Synopses & Reviews
Twenty years of intimate conversations form the heart of this remarkable memoir from the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
Lindbergh and
Goldwyn: A Biography.
For seven decades Katharine Hepburn played a leading role in the popular culture of the twentieth century reigning as an admired actress, a beloved movie star, and a treasured icon of the modern American woman. She also remained one of the most private of all the public figures of her time.
In 1983 at the age of seventy-five, her career cresting the four-time Academy Award winner opened the door to biographer A. Scott Berg then thirty-three and began a special friendship, one that endured to the end of her illustrious life.
From the start, Scott Berg felt that Katharine Hepburn intended his role to be not just that of a friend but also of a chronicler, a confidant who might record for posterity her thoughts and feelings. Over the next twenty years, Kate used their many hours together to reveal all that came to mind, often reflecting on the people and episodes of her past, occasionally on the meaning of life.
Here are the stories from those countless intimate conversations, and much more. In addition to recording heretofore untold biographical details of her entire phenomenal career and her famous relationships with such men as Spencer Tracy and Howard Hughes, Kate Remembered also tells the amusing, often emotional story of one of the most touching friendships in her final years. Scott Berg provides his own memories of Katharine Hepburn offstage quiet dinners in her town house in New York City, winter swims (she swam, he watched) in the Long Island Sound at Fenwick, her home in Connecticut, weekend visits with family members and dear friends...even some unusual appearances by the likes of Michael Jackson and Warren Beatty. Finally, Kate Remembered discusses the legendary actress's moving farewell, during which her mighty personality surrendered at last to her failing body all the while remaining true to her courageous character.
Kate Remembered is a book about love and friendship, family and career, Hollywood and Broadway all punctuated by unforgettable lessons from an extraordinary life.
Review
"[I]ntensely readable....Berg's writing is so intimate that readers may feel they are hiding behind a curtain as they listen to the stories he elicits from his subject." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"[An] unusual and unusually fitting 'account'...of a life lived outside the usual." Entertainment Weekly
Synopsis
The #1 New York Times Bestseller. Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg recounts the story of his twenty-year friendship with Katherine Hepburn, one that endured to the end of her illustrious life.
About the Author
A. Scott Berg graduated from Princeton University in 1971 and is the author of Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, Goldwyn: A Biography, and Lindbergh, for which he received the National Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Pulitzer Prize, respectively.