More about Katharine Hepburn

[selenak]

In a life full of great movies, this one will always be my favourite. Go and have a look at the website devoted to "The Lion in Winter", a film about that fascinating couple, Henry II (Peter O'Toole) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (K.H.), and their extremely dysfunctional and extremely interesting family. (Making their big screen debut: Anthony Hopkins as Richard the Lionheart and Timothy Dalton as Philipp II of France.) This was the movie which made me interested in Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right (which at the time meant she owned the best part of France), first married to Louis VII of France (he was devout, timid and nice; she was none of the three), then, after she got the marriage annuled, to the future Henry II of England (this was a gamble on her part, btw, as far as the power aspect was concerend; at the time it was by no means certain Henry would make it to the throne, then occupied by Cousin Stephen - who had stolen it from Henry's mother - and who had a living, briefing son). Henry and Eleanor build an empire together and tore each other apart, but despite 15 years in genteel imprisonment after her revolt against him failed, she outlived him, and at age 70 was travelling across Europe on political journeys, as sharp and alive as ever. She'll always be Katherine Hepburn to me.

Incidentally, there will be a remake with Patrick Stewart as Henry and Glenn Close as Eleanor. Which I'm looking forward to, but these two gifted actors really took a big challenge to compete with.


Here we have another obituary, the most extensive one; two shorter ones are here and here.

Katharine Hepburn's relationship to Spencer Tracy - that rare thing, a love affair between two Hollywood stars which never got any voyeuristic media attention while it lasted - is analysed in this article.

Comments

Historical fiction about Eleanor

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I think Sharon Penman's novels are my favourites. Yours?

Re: Historical fiction about Eleanor

[saava.livejournal.com]

I swore I replied to this last night... perhaps I accidentally replied to another comment and that person is now very confused.

Anyway. I really like what I've read of Penman's series. (At this point, it's only been When Christ and His Saints Slept, though I do own Time and Chance) I also particularly liked a series of romance novels about the Robin Hood myths that included Eleanor. Good stuff.

I'm currently in the middle of Alison Weir's biography Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Live, but reading's been slow going on that one since my interest has been funneled in the "young adult fantasty" direction.

Re: Historical fiction about Eleanor

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Penman also included Eleanor as a prominent character in "Here Be Dragons" (about John, his illegitimate daughter Joanna and Llewelyn Fawr mainly); this was actually the first time she wrote about her. And in her literary light(er) weight historical detective novels, starting with "The Queen's Man", Eleanor is an important character as well. Re: Alison Weir - haven't read her biography yet, but that's mainly because I'm a Ricardian and hence slightly in combat mood with this author. .