Kate Remembered (42 page)

Katharine Hepburn's phone still rang, and scripts continued to appear at her door. A producer I had never met called me one afternoon to ask if I might use my influence in getting her to consider playing the role of Aunt March in a remake of
Little Women
—a film that would feature Winona Ryder in Hepburn's former role of Jo. I said it seemed dubious because I thought she had no intention of becoming a character actress—even as she approached ninety. (“Please tell them,” Kate said, “I would never even think of competing with Edna May Oliver”—who had played Aunt March in 1932.) Instead, Hepburn trekked to Canada to star in one or two more forgettable television movies, her powers of concentration diminishing as the tremors in her head and hands increased. She continued to talk of future projects, decrying the quality of what was being written for older actors.

With each of my visits east, there came a moment of shock upon seeing her. Norah would usually try to prepare me for the changes I would find upon climbing the stairs to the living room. But Kate's hair, still pulled back and piled high, looked whiter and wispier, her eyes grayer, and her body heavier, the result of her inability to exercise. Conversation became more difficult, what with her having less to report and her increasing difficulty remembering things. She seemed to be working hard to maintain her carriage, thrusting her jaw forward. “So noble,” I could hear Irene Selznick saying in her succinct way, “—heartbreaking.” Whenever I stood next to Kate, I was taken aback, seeing that she was several inches shorter than when I had met her. Her energy waned; she suffered from dizziness; she often seemed depressed.

The next year I found her in the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, checked in under Phyllis Wilbourn's name. Norah had suggested to me that nobody really knew what the problem was, but that she was receiving a few visitors. Upon entering the large room, I heard a doctor addressing her in a peculiarly hostile tone, while a grim nurse looked on. “Nobody's allowed in here,” the doctor said as I entered. “He is,” Kate corrected, as I went over to the chair in which she was sitting, wearing her familiar pajamas and ratty red robe. “He's my friend.”

“What's going on?” I asked, hoping to clear some of the obviously unpleasant air.

“They say I'm a drunk,” Kate whimpered, a tone I had never heard her emit.

“Now, nobody said that,” the doctor quickly asserted.

“Yes, you did,” Kate said. “You called me an alcoholic and said that I can't drink again.” With that, she turned to me, her eyes watering. “You've known me a long time, Scott Berg,” she said. “Do you think I'm a drunk?” I said she was not a drunk, and I asked the doctor and nurse if they might leave us alone for a moment. Then I went over to give Kate a hug, and she put her arm around my waist, pressed her head into my stomach, and cried. “I don't know why I'm here,” she said.

She wasn't disoriented. In fact, she seemed sounder of mind than she had been in my last few visits. It was more that she didn't know what was wrong with her, and nobody else seemed to know either. She just felt bad. I knew she was on a number of prescription drugs, and I couldn't help thinking they were all somehow interacting, contributing to her general funk. “Look, Kate,” I said, “there's no doubt in my mind—you don't have a drinking problem . . . but as long as you're taking all these pills, it seems to me you've got to stop drinking any alcohol. I mean, that's what killed your friend Judy Garland . . . and Marilyn. That's just common sense.” And common sense was still enough to trump any argument with Hepburn.

She was soon home, with some changes in her various drugs; and Kate entered that phase in old age of “good days and bad days.” Sometimes, good hours and bad hours. More often than not, Norah answered the telephone, usually in a state of agitation over some minor emergency with Miss Hepburn.

While never far from Kate's thoughts, Phyllis Wilbourn gradually withdrew from the scene, as she required increasing amounts of bedrest and care from her team of attendants. During a visit to Fenwick in early 1995, I saw her sitting in a chair, staring out at the Sound, crying. I walked over to comfort her and asked what was wrong. “I'm just very worried,” she said. “Nothing will ever be the same.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. “What are you worried about?”

“The abdication,” she said. “That changes everything. And he was our most handsome king.”

“Look on the bright side,” I said consolingly. “He evidently wasn't very happy; and now he gets to spend the rest of his life with the woman he loves.” That cheered Phyllis up a little. As I held her hand, I added, “I'm sure he and Mrs. Simpson will have a long, happy life together.”

“Do you really think so?” Phyllis asked.

“I know so,” I said with enough authority to put her worries to rest.

Another weekend, I flew to Connecticut to attend the wedding of Dick Hepburn's son Mundy (an artist who worked with glass) and Joan Levy (an artist who worked on canvas). The bride was dressed as a Druid princess, and Kate was in relatively fine form. She was a little unsure on her feet but, with the support of a cane, completely ambulatory. She looked tired but was attentive, as she selected a comfortable chair from which to watch the ceremony. At one point, she noticed a man across the room snapping photographs of her and asked me to stand directly in front of her, with my back to the camera, so that I would obstruct his view. Driving back to Fenwick, I asked what had been the purpose of the bride's costume. “To prove she's insane enough to marry into this family,” she replied.

In April 1995 Joan Levy called to tell me that Phyllis had died in New York City. I called Kate not only to offer my condolences but to find out how she was taking the loss. “What did she die of?” I asked.

“What's the difference?” Kate said. “She stopped breathing, and she's dead. And that's that.”

Kate maintained her brave front until May eleventh. On what would have been Phyllis's ninety-second birthday, a few Hepburns and some intimate friends celebrated her long life of loving companionship by burying her ashes in a cemetery in West Hartford, alongside other Hepburns. During the brief ceremony at the grave—as rain came down—Kate suddenly dropped to her knees and sobbed. I never heard her raise Phyllis's name again.

In late winter of 1996, Hepburn was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital with pneumonia. Reports on the radio and television were fatalistic. My phone calls to the house and to her brother Dr. Bob were more encouraging. Within a few days, in fact, Kate had asked for an ambulance to take her from the hospital to Fenwick, where oxygen tanks, a hospital bed, and round-the-clock nurses were waiting. Meantime,
The National Enquirer
splattered a ghoulish picture of her across its cover, quoting her as saying, “Don't be sad—I'm going to join Spencer. . . .”

Hepburn pulled through, as she would after a few other small bouts that year. But each attack compromised her vitality; and each siege brought out an army of tabloid reporters, who camped at the end of the Hepburn driveway—on “deathwatch.” The crafty ones got hold of the telephone number inside the house and tried to wrest any information from whoever answered the phone.

My visits became increasingly quiet, as Kate's ability to converse continued to diminish. She seemed to understand what was being said, but she seemed to lack the strength to respond. Direct questions seldom elicited more than a few words, which sometimes seemed to be in response to something that had been asked earlier . . . or unasked at all. Unless there was a third person present, these encounters became difficult, for they basically demanded that the guest engage in a monologue. During one of my trips that year, I found Tony Harvey. We sat on either side of Kate all afternoon and chatted, which she followed as though observing a tennis match. After a while, however, Tony and I noticed that her attention had shifted to a box of Edelweiss chocolate I had brought from California. One by one, she took every piece of chocolate out of the box, and then, one by one, put every piece back. Tony and I kept talking, though he raised an eyebrow and looked heavenward.

In 1997, Joan Levy called me in Los Angeles to say that Kate had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and that she was sinking fast. Again I called Kate's brother Bob, who said that this, in fact, looked like the end and that there seemed little for anybody to do. Kate had become very weak, wasn't eating, and her “systems were shutting down.” I said I could catch a plane out later that day to come say goodbye, but Bob advised against it. “At this point, I'm not sure you'll make it in time,” he said. “And even if you do, I'm not sure what you'll find.”

I found Kate the next morning, in her bedroom—sitting in a chair, in a fresh pair of pajamas, a shawl around her shoulders—looking old but fine. “Do you know who I am?” I asked, as I entered the room, sunshine pouring through every window. “No,” she said, the light in her eyes. As I stepped out of the shadow of the entry and closer to where she sat, she looked up and into my face, and a big tear rolled down her left cheek. One of the nurses leaned toward me and whispered, “When she heard you were coming today, she asked me to put some lipstick on her.”

“What's all this business about you dying?” I asked.

“I'm not,” she said, in what was clearly an effort. Then she looked a little ashamed that she was evidently incapacitated, a state belied by the animation in her eyes.

I spent the day in Fenwick, mostly in the company of the household staff, the nurses, and, later, Cynthia McFadden, who had been visiting regularly. After our morning meeting, Kate napped. Like the doctors, everyone was puzzled by Hepburn's condition—what ailed her and how she kept springing back. They worried because she had not eaten much in days.

When she awoke, Cynthia and the others, knowing that I had to return to Los Angeles, suggested that I go upstairs and spend some time alone with her. The general consensus in the house was that she had pulled through this bout, but the end was surely close. Again, I found her sitting upright in her chair, with a tray of untouched food.

I sat by her side and asked if she wanted to eat. Like a child, she turned her head away and said nothing. I told her that I was so happy to see her but that I hated to find her this way. She sat stock-still and seemed to look through me. Winding into what I thought might very well be my last goodbye, I told her how much her friendship had meant to me over the years but how I hoped it would continue. She still looked away, now into the blazing fire. “Look, Kate,” I said leaning in very close to her and talking in a low voice, “you and I have talked about death a lot . . . and I know you've always been interested in the Hemlock Society and all those books on how to kill yourself. And maybe that's where you are now. And if there's anything I can do to help you . . . well, actually, if you're ready to go now, the best thing you can do is just keep up what you're doing. Don't eat. Starve yourself. Just don't eat.”

Suddenly her head snapped in my direction, and her eyes burned into mine. With her right hand she grabbed mine and put it on her left forearm. “I'm not weak,” she said, shaking her flexed arm for me to feel. It was unbelievably firm. “I'm not dying,” she said. “I'm strong.”

“Well,” I said, “you really do feel strong. But you don't seem to be able to pick up a fork. And people are worried that you're not eating, even when they try to feed you. And you can't stay strong unless you eat. And I'm saying if you're not eating because you're ready to go, well then, don't eat—”

Without having to search for words, she continued to look me in the eyes . . . and then, without making any other move, she simply opened her mouth. For the next few minutes, I fed her soup, macaroni and cheese, and coffee ice cream, which had melted, until she emptied the plate and two bowls. As she ate, I talked about how she had to start building herself up. I discussed yoga with her, and told her how Alice Roosevelt Longworth practiced postures and stood on her head into her nineties. “Can't,” she said. I explained that anybody could, that there was always a movement of some part of the body, to say nothing of the breathing, that one could practice. I demonstrated a few basic exercises.

By the time she had finished eating, I realized I had to leave, in order to catch my plane home. I hugged her goodbye, and she held her cheek pressed against mine, then looked into my eyes until hers began to tear again. I said I would try to get back soon, but it might not be for a few months. As I started for the door, she spoke the longest sentence I had heard from her that day. “Are you still loved?” she asked.

I assured her that I was, that my longtime relationship had never been more fulfilling. “Good,” she said, then added, “I've been loved too.” I knew she was speaking of Spencer Tracy, but I couldn't resist adding, “By more people than you know.”

Downstairs, everyone was anxious to know how I had found her. “She's not going anywhere,” I said. “We're all going to die. I mean, none of us knows how long we're going to stick around. But I know this, she's not going anywhere, at least for a while.”

“What did she say?” Cynthia asked. Realizing the conversation might have been personal, she stopped herself from pressing and said it was all right if I didn't want to share what had gone on. I reported the headlines, that she had eaten her entire lunch . . . and that until then, I had thought she wanted to die. But now, I reiterated, “She's not going anywhere.”

 

 

During the next year, I completed, published, and promoted my biography of Lindbergh—a book that I probably wouldn't have been able to write had Kate not written to Anne Morrow Lindbergh on my behalf a decade earlier. My visits to Fenwick dwindled in number, but we communicated through family members and staff. The reports were always gloomier than what I would find in reality. Her mind wandered; but it seemed to me that she was just going on short voyages in her memory, maybe her imagination. More unusual, I thought, was what happened to her face.