VHS / DVD


not org. cover


Film data

Studio 16 Communications / Connecticut Public Broadcasting
30 minutes
Produced: 1988

Premiere: January 18, 1993


Synopsis

They Called Me Kathy is a highly personal remembrance of things past by the legendary film star, Katharine Hepburn. This personal biography combines old Hepburn family films with reenacted scenes and Hepburn's own reminiscences to tell the story of the actress's youth in Hartford, Connecticut.

Written and narrated by Katharine Hepburn herself, They Called Me Kathy television special that recalls the legendary actress' remarkable upbringing in Hartford, Connecticut. Making its national debut, the special masterfully combines old Hepburn family films with newly re-enacted scenes and Hepburn's own reminiscences to tell the story of the acclaimed actor's youthful years in Hartford, from age 3 through her 20s. Hepbum's brother-in-law, historian Ellsworth S. Grant, helped put the television special together.


Critics' reviews


In treatment


What Kate had to say

In treatment


What fellow actors, the director and friends had to say


In treatment


Notes

Kate, who also serves as narrator, wrote the program's script and packed it with anecdotes. 'They might as well have called me Tom,' she says. 'I was a tomboy. I could out-run and out-climb anybody.' Home movies of the actress and her family at home in Hartford, on the golf course and at Fenwick, their summer home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound, paint an enchanting portrait of life in stimulating times. The actress's natural love for and excellence in athletics also are featured. They Called Me Kathy offers an intimate look at the forces that shaped one of America's most beloved stars of the silver screen from age three through her twenties.

Family films, shot during the 1920s and 30s, of Katharine and her family at home in Hartford, on the golf course and at their summer home, Fenwick on Long Island Sound, paint an enchanting portrait of life in simpler yet stimulating times for the young woman.

Katharine's mother and father were social Progressives who surrounded themselves at home with some of the world's most famous activists, including anarchist Emina Goldman and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. 'I've had a pretty remarkable life,' says Hepburn, 'but compared to my mother and father, I'm dull.'

An avid golfer, Hepburn claims that 'I got a hole-in-one on the morning of the (1938) hurricane; the ninth hol and nobody believed me because of the hurricane.' Fenwick was totally destroyed by the storm, one of the most devastating in New England's history. But while others were running and taking cover, Kathy was impressed by the power of the hurricane. 'It was thrilling!'

Originally produced in 1988, They Called Me Kathy is a priceless record of the childhood of one of our century's greatest actors, written and narrated by the woman who lived it.