This is easily the worst biography ever written about Katharine Hepburn. It is full of inaccuracies and wild speculations. The author's central theme is that Ms. Hepburn had a life long, unrequited love for the director John Ford. Anyone who has read any of Katharine Hepburn's own books and her many interviews know that this is simply not true.

Having fabricated the fictional relationship between Katharine Hepburn and John Ford, the author then uses it to denigrate Hepburn's real long time love, Spencer Tracy. Leaming makes incredibly scurrilous and completely undocumented statements about Tracy such as that his supposed veneral disease caused his son's deafness. Ms. Leaming fails to offer even one iota of evidence for this outrageous statement.

Page after page of this book is full of wildly fanceful speculations passed off as fact. What are we to make of the following passage at page 393:

"If Tracy wondered whether, or how Ford would react to news of the affair with Kate, he did not have to wait long to find out. On September 3, five days after shooting on Woman of the Year began, Ford suddenly left town under mysterious circumstances. . . .Ostensibly, Ford's sudden, rather theatrical departure had nothing to do with Kate. Still, there can be no question that it shadowed her relationship with Tracy from the start. A man of Tracy's tormented and deeply suspicious nature could never accept that Ford's timing had been purely coincidental. . . . "

So, according to Ms. Leaming, John Ford left Los Angeles and joined the military because he was upset that Katharine Hepburn had become involved with Spencer Tracy and further she asserts that Spencer Tracy knew this and was 'tormented' by it. How silly can one author get?

What I find passing strange is all the positive reviews that were given to this book by presumably reputable reviewers. I can only assume that the reviewers don't actually read the books they review or that they knew so little about Ms. Hepburn's life that they concluded that the book was accurate even though it has so many obvious inaccuracies.

I found Barbara Leaming's biography of Katharine Hepburn to be unique in that it does not begin immediately with Hepburn's birth. Instead, it starts with her mother and grandmother, and her father and uncles. In doing so, Leaming allows the reader, throughout the course of the book, to come to a better understanding of Hepburn psychologically, as opposed to just presenting facts related to career and private life. The bulk of the biography is devoted to Hepburn's relationships, including those with Howard Hughes, John Ford, Leland Hayward, and, of course, Spencer Tracy. For one more interested in details of Hepburn's historic career, this is not the most insightful book. But for those wanting a peek into the mystique that is the Great Kate, Leaming's biography is tantalizing and absorbing.

This is the most fascinating book about Hepburn to read, and I've read most of them stretching back over 20 years. It is exhaustively researched, with sources for each and every fact and assertion made. . .if only other biographers (or todays reporters) were so meticulous. While some might be surprised by the contents of the book, the multi-faceted truth about Hepburn's relationship with Tracey, you still come away in awed wonder of a great and pioneering woman. There was a great deal of trauma in her life and she still perservered, a tremendous testament to how strong she truly was-- a true female role model with human flaws and needs.