Kate @ 100.

"Katharine Hepburn, who demolished brontosaurus skeletons and male egos in Bringing Up Baby and held her own with the King of England in The Lion in Winter, would have been 100 today," notes William Mann, author of Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, in the New York Times. "While she made us believe she was somehow above Hollywood hoopla, the truth was that long before stars employed staffs to micromanage and refine their public images, Hepburn was inventing a path for others to follow."

"That she challenged and expanded the definition of what constituted 'feminine' behavior - both in the world of cinema and the world at large - was less a product of deliberate design than a reflection of the fact that she was, without apology or compromise, completely true to herself," writes Josh R, who revisits the filmography at Edward Copeland on Film. "I can't unequivocally state whether or not she was the greatest screen actress of all time, or how I would go about ranking the others in the pantheon of legends in relation to her. I only know that there was, and is, only one Katharine Hepburn, and attempting to compare her to anyone else is an exercise in futility."

Updated through 5/14.

Tributes in today's German-language papers: Frankfurter Rundschau, Susanne Ostwald in Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Manuel Brug in the Berliner Morgenpost.

Update, 5/14: "If women have achieved equality, even in our fantasies (let alone in reality), then why does Hepburn have no worthy successor?" wonders Sarah Churchwell at the Guardian. "Compare Hepburn's ageing monarch [in The Lion in Winter] with Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep, who are playing roles in which they are the butt of sexist and regressive jokes about evil mothers-in-law and female bosses."

Posted by dwhudson at May 12, 2007 5:20 AM