KATHARINE HEPBURN - AUTOGRAPH LETTER UNSIGNED 09/08 - HFSID 254003

KATHARINE HEPBURN
The famous actress wrote this fascinating unsigned letter from to a friend about the location for The Trojan Women
Autograph Letter Unsigned. Three pages, 8x12½, separate sheets. Guadalajara, Spain, September 8, 1970. To her friend Meta Stern, a script girl who had worked for director John Ford. In part: "Well - here we are in our house & working away in dust-wind-beating sun & smoke pots & rubber tires go a bed in creasote & burning logs - if my eyes & skin survive at all I'll be amazed - We have a genius on the sound a Greek & how he gets a track with this wind is beyond me - I like Cacoyannis - He has a good ear & eye - He really knows the stuff - It is terribly difficult - I almost gave up the first few days - Then finally got a little grip - It's hard because of the desperate wind & dust in eyes - & the difficulty of concentrating - but he seems satisfied. Genevieve Bujold has the same experience - She's shooting her scene now but lucky girl she's in a cave - a huge cave it's filthy & smells of goat - sheep & goat. Whether the material is suited to the screen I wouldn't know. We drive an hour to the cave - Our house is in the village right next to the main location Atienza…We have a bath & running water - & bought stove & ice box & got telephone - luck - the town has only 1 now the town has 4… Life is hard dry & hopeless - The town is say 1000 there are 7 churches - we are 4000 ft. up. Great air - silence - only sheep bells & roosters…Where we work - at the top was a walled town dating back to Roman times - then Medieval - the set uses the old walls & has a Heleobruns & the so called ruins of Troy…Murph keeps me posted on Coco - It seems odd to have it all going on without me - Be an angel & call George & be sure he has all address & telephone I've had no news from him- Ask him if he sent on 2 letters to Gar Kanin from me - one from US the day I left 14th Aug & 1 from London Aug 16th. My love to you both." This letter was written on location by the then-three time Academy Award winning actress (she was to win #4 in 1981). The film being made was The Trojan Women co-starring Genevieve Bujold, Vanessa Redgrave and Irene Papas. Michael Cacoyannis was the director, producer and screenwriter. The Trojan Women is a film of the ancient Greek tragedy by Euripedes. The original play is still considered to offer some the finest roles ever written for women. Coco was the musical about the life of fashion designer Coco Chanel. Hepburn created the title role and starred on Broadway in 1969. She also mentions "2 letters to Gar Kanin" that she had written. Garson Kanin wrote Adam's Rib (1949)andPat and Mike (1952)which co-starred Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. At the time of this letter, Kanin was working on Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir, which was published the following year. Stage, screen, and television actress Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) was nominated for 12 Academy Awards for Best Actress, winning four: Morning Glory (1934), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1969) and On Golden Pond (1982). She won an Emmy for Love Among the Ruins (1975). Altogether, she notched 12 Oscar, 5 Emmy and 2 Tony nominations. Like many film actors and actresses, she first broke into show business on the stage, making her first appearances on Broadway in 1928 with roles in Night Hostess and These Days. She returned to Broadway frequently throughout her career, sometimes to rehabilitate her public image. Her final role on Broadway was in the comedy The West Side Waltz (1982), which she starred in. In 1932, she made her first appearance in a film, starring in A Bill of Divorcement alongside John Barrymore. Over the decades, she played opposite most of her era's biggest stars, including Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Laurence Olivier, Henry Fonda, and Spencer Tracy, the latter of whom she made nine films with. Her intimate relationship with Tracy spanned 26 years (until his death in 1967) and is the most famous extramarital affair in the history of Hollywood. Tracy was married to Louise Tracy, but the two had been estranged for years. Later in life, Hepburn starred in several television movies, the last being One Christmas (1994). In 1991, she published an autobiography titled Me: Stories of My Life. To the present day, Hepburn remains a significant cultural icon due to her prolific career and disregard for the Hollywood social scene and its conventions at the time. After she divorced in 1934, she never married again, choosing to live independently for the rest of her life. Her career floundered at times, particularly in the years just before WWII broke out from 1934-1940. This can be partially attributed to her poor relationship with the press, whom she refused to deal with cordially in many cases. She was named the greatest female star in the history of Hollywood by the American Film Institute in 1999, although naturally some disagree with this assessment. Lightly creased, folds.  Otherwise, fine condition.