors to galleries. What is it about this star that has created such interest in owning a piece of this star? Scott Berg, who had long personal friendship with Hepburn, does an excellent job in providing a behind the scenes glimpse into her life, what made her tick, and possibly, why she has been so attractive to so many. "Kate Remembered" is a well-written, fast-paced biography. This is a biography written with the reader in mind. Berg describes the source of her fierce independence and her moves from stage to movies and later to TV. He also gives us a glimpse of some of the biggest names in Hollywood during her era, and the role Louis Mayer and Sam Goldwyn played in shaping their careers. He spares no details of her relationships with George Stevens, Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Leland Hayward, and, of course, Spencer Tracy. Learn about her views of Sir Laurence Olivier (a "small" man), John Wayne, Timothy Dalton, Peter O'Toole, and Bob Hope (a big egomaniac), Warren Beatty (vanity), Michael Jackson (a ten year old boy in 25 year old body), and her favorite movies. While Hepburn stood alone with her fierce independence, beauty, and brains, Berg shows us that this hardly defined the feisty woman from Connecticut. She was a woman "with attitude" not caught up with Hollywood, a woman who was grounded, a woman who never developed a sense of entitlement, and, yet, a woman who had few friends as she got older. Berg goes into great detail about why Tracy was the event in her life that taught her how to love rather than seeking to be loved; why Judd Harris tired to destroy her after she resurrected her career; why she felt she could never attend the Academy Awards; and how "The Philadelphia Story," which saved her career, was created and produced. Some of the book's priceless quotes include: Her response after Sean Penn punched out a photographer... "Why wouldn't someone who pays to see your picture in the movies, not want to take your picture?" On her profession..."Actors and actresses are prostitutes selling themselves for our entertainment." On having children... She never wanted to have to make the choice between giving a scheduled performance or staying home to care for a sick screaming child. "Life, it is not easy. Life is tough for everyone, most become its victim." She was the keeper of her own flame, and while she maintained a starry distance, she always seemed like our favorite aunt. And Berg's book tells us why, she was our favorite aunt! We are fortunate for her enduring relationship with Scott Berg that made this book possible.
Rating:
Summary: Kate Remembered
Review: The life of the late, great Katharine Hepburn has been accurately and thoroughly preserved in print by her friend Berg. Released upon her death in June 2003, Kate Remembered not only captures the amazing history of Hepburn's life and career, but Berg manages to capture her personality, her passions, and her dry wit. The author, who met the actress in the early 1980s, had unprecedented access to her, and his friendship and admiration for her are evident in his writing. In addition to telling the life story of the incomparable actress, the book even serves as a history of early Hollywood and Broadway. Masterfully read by actor/director Tony Goldwyn, the audio version gives an entirely new dimension to Berg's already visual narrative. His interpretation of Hepburn's trademark voice is endearing and adds depth to the clean and flowing production. Recommended for most collections, especially those strong in biography and movie history.
Rating:
Summary: Woman of the Century
Review: When I finished reading this touching and personal tribute to the finest actress we have ever known, I could not let it go. I immediately, with tears in my eyes, turned back through the pages, looking for favorite parts, and read them again. Scott Berg gave us a gift - a window into the life of a woman who epitomizes why life can be beautiful, even with its bumps. Katharine Hepburn, while gruff on the outside, was feminine, loving, and determined to make the best of her life. She will always be an example to women, and men, who dare to challenge the norm, and be different when the times dictate otherwise. Life is about living, and loving, and being loved. Katharine Hepburn left us a legacy, not just on film. I felt like I was sitting on Berg's shoulder - I could hear Ms. Hepburn talking when he described their conversations. I laughed, cried and wondered with him. For anyone who admired this woman as a person, as an actress, as a trailblazer for women in a male dominated profession (regardless of what professon), as one who loved and was loved, this book is a must. Thank you Scott Berg.
|
