I've read many books about Katharine Hepburn and this is one of the best. She is a very interesting woman. So, besides that, the thing that makes this book good is that the author actually new Katharine Hepburn and spent a fair amount of time with her.

The book covers their relationship between 1968 (when they met) and 1992. Mr. Prideaux wrote some screenplays especially for Great Kate. The book tells about their working relationship and their friendship of sorts.

Mr. Prideaux also writes about his meetings and work with other stars such as: Elizabeth Taylor, Dame Wendy Hiller, Judith Anderson, Patrick Duffy, Julie Harris, Jean Stapleton, Ryan O'Neal and Burt Reynolds.

Oh, how fascinating the 'STAR' quality is. It is amazing how some 'stars' feel superior enough to walk all over people and others are as nice as can be, no matter how famous they are. They are just people after all... no better and no worse than the rest of the world.

A most excellent and intrigueing book.

If you'd like to see the human side of the great Katharine Hepburn, then you've come to the right place. This book is informative, entertaining, a breeze to read, and above all, where Kate is concerned, honest. This is definitive Hepburn.

Very few books on Hepburn have been written by people who even met her, let alone those who knew her personally. James Prideaux has been a close friend for many years. In his book you'll find a portrait of Hepburn that has not yet emerged: human, warm, eccentric AND egocentric certainly, but always, always, ALWAYS fascinating. You'll find here the star, but also the woman-complete with warts. If you want to find a Hepburn not available elsewhere, don't miss this one!

What I most appreciate about this particular volume as a reference book on the film career of Katharine Hepburn is that it is richly illustrated with both professional and candid photographs, provides a complete list of the cast and crew for each of her films, and extensive excerpts from contemporary reviews. "The Films of Katharine Hepburn" is a wonderful companion volume to my almost complete tape collection of Katharine Hepburn films (Hey! I even tracked down "The Iron Petticoat"!).

The introductory "Rebellious Lady: A Biographical Capsule" is only two-dozen pages long but it covers Hepburn's professional career in a complete but concise manner. The photographs included in the essay are the best collection of Hepburn shots you are likely to find, including: a rare shot of Hepburn with her husband, FDR and her gibbon monkey Amos. There is also a watercolor of Hepburn by Ginger Rogers, a bust by Robert McKnight, Alexander Brooks famous 1938 painting, and even Hepburn's first appearance with Spencer Tracy...in the 1938 Mickey Mouse cartoon "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" (he is one of the three men in a tub along with Charles Laughton and Freddie Bartholomew and she is Little Bo Peep, who has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them... "rheally I don't.")

The main portion of the volume is just what the title says, Hepburn's films. For each film Dickens provides the cast, credits, a synopsis, commentary from the "Critic's Circle," and notes on the film, along with at least a half-dozen photographs. The synopsis tend to run towards the short side, but that just underscores that this is a supplementary text and is not intended to substitute for the films. The excerpts from the reviews, which focus specifically on Hepburn for the most part, are the most fascinating part of the volume. In keeping with this you find that even in his own notes Dickens tends to use the words of others--Hepburn, her co-stars, her director--to provide insights into the film and her performance.

Dickens' book ends with a stage chronicle of Hepburn's career, a gallery of Hepburn in each of her film roles, and a list of not only Hepburn's Oscar nominations but her competition for Best Actress each year as well. This format serves Dickens well, not only in this volume but in the other ones he has produced.

What I most appreciate about this volume as a reference book on Katharine Hepburn is that it is richly illustrated with both professional and candid photographs, provides a complete list of the cast and crew for each of her films, and extensive excerpts from contemporary reviews. "The Films of Katharine Hepburn" is a wonderful companion volume to my almost complete tape collection of Katharine Hepburn films.

The introductory "Rebellious Lady: A Biographical Capsule" is only two-dozen pages long but it covers Hepburn's professional career in a complete but concise manner. The photographs included in the essay are the best collection of Hepburn shots you are likely to find, including: a rare shot of Hepburn with her husband, FDR and her gibbon monkey Amos. There is also a watercolor of Hepburn by Ginger Rogers, a bust by Robert McKnight, Alexander Brooks famous 1938 painting, and even Hepburn's first appearance with Spencer Tracy...in the 1938 Mickey Mouse cartoon "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" (he is one of the three mem in a tub along with Charles Laughton and Freddie Bartholomew and she is Little Bo Peep, who has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them... "rheally I don't.")

The meat of the volume is just what the title says, Hepburn's films. For each film Dickens provides the cast, credits, a synopsis, commentary from the "Critic's Circle," and notes on the film, along with at least a half-dozen photographs. The synopsis tend to run towards the short side, but that just underscores that this is a supplementary text and is not intended to substitute for the films. The excerpts from the reviews, which focus specifically on Hepburn for the most part, are the most fascinating part of the volume. In keeping with this you find that even in his own notes Dickens tends to use the words of others--Hepburn, her co-stars, her director--to provide insights into the film and her performance.

Dickens' book ends with a stage chronicle of Hepburn's career, a gallery of Hepburn in each of her film roles, and a list of not only Hepburn's Oscar nominations but her competition for Best Actress each year as well. This format serves Dickens well, not only in this volume but in the other ones he has produced.

This is a superb critical evaluation of all of Hepburn's film roles until 1984. It is the only book about Hepburn that did not disappoint me. Hepburn biographies and studies have often tended to "normalize" Hepburn (eg. Kate - Charles Higham) or rationalize some contradictory aspects of her personality (eg. A Remarkable Woman - Anne Edwards) based on *conclusions drawn from* material that is in media circulation. Andrew Britton, in refreshing contrast, meticulously examines the implied beliefs and thought processes *behind* such material. Hepburn, through Britton's book, emerges in an arena all her own, resisting all attempts at conventional compartmentalization.

I absolutely agree with his views on many movies, say, "Woman of the Year", where Hepburn's presence in the title role suggests an independence and authority which the film's contrived, though expertly acted, ending, tries (unsuccessfully) to suppress. His views on the "violence of the performance" in "Summertime", which makes "the film's project untenable", are also very apt.

Apart from a thorough examination of Hepburn's roles with Tracy, Grant and others, this book makes pointed comparisons between the spinster roles of Bette Davis and Hepburn. It also has a very original discussion on The Philadelphia Story (Hepburn), Ninotchka (Greta Garbo), and Destry Rides Again (Marlene Dietrich), which according to Britton, were attempts to humanize (and hence compromise) its three female stars, who had previously been labelled "box-office poison".

For fans of Hepburn, for serious followers of films, and for all those who are concerned about the hidden ideas that films (sometimes inadvertently) propagate into the filmgoer's mind, this is an objective, insightful book which should not be missed.

If you love Kate the way that I do, you will enjoy these wonderful photographs of her career. There were so many shots that I had never seen before. Her life as an actor was so incredible that seeing this time capsule of wonderful images helps you understand the woman. It is wonderfully narrated. I love this book and I think the true Kate fan will also.

Although the title suggests an assassination, it actually refers to Clarence Sinclair Bull, who was MGM's chief portrait and glamour photographer from the studio's inception in 1924 to his retirement in 1961. He began photographing Garbo with her last silent film The Kiss in 1929, and after that she wanted no one else to photograph her. Bull would take over 4,000 individual studies of Garbo, devoting 2 days in his gallery for each of her films. She would pose in the character she was playing, since she saw the stills as part of the film-making process. The stills from The Kiss are particularly striking, "suffused with an elegaic softness and allure" writes Terence Pepper in the text. Bull enclosed Garbo's face in a black shadowy background, and, in contrast to her previous demure studies where she averted her eyes, he had her look directly into the camera and communicate directly with the viewer, "preserving her inner mood". A beret photograph is so potent that the studio used it for the film poster, and it prefigures her think-of-nothing final close-up from her later Queen Christina. Bull also transposed a vignette study of Garbo's face onto a photograph of the Cairo Sphinx, to create "The Swedish Sphinx". When he timorously showed her the result, he was surprised that instead of being offended, she howled with laughter, and approved it's release. It may have become the most widely distributed of her images, but it remains camp at best. Bull would say that she had no bad side and no bad angle, which made her the easiest of all the stars to photograph. Plus he thought she enjoyed their sessions, never tiring of posing for him. The images confirm MGM's agenda of creating flawless beauty, held up before the admiring throng as "nothing less than the Hope diamond in the flesh". Garbo's skin has a statue-esque perfection, her hair lit to be look soft and pliable. She never smiles but emotion is still evident. The one study in colour is for Two Faced Woman, which is less flattering than the black and white stills. Her hair has been pulled back slightly with a hidden ribbon, exposing her large forehead, and the hardness of her later Cecil Beaton studies emerges, her mouth almost in a sneer of disdain. Perhaps she knew making the film would be a mistake and an end to her film career. We also have a study of Chris, Garbo's stand-in, who apparently was even more mysterious than the one she doubled for. After Garbo retired, perhaps it is only the studies of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn that can match the iconoclastic grandness of Bull's work with Garbo, which proves that no matter how talented the photographer, the subject is everything. This kind of portraiture would decline with the collapse of the studios, and when you see the later studies of less arresting faces, perhaps this was for the best. Garbo flourished in a period where the ideals of beauty she radiated were desperately needed, but she always a reluctant star. When the world became indifferent, so did she.

Garson does a great job showing off Tracy and Hepburn in this delightful book. You get to take a look inside Kate's life from a good friend of hers. Garson passed away in March of this year and he left many wonderful things behind. This book just being one. He also wrote several of the screenplays that Tracy and Hepburn stared in. This book is a must for all.

Katharine Hepburn has always intrigued me and the review of this book in PEOPLE magazine made me check it out. This book is a great tribute to a fascinating actress.

This is the best Katharine Hepburn book that I have ever read. It is the only Katharine Hepburn book that I have ever read. But it was still the best one.

The title leaves no question as to what this book is about. "The Making of the African Queen: Or How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind"--that really sets the tone of this book, wherein Hepburn gives an account of the making of a Hollywood movie, and tells of her experience in Africa (where most of the movie was filmed). This, her first book, is a very relaxed, informal affair, more like a friendly conversation really, as if you had met Hepburn and told her you were interested in Africa, and she started, "Oh I was in Africa once..." It's Hollywood in Africa, 1951. Some of what she writes is now a kind of history: where else might you learn that airplanes once had sleeping-berths like Pullman railway cars. Of course, mostly there is movie-making: working with director John Huston, and co-stars Humphrey Bogart and Robert Morley; how the cast and crew managed their equipment and wardrobes on location; the boat itself and the Ruiki river; living conditions in the temporary camp (including some very practical advice concerning improvised toilet facilities), colonial-era hotels and travel, and so on. The hardcover edition is illustrated with dozens of photographs. An interesting and charming book for anyone with an interest in Africa, classic Hollywood movies, or Hepburn, Huston, or Bogart.

Peter Viertel, who worked with Huston on "The African Queen" also wrote a book about the experience titled "White Hunter, Black Heart" which Clint Eastwood made into a movie.

This is one those books that is really autobiographic - it seems no one has altered or interfered with anything. If you have seen many movies with Katharine Hepburn, you can actually hear her tell the tale of how she survived the African jungle and actually loved it.

She is the first one to say that she is a bit of a pain in the neck, bossy and interfering. And always worried about the details. And she freely admits that when there is no bathroom, she's gotta go.

She lively discribes how the cities look, how it feels to be in the jungle. Explaining that taking a shower there is like angels touching your body. And that there is nothing worse than having to go to the bathroom (in somewhat of a rush...) and finding a black mamba snake there. She was so shocked she had to throw up. And the throwing up keeps up until after they come back in England.

What struck me as most odd was that she doesn't hold back. She told off Huston often, refused to help Lauren Bacall with the food, carried the mirror around and often thought what the hell she was doing there. But it was fascinating. Reading about it is fascinating, you want to go there yourself and look what it is like in real-life (instead I watched The African Queen for the 164th time).

The photographs in the book are really worth looking at - they give you a feeling of actually being there. Seeing Kate washing her hair with her 'house-boy' standing by, the costumes close-up, the little comments next to the pictures, one of 'Bogie Allnut' - Bogie laughing out loud wearing his costume and of 'Rosie Hepburn' - Kate sitting on the railing, wearing slacks, holding Rosie's English umbrella...

It really shows that Katharine Hepburn had many talents - she is certainly able to write an extraordinary tale of adventure, making movies, making fast friends, overcoming problems (the sinking of The African Queen, giant antz, losing twenty pounds by drinking water, almost being killed by a wild boar) and loving it all.

Perhaps it's the English major in me, but I'm always on the lookout for typos or mistakes in the books I read. When I find one or two, I usually dismiss them, but when they appear with great consistency I begin to wonder how much faith the book company or editor had in whatever work I'm reading. Such is the case with Shut Up and Smile, a supposed journalistic account of the behind the scenes world of supermodels, a book as riddled with problems as it is rife with typos and formatting problems.

First of all, the subject is very interesting, and Halperin does discuss some truly frightening aspects of the trade, a definite wake up call to those considering entering the business. But a lot of what he writes is inconsistent or seemingly random - a chapter on the 'bad' years of the mega-supermodels merely catalogs some well known incidents without delving any further. And while he reiterates constantly about certain problems, he again just touches them on the surface, providing only a few examples to back up, for example, his claims that many, many models are murdered each year. One of the strangest chapters is one about Stella McCartney, and whether she is famous for her own talent or by virtue of being Paul's daughter. Not uninteresting, mind you, but what on earth does it have to do with the dark side of supermodels? And for that matter, if the author went undercover to 'discover' the true world of modeling, how come he uses mostly anecdotal and not personal references?

The only reason I gave this book three stars is because the topic is interesting - its presentation may be below par, but that doesn't change the importance or relevance of the subject. It's fascinating to learn about rampant criminal activity behind the scenes, drug use, virtual prostitution and so forth, and for that the book is worth reading. I suppose I just wish that he'd dug deeper, provided more insight or evidence or details, repeated less and proven his startling, and significant, claims. As an overview, it's a good introduction, but it only skims the surface. Its structural, language and editorial problems unfortunately undermine it's power yet it remains a fairly intriguing read.

This book is a must read for all models, agents and designers. I couldn't put it down. I've read other books about the modeling industry but Shut Up And Smile is the most riveting. My 15 year old daughter was considering to model for extra money but I think I'll keep her in school, far away from the sleazy modeling business.

If I could give 10 stars, I would. This book exposes the seedy underbelly of the fashion business. I learned so much by reading this book. I never realized how much dirt covers this corrupt business. I recommend anyone interested in modeling or fashion to go out and pick up a copy. It's essential to read this book to understand what really goes on behind the scenes. Models being drugged and raped repeatedly by men more than 30 years their senior. This made me want to vomit. Perhaps we can all learn a lesson by reading this book, no matter what industry we work in. It's vital to treat people equally and with respect. I highly commend the author for his courage to go undercover and expose this rather seedy business. I encourage any young kid who has aspirations of entering the modeling business to read this book first.

Yea so she wanders back and forth and speaks in her own way. The way an autobiograpy should be wrote. I found the book to be WONDERFUL. One of the best books I have ever read. Katharine Hepburn in her own words!!! She is the most amazing person I know and the best actress there has every or will every be!! For those of you that did not like it. You have got alot to learn about life! I especially loved the part about Spencer it came from the heart not a typewritter.

In her own words, in her own style, Katharine proves, with this book, that no matter what she is doing, she always remains true to herself.
Sometimes the train of thought gets a bit off-track, but it only adds to the charm of the book, and gives me the same feeling as I had when I was a child listening to my grandparents telling me the stories of their lives.
I've always loved Hepburn's characters. They are so independent, fiesty, and fun. Now I know why. She makes no excuses, or apologies, for a life that was, at the time, scandalous.
It is a must-have for anyone who loves Hepburn, loves old Hollywood, or just appreciates prose with an authentic voice.
This book is one of the old friends that I invite to coffee for a leisurely Sunday morning read-a-thon.

Katherine Hepburn is a charming and delightful woman. This book reflects on the events, people, and places that have shaped her life. She is an original person who opened up her heart to write this book. She repeatedly describes her success. Katherine Hepburn also provided us with wondeful pictures of her whole life. It surprised me that she could remember everything that happened throughout her life. If any of you haven't read this book, I am recommending it to you because she is very talented and entertaining.