Best Actress: Katharine Hepburn II
The longest gap between Oscar wins (in the Best Actress category, anyway), with a slew of nominations in between...
It took Katharine Hepburn nearly 35 years to win a second Oscar, but what a commanding career she spent those decades building. Alice Adams, The Philadelphia Story, Woman of the Year, The African Queen, Summertime, The Rainmaker, Suddenly, Last Summer, and Long Day's Journey into Night, just to name the other Oscar-nominated performances.
1967 was a transformational year in Hollywood. If you haven't read Mark Harris's excellent book, Pictures at a Revolution, all about how New Hollywood, with the likes of The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde and In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner breaking in just as Old Hollywood was dying, with the likes of Doctor Dolittle, I'd definitely recommend it. Of all the years that we think about as major in Hollywood, next to 1939 or 1999, 1967 has to be up there.
And I'm noticing it as I get further and further into this project. The roles are getting grittier, the characters are getting more realistic. Gone is the soft focus and the saintly figures; the melodrama is slipping away into grounded dramas. Winning for comedy is getting harder. The women are swearing, calling themselves sluts, and starting to get naked. When I look at what's to come, with the likes of Klute, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Network all within the next decade, it's really easy to see in action how 1967 helped usher in the change.
But I do have to confess: I think Katharine Hepburn's turn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is the weakest of her Oscar-winning performances. This is an important film at an important time: about interracial marriage and the changing social dynamics of America. But so much of it is focused on Spencer Tracy (in his final film) hemming and hawing over whether or not he can support the marriage of his daughter (played by Katharine Houghton, Katharine's real-life niece) and her doctor fiancé (played by Sidney Poitier), though not because he's racist, because he's worried about how they and any potential children will be treated by a society that may not be as openminded as he and Katharine are.
That he finally tosses his support behind them is no surprise; but in between the monologues and the scenes discussing important social topics, there's not really much for Katharine to do other than stare lovingly at her daughter or look tearfully at her husband. And knowing that Spencer died only a few weeks after this film wrapped, and that he had such a difficult time shooting it, it's no wonder Katharine was overcome in so many of their scenes together.
In many ways, I think Katharine is the backbone of this movie. She's there to support its many characters and to help drive the plot forward, but she's not really there to do much else beyond that.
Katharine was nominated against Anne Bancroft (The Graduate), Faye Dunaway (Bonnie and Clyde), Edith Evans (The Whisperers), and Audrey Hepburn (Wait Until Dark, though it should've been for Two for the Road...). I really think the Oscar this year should've gone to either Anne Bancroft or Faye Dunaway. Mrs. Robinson is one of the most iconic characters to come out of the '60s; and Bonnie and Clyde helped usher in New Hollywood.
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Did you like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? What are your thoughts on Katharine Hepburn's second Oscar win?
Keep up with all my Rewatching the Best Actresses posts here!
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