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Hepburn: A legend turns into a verb

By Jocelyn McClurg (USA TODAY)
Updated: 2007-04-26 22:23

What's left to say about Katharine Hepburn?

Karen Karbo manages to come up with some offbeat gems in her witty new book, How to Hepburn.

Kate the Great, who died at age 96 in 2003, would have been 100 on May 12.

Among Karbo's observations on the screen legend who wore pants and yet slavishly devoted herself to a married man, Spencer Tracy:

"She was one of the Brash."

"She was an early practitioner of self-branding. She was the Brand Called Kate."

"Her greatest achievement was a complete overhaul of traditional notions of femininity."

"She had to be the only 55-year-old 'independent' woman in Christendom still receiving an allowance from her dad."

"Hepburn was not a feminist. She was a Hepburnist. She believed in the cause of Katharine Hepburn."

"Free love: As you might imagine, Hepburn found it completely appalling."

"Dr. Phil would certainly not approve of the Tracy/Hepburn dynamic."

"We would be well served to fold a bit of Hepburnian-style denial into our lives. If leggings can come back into style, so can bucking up."

"She was not afraid of that most terrifying thing: aging in the public eye."