Frenemy Mine: Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers in Stage Door

SteynonLine ^ | April 6, 2024 | Rick McGinnis

[Twotone]

The marvel of Katharine Hepburn's enduring stardom is how secure it is now, two decades after her death and three after her last film performance – especially compared to her early years in Hollywood, when audiences were having a hard time figuring out if they liked her at all.

From her first role in George Cukor's A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Hepburn's appeal with the moviegoing public had a one step forward, two steps back momentum. She'd go from a hit like Alice Adams (1935) to a string of flops like Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Mary of Scotland (1936) and Quality Street (1937).

It was at this point that she took a role in Stage Door, the 1937 comic drama where director Gregory La Cava laid out how it was possible for democratic America to sympathize with the blue-blood Hepburn and her essentially privileged characters. Her Terry Randall, the slumming debutante trying to get a break on the Broadway stage, needed to go over big before it was possible for her to secure her status with roles in Bringing Up Baby and Holiday (both 1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940) and Woman of the Year (1942), and beyond that to Adam's Rib (1949), The African Queen (1951), Pat and Mike (1952) and Desk Set (1957), by which point the Hepburn persona had become beloved and not just tolerated.

The film begins at the Footlights Club, a theatrical boarding house for women on the fringe of Manhattan's theatre district, where the simmering background hum of wise cracks and cattiness is suddenly broken by a fight between Linda (Gail Patrick) and Jean (Ginger Rogers) over a pair of stockings.

[Nateman]

An example of one of the current stars we are supposed to be impressed by.

[texas booster]

Yep, that is Lucille Ball before she became famous on TV. Lots of past and future stars in this one.

[skr]

Always fun to watch these actresses work together. I had no idea that a lot of improvisation was involved.