Show Biz Image: Hepburn, Rogers, Kelly
A fair lady's image depends, as Bernard Shaw told us, not on how she acts, but how she is treated. The same is also true of cities.
When Broadway and Hollywood paint your image, it takes a lot of inner strength to resist believing -- just a little-- your press releases. Toward the end of the great Depression, around 1938, show business turned full and nasty attention to Philadelphia high society. Earlier, while Christopher Morley was at Haverford College, Katharine Hepburn at Bryn Mawr College, and Grace Kelly at school on Schoolhouse Lane, Hollywood had picked up just enough authentic detail to be dangerous.
In 1938, Hepburn was a smash hit on Broadway with Philip Barry's Philadelphia Story, which essentially tells of the devastating turmoil of a Main Line princess, facing a three-way decision between a worthless blue-blood, a self-made dullard, and a poor but noble New York magazine writer. (Just guess who wins the girl, according to show biz.) In real life, of course, Katharine chose to spend four years with Howard Hughes the dare-devil Texan with a hundred starlets in his bedroom. Most of her competitors wanted a movie contract and/or a diamond bracelet, but Katy wanted the movie rights for the Philadelphia Story, which he readily bought for her. Although other actresses played the role, she made herself the model, thereby forcing the Main Line image toward her own. The image did not include much mention of Howard Hughes or Spencer Tracy.
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Meanwhile, Ginger Rogers, who was also engaged to Howard Hughes at one point, was making a great name for herself as the star of Christopher Morley's Kitty Foyle. Morley's Haverford experience taught him somewhat more respect for the Philadelphia Gentleman, while his experience at the Curtis Publishing Company had made him appreciate the smart and plain spoken Philadelphia girls from working class districts. Highborn Philadelphia women are only sketchily depicted by Morley, except they somehow failed to appeal to the manly cricket-player from the Main Line.
As matters turned out, Katy lost to Kitty. Although Hepburn was surely the more talented actress, eventually winning five Academy Awards, Ginger Rogers walked away with the 1940 Oscar for her particular interpretation of a working class Philadelphia lady. Either way it turned out, of course, Howard Hughes was bound to be a happy fellow.
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And yes, in 1956 Grace Kelly was the star of High Society, a renamed version of the Philadelphia Story which, remember, Katherine Hepburn still owned. It was a mediocre performance, just a little short of embarrassing. But however inexact these three portrayals may have been, there is little doubt that Philadelphia society moved a bit in their direction, involuntarily living up to the image created by three observers who retained hostility from their own personal rejections.
For an interesting tidbit on Grace Kelly's father, visit Seven Tours Through Historic Philadelphia
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