Glenn Close Reveals How Katharine Hepburn Changed the Course of Her Life in a Major Way: ‘No Regrets’ (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Glenn Close; Katharine Hepburn.Photo:Griffin Lipson/BFA/REX/Shutterstock; Bettmann Archive

Griffin Lipson/BFA/REX/Shutterstock; Bettmann Archive

Audiences haveKatharine Hepburnto thank forGlenn Close’s 50 years of fabulous performances.

“The thing I’ve always loved about Hepburn is she seemed to really know who she was,” Close, 77, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. For the eight-time Oscar nominee, it was seeing the late Hepburn being herself in a rare late-night talk show appearance in 1973 that inspired her to become an actress.

While painting theater scenery during her senior year at Virginia’s College of William & Mary, Close saw Hepburn onThe Dick Cavett Show. “I remember she said, ‘No regrets, no regrets.’ Fabulous.” (Close’s impersonation of Hepburn’s voice is spot-on.)

“She was so phenomenal, so herself,” she recalls. “So the next day I went to the head of the [theater] department and I said, ‘Please nominate me for a series of auditions.’ And from that, I got my first job that fall.”

The star of Lee Daniels’The Deliverance“had huge respect” for Hepburn, she adds. “Also, the fact we both come from Connecticut and our dads are both doctors!”

Close “went straight from college to my first job on Broadway the fall that I graduated” a year later. “Then I did theater for six years before I got into my first movie, which isThe World According to Garp, and basically have never looked back.”

Katharine Hepburn on ‘The Dick Cavett Show’ in 1973.Bettmann Archive

Bettmann Archive

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Close then received “the most fantastic letter” from her hero. Its words continue to resonate, she says: “Aren’t we lucky to be in this terrible profession, this terrifying profession, and, let’s face it, this delicious way to spend your life?”

Glenn Close in 2019.Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

The Deliverance, costarringAndra Day,Aunjanue Ellis-TaylorandMo’Nique, is in theaters now and on Netflix Aug. 30. Close also appears inJosh BrolinandPeter Dinklage’sBrothers, in theaters Oct. 10 and on Prime Video Oct. 17.

source: people.com