The Katharine Hepburn Flop That 'Fueled Rumors' About Her Sexuality: 'A Real Disaster'

Mar. 15, 2025

Katharine Hepburn in 1940.Photo:Bettmann/Getty

Bettmann/Getty

Decades beforeTootsie,Mrs. DoubtfireandShakespeare in Loveplayed cross-dressing for laughs,Katharine Hepburnwas helping to turn drag into a movie art form. In the 1935 romantic comedySylvia Scarlett, which costarredCary Grant, Hepburn played the titular character, a young woman who pretends to be a boy named Sylvester as part of a con.

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in 1935’s ‘Sylvia Scarlett’.Promotional photos from Sylvia Scarlett, RKO Pictures, 1935. Courtesy of Ira M. Resnick.

Promotional photos from Sylvia Scarlett, RKO Pictures, 1935. Courtesy of Ira M. Resnick.

Despite it’s lack of box-office success,Sylvia Scarlettwas notable for getting the rumor mill churning about the sexual orientation of its star, who raised eyebrows early in her career for ignoring the traditional femininity standards to which young starlets were expected to adhere. The film also included a then-scandalouskissing scenebetween Hepburn and her female costar Dennie Moore.

According to the book, Hepburn called the film “a real disaster.” It adds, “This subversive gender-bending fueled rumors about Hepburn’s sexuality — which became a topic of debate after she divorced her husband [Ludlow Ogden Smith] in 1934 and began living with a female companion.”

Katharine Hepburn as “Sylvester” in ‘Sylvia Scarlett’.Promotional photos from Sylvia Scarlett, RKO Pictures, 1935. Courtesy of Ira M. Resnick.

In an era where female stars were expected to sell sultry and sexy, Hepburn played strong-willed women and, controversially, even wore slacks offscreen.

“Hepburn had a strong aversion to celebrity culture and had no interest in perpetuating the illusion of movie stardom,” the book offers. “She didn’t dress glamorously, didn’t sign autographs, and didn’t give interviews.”

The book also cites a 1934 interview withMotion Picture Magazinein which Hepburn said, “I’m not living my life for Hollywood or publicity, and I never will. Why should I have to change my personality?”

Hepburn, who died in 2003 at age 96, famously had a long-term relationship with her nine-time costar Spencer Tracy, from 1941 until his death in 1967 at age 67. But according to Hollywood lore, the enduring love story was acoverto hide the sexual orientation of both stars.

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in 1942’s ‘Woman of the Year’.Hulton Archive/Getty

In his 2012 bookFull Service,Scotty Bowers, an entrepreneur/“pimp to the stars” who supplied Hollywood celebrities with sexual partners through a gas station on Melrose Avenue, claimed to have introduced Hepburn to “150 girls” and Tracy — who remained married to Louise Tracy from 1923 until he died — to men, including Bowers himself.

“They were merely friends … They were not in the bed department at all,” he said of the Oscar winners in the 2018 documentaryScotty and the Secret History of Hollywood. (Bowers died in 2019 at 96).

Abbeville Press

Regardless of where she fit in on the Kinsey scale,Moxieis clear on Hepburn’s legacy in Hollywood, despite early critical and commercial misfires likeSylvia Scarlett. Her “tireless dedication to her career,” the book observes, “is at the core of her cinematic legacy, and with it, she has rightfully earned her place as one of the foremost stars in the Hollywood pantheon.”

source: people.com