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Meeting Katharine Hepburn
www.worldnetdaily.com ^ | 07-11-03 | Stephen Bennett

Posted on 07/11/2003 9:15:17 AM PDT by Colofornian

After dropping out of art school in NYC in 1982 and now fully immersed in the "gay" lifestyle, I decided I was going to make it in the art world as a "famous" portrait painter. My goal was to be "Stephen Bennett: Celebrity Artist to the Stars." My dreams were to have my own art gallery on Rodeo Drive in California, Mercedes Benz and boyfriend extraordinaire. I figured my paintings would sell for $50,000.00 and up - mere pocket change for the celebrities.

In the late '80s, my dreams slowly began to happen. I began doing celebrity portrait work (hardly making a dime, though). Little by little, my name and work was getting around. Billy Idol, Boy George, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Randy Travis and comedian Dana Carvey were some of my earlier works. I soon began designing concert merchandise for country star Crystal Gayle in Nashville and also traveled nationally with her. Today, a 5-foot, three-dimensional portrait I painted of Crystal hangs enclosed in glass in her office at her store, "Crystal's," in Nashville.

Other celebrity works followed (most of whom I met personally): Cher, Michael Bolton, Bette Midler, Woody Allen, David Letterman. While in California, I even went out for drinks and nachos with Sally Struthers, "Gloria" from "All in the Family." It seemed my dreams and career were on the way up.

I soon became friends with "Everybody Loves Raymond" star Brad Garrett who plays "Robert." I designed his first concert T-shirt after he won Star Search in 1984.

The stories I could tell of my experiences with each of the celebrities could be a book in itself (especially "Ms. Ross!" Don't cross this lady's path - and yes, she is just as wicked as she is made out to be!). One experience though that I'll never forget is being personally invited by Katharine Hepburn to her home in 1991 in Old Saybrook, Conn.

I painted a portrait of Kate that was very lifelike. It was stunning and reflected her beauty as an 80-year-old woman. I was invited to her home on a Saturday for her to personally see it. As excited as I was, I quickly went to work and painted another portrait for her to keep as a gift – Spencer Tracy.

I arrived at her home in the "Bat Mobile," my black Pontiac Firebird. It was February and snow covered the Connecticut ground. A little old woman stood outside this huge mansion on the water wearing only a sweater, hunched over, eating a ham sandwich. It was Kate!

"Who are you?" she yelled at me, as to warn me off her property.

"I'm the painter," I said.

She then smiled, her head and hands shaking, and invited me into her home.

As I walked into her mansion, I was taken aback by the interior. It was far from what I imagined. It was not beautiful, nor ritzy, nor even incredible. Everything was just old - worn out. In fact (I hate to even use the word,) it looked dumpy! I was shocked. It even smelled musty.

As I was walking in the hallway, two men were walking out with a carpet to be cleaned. Kate told me she had a flood in her living room from Long Island Sound. The carpet was not even nice - it was old, beat up and torn - yet she was sending it out to be cleaned!

We sat in her basement living room, full glass windows showing off the waters of the Sound. She asked if I would like a drink and someone elderly brought me a glass of water. Then, being right to the point, she said, "So, let's see the painting."

I pulled it out of a garbage bag (yes, I should have used something a little nicer). I then handed it to her and I watched her as she held it, shaking, examining every inch and detail.

"So, what do you think?" I asked. Knowing Kate from the movies, I should have expected her response:

"It's fair," she said.

"Fair?" I questioned.

"I think you've made my eyes are a little too close, and I hope my teeth aren't that yellow!" she said.

Till this day I quietly laugh to myself, for her teeth were whiter in my portrait than in real life! She then looked over and saw the other bag I had with me and said, "What's in that?"

I opened up the bag and pulled out the special portrait I created for her ... one of Spencer Tracy. Tears welled in her eyes as she reached out to hold it. The portrait was fairly large, 18-by-24 inches, framed in a beautiful wooden frame. Her hands continued to shake as she just held it and said, "Spence. ..."

"That's a present for you," I said. "That's for you graciously welcoming me into your home. I'd like you to have it."

All was quiet for several seconds and she handed the painting back to me. "I can't keep it," she remarked.

I was confused. "Why?" I asked.

As a little child, she bared the pain in her heart. "Everyone I love or have loved ... is gone. Everyone. My parents, Spence, others. If you look around, I have no photographs of anyone. It's all too painful," she said.

Kate then proceeded to get two old black and white photos in old frames. They were of two little children on the beach.

Kate said, "This is my mother and this one is my father – as children. I obviously never knew them this way and these are the only photographs I keep of them. It doesn't hurt."

I guess I was not as understanding as I should have been at the time, understanding her emotional pain.

I pleaded, "Please, I spent a long time on this portrait. I really would like for you to have it." I felt deep down she wanted to keep it - just by her reaction when she saw it.

"Fine," she abruptly said. "I'll stick in the closet." She then took the portrait from me, and saw she made a new friend.

Katharine Hepburn then began to reminisce about her past, her mother, her father, Spencer Tracy and others. She shared with me how she also loved to paint and showed me some of her work. I'll never forget the self portrait she did of herself laying in bed in Austria with curlers in her hair, looking in a mirror. I honestly have to say, Kate's artwork was "fair," but at least she tried!

Our visit over 12 years ago lasted for about a half an hour, and it is one I'll honestly never forget. Kate cordially invited me to come back again sometime and visit with her. Unfortunately, that next visit never transpired. Today, now that I am a Christian – I desperately wish that next visit did take place – for it would have been with a total different purpose - a selfless one.

Katharine Hepburn died at 96 years old in the home I visited in Old Saybrook on June 30. The memories of her that stick in my mind are not the ones of my personal visit with her on that cold wintry morning in 1991 – but painful memories of her views on God, the Bible and abortion.

Kate was no doubt a woman filled with anger – deep-seated anger. She was a proud feminist and a vocal atheist. She made no apologies for her adulterous affair with actor Spencer Tracy. God to her was nothing but a myth and a story, and heaven and hell were fabrications of men used to manipulate mankind. She wanted no part of Him – or His Word.

Phil Donahue interviewed Kate many years ago when he was the No. 1 talk show in America. Kate had no idea who Phil was – she never watched television. On camera, Donahue's pride was obviously hurt a bit from her lack of knowledge of him.

Phil asked Kate, "Do you believe in God? Do you believe in an after life?" (Strange and bizarre questions coming from Phil Donahue - a man who has proved himself time and time again an enemy of the Gospel of Christ.)

Kate angrily replied, "I don't appreciate you sir pushing your religious beliefs on me! No, I don't believe in a god and as far as when I die, I'm looking forward to a nice, long rest in the ground!"

One of Katharine Hepburn's favorite "charities" she financially supported until her death was Planned Parenthood. Her militant beliefs on a woman's right to murder the unborn were heartbreaking. In news organizations around the country, stories of Kate's passing also included her link to Planned Parenthood and her support for a woman's "right to choose."

Today, I do grieve the loss of Katharine Hepburn. Kate was a woman who had it all in this life - fame, fortune, power and friends. However, if she never accepted the sacrificial payment of Jesus Christ on the cross for her sins, I'm afraid in God's book – Katharine Hepburn lost at the game of life. She missed the boat on what life is all about.

I pray that I am wrong. I pray that someone reached Kate's stony heart with the truth before she died. However, if she defiantly rejected Jesus Christ until her death, I can biblically say with a breaking heart – I'm sure Kate knows today first-hand the answers to Phil Donahue's questions.

As an "Ambassador of Christ," I pray I will never let another opportunity pass me by to share God's Word – the Gospel of Jesus Christ – with another fellow human being. Eternity is a long, long time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Excerpted from Stephen Bennett's upcoming book, "...And Such Were Some of You," to be released in the Spring of 2004 - sharing his story leaving the homosexual lifestyle in 1992. Today, Stephen Bennett, a national Christian recording artist, is emerging as one of the nation's key speakers on homosexuality and the "gay" agenda. Stephen has appeared on CNN, The O'Reilly Factor, CBS and others. He frequently speaks on behalf of Concerned Women for America in Washington, D.C., and is the Special Issues Editor on homosexuality for the American Family Association.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: actress; atheist; hepburn; katharinehepburn; plannedparenthood; spencertracy; stephenbennett
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Kate angrily replied, "I don't appreciate you sir pushing your religious beliefs on me! No, I don't believe in a god and as far as when I die, I'm looking forward to a nice, long rest in the ground!"

So, Phil Donahue was "pushing" his religious beliefs on her, eh, just by asking her a question on this that he already knew the answer to? Yet, she wasn't pushing her beliefs on the rest of the viewing world, now, was she? Typical liberal one-way street.

If a liberal is at the listening end of faith matters, then the speaker is imposing his morality. If the liberal is at the speaking end of faith matters, then the speaker is merely exposing her immorality. The latter is OK in the liberal, atheistic world; but the former is an offensive "no-no." Where you draw the arbitrary line is up to the liberal, depending on how quickly they want you to shut up.

1 posted on 07/11/2003 9:15:17 AM PDT by Colofornian
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To: All
Any way I can talk you into making a donation?? Thanks if you will!
2 posted on 07/11/2003 9:17:47 AM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: Colofornian
I couldn't believe all the FReepers here who were calling her a "class act" and boo-hooing "we'll miss you, Kate" to this Commie-symp who carried on an affair with a married man for 25 years, humiliated his wife at his funeral, never heard of an abortion she didn't like, and who looked down on Christians and conservatives.

She was a filthy, nasty old whore.

3 posted on 07/11/2003 9:18:17 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Colofornian
I just read today that Hepburn stayed with Spencer Tracy despite the fact that he was an alcoholic and had once back-handed her across the face when she tried to help him to bed during one of his drunken stupors. So much for being the independent female praised by the media. She claimed she was afraid his alcoholism would be made public if she sought rehab help for him. Sounds like she stood by her man just like Hitlery.
4 posted on 07/11/2003 9:21:03 AM PDT by mass55th (i)
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To: wideawake
I wouldn't call her a whore, but I had no comment about her death. Hearing that she had no remorse for affairs with men who had young children was disgusting. We all have failings. Most of us, however, reflect on our lives and regret those things that might have hurt others. We hope both they and our Maker will forgive us.
5 posted on 07/11/2003 9:32:01 AM PDT by doug from upland (Bill - go away...Hillary - go away.....you have done enough damage to this great Republic)
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To: Colofornian
A little old woman stood outside this huge mansion on the water wearing only a sweater, hunched over, eating a ham sandwich. It was Kate!

Not appetizing. Put some pants on, old woman!

6 posted on 07/11/2003 9:34:29 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy
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To: wideawake
What did she do at Tracy's funeral?
7 posted on 07/11/2003 9:35:13 AM PDT by lady lawyer
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To: Colofornian
her beauty as an 80-year-old woman

She's looked like a hag to me for the last thirty years, but I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. She was attractive as a young actress. But what a left-wing loonie she was.

8 posted on 07/11/2003 9:37:00 AM PDT by razorbak
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To: lady lawyer
What did she do at Tracy's funeral?

She didn't go, she made a private visit to the funeral home and that was it. He died in their home and she did have his wife and children, one of whom was deaf, contacted as soon as he died and she did do her best to remove herself from it all and let them carry out the final farewell. But so what? She had lived in adultery with him for years, somehow she is to be praised for letting them bury the dead?

She was a great actress, for whatever that is worth. There are great ladies in this world whose name we'll not know in this life, those are whom I salute.

As another adulteress profoundly wrote of a faithful wife in her novel Middlemarch, "..Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature,...spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

9 posted on 07/11/2003 9:49:12 AM PDT by Maigret
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To: wideawake
Look. This is a pretty open forum. Please, don't hold back.

BWAHAHAHAHYA!

FMCDH

10 posted on 07/11/2003 9:58:57 AM PDT by nothingnew (the pendulum swings and the libs are in the pit)
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To: Colofornian
"Where you draw the arbitrary line is up to the liberal, depending on how quickly they want you to shut up."

Of course. That's why they are called liberals. They don't have to follow any formats or rules. They are "liberated" from such nonsense.

I used to get fliers in the mail from some pro-abortion outfit that had Hepburn's name on it. I generally sent scathing letters back to them, excoriating them for encouraging murder, etc, but the fliers kept coming.

I then told them that I agreed with them and that "womens' lib." was really mens' liberation because it absolved us of all responsibility of having sex and that I appreciated all the work that they were doing to free us men from having to pay for our actions.

I haven't heard from them since.

11 posted on 07/11/2003 10:00:36 AM PDT by nightdriver
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To: razorbak
She's looked like a hag to me for the last thirty years

She still had her statuesque features as an old woman. I thought she was remarkably attractive for her age, but her head was alway shaking.

12 posted on 07/11/2003 10:10:20 AM PDT by 7 x 77
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To: wideawake
Hepburn did NOT attend Tracy's funeral out of respect for his wife. You are dead wrong on that statement.
13 posted on 07/11/2003 10:12:02 AM PDT by smiley
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To: smiley; lady lawyer
I never said she attended his funeral. What she did do was allow all kinds of speculation: "will she show, won't she show?" so that his long-suffering wife was greeted at the funeral with reporters looking for her husband's mistress.

All Hepburn needed to do was make a preannounced public appearance elsewhere that day to get the press jackals off of Louise's back.

Now everyone romanticizes it as "oh, she stayed away out of respect!"

14 posted on 07/11/2003 10:17:54 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Colofornian
Here's a couple for all you Bible Thumpers:

Matt.7
[1] "Judge not, that you be not judged.

Luke.6
[37] "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;
15 posted on 07/11/2003 10:18:19 AM PDT by RonHolzwarth
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To: Colofornian
One of Katharine Hepburn's favorite "charities" she financially supported until her death was Planned Parenthood. Her militant beliefs on a woman's right to murder the unborn were heartbreaking.

No doubt the "recipients" of that fave charity--the young-ones (English for the Latin, "fetuses") were her personal greeters upon her death. We can't bring those who were deliberately delivered dead back down here; but we can go to them: "On the seventh day the child died...'Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me'" (David, father of the baby, 2 Samuel 12:18, 23)

16 posted on 07/11/2003 10:23:33 AM PDT by Colofornian
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To: RonHolzwarth
"Here's a couple for all you Bible Thumpers"

To call them "Bible Thumpers" is to demean the Good Book.
Call them what they really have shown themselves to be, "ghoulish pigs"
17 posted on 07/11/2003 10:25:46 AM PDT by John Beresford Tipton
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To: wideawake
I'm more interested in the author who has escaped the gay life. That's great, but it's ashamed his message is going to turn so many off because he immediately launches into his legalistic belief about accepting the Christ as his savior. On the other hand, this approach did work on him.
18 posted on 07/11/2003 10:29:01 AM PDT by 7 x 77
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To: Maigret
As another adulteress profoundly wrote of a faithful wife in her novel Middlemarch

I'm willing to look uneducated, who penned your wonderful quotation.

19 posted on 07/11/2003 10:32:13 AM PDT by 7 x 77
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To: RonHolzwarth
Here's a couple for all you Bible Thumpers Matt.7 [1] "Judge not, that you be not judged.Luke.6 [37] "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven

Translation: Don't thump others, lest ye be thumped by me.

And now that Ron has "thumped" (judged) those he's labeled as judgmental, we can settle down into what I call the Palestinian thump for thump show.

You see, those RonH is accusing of judging others can turn around to Ron and rightfully claim, "How dare you judge me as being judgmental toward others!" In fact, they can now rightfully cite the same verses back to Ron.

Ron, thereby knowing the Palestinian 2-step well, shoots back a note saying: "How dare you accuse me of judging others! I'm the one standing up on ye highest mountain, accusing you of judging others. Just because I judge you as being judgmental toward others, you can't turn around and accuse one who is taking 'the higher road' of doing the same thing."

Now this becomes a real problem for liberals; they can't stand absolutes, but they have to quote them to keep the "Bible thumpers" in check when they "uppity" and start "intolerantly judging" others. But by responding, they show their hand that they are not as tolerant as they want folks to think they are...and once you label another as judgmental, yes, you, too, have joined the panel of judges!

Boy, it's tough to be a liberal these days. So many catch-22s to watch out for!

20 posted on 07/11/2003 10:34:07 AM PDT by Colofornian
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