BEVERLY HILLS Hepburn's hoarding benefits academy library

The actress's collection includes more than the library could have hoped for.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
HOLLYWOOD -- Katharine Hepburn was a pack rat with panache. She saved an amazing amount of material -- letters, annotated scripts, fans' scrapbooks, photographs of herself in evening gowns as well as in wide pants with anklets and wedgies. She even stored it all in a climate-controlled facility.
The beneficiary of her steadfast personal archiving is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, which recently announced its acquisition of Hepburn's collection of photographs, scrapbooks, scripts, press books and private and professional correspondence.
Donated by estate
The collection, which began arriving from the East Coast 13 months ago, was donated to the library by the estate of the four-time Oscar winner, who died June 29, 2003, at the age of 96.
"She saved a lot of material," said library director Linda Mehr. "We have old scrapbooks that go back to the very beginning of her film career, even some including her early stage work along with the film work. They are quite unique. She saved a lot of her scripts -- a lot of them have notations that indicate how she worked out the role she was to play. It is really an incredible record of her life -- she is one of the most influential women of the 20th century."
What makes the acquisition even more "amazing," Mehr said, is "that we have never gotten a collection where they saved as much that documents careers like this. For an individual performer, it is quite rare. She was probably aware of her life's legacy and how important it was. She was very smart about real estate, possessions and money."
Complementary material
The Hepburn collection complements several of the library's collections on her major collaborators, including directors George Stevens, George Cukor, John Huston and actor Cary Grant. "This will really help fill in the picture of the creative talents behind her," Mehr said.
None of the material in the library collection is from the Sotheby's estate sale of more than 600 items that took place in June and earned $5.8 million for the Hepburn family. Although items in that highly publicized auction included photographs and letters, the bulk of that material was more personal -- jewelry, furniture, a bronze of her longtime love and frequent co-star Spencer Tracy, film contracts and a wedding dress.