The last time Katharine Hepburn had a part in a Hollywood film was in 1994 in "Love Affair". Her minor role as an elderly aunt has largely been forgotten, except by Hepburn aficionados. To see her in a big role you have to go back to "On Golden Pond", made in 1981. But that movie, although much admired, was not a typical Hepburn story: its theme was ageing and the imminence of death. Nor was "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?", made in 1967, about inter-racial marriage. You need to look at half a dozen romantic comedies she made in the 1930s and 1940s to get an idea of the style she brought to Hollywood movies. The words were not her own, of course. Hollywood at that time was blessed with clever writers. But no one was better than she at delivering their witty lines in her husky patrician voice.
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