The private world of Katharine Hepburn

Booklist Review

Professional photographer Bryson is a personal friend of Katharine Hepburn, and the normally very private actress, over the past 15 years, has let down her guard in the presence of his camera. Gathered now into an incredibly charming album is a series of these photos of Hepburn just being Kate. Pruning trees at the Connecticut family home, going for a mid-February dip in Long Island Sound, on location in 1974 making a movie with John Wayne (Rooster Cogburn), dealing with the flood of daily mail in her New York townhouse: these are some of the ways she was caught by Bryson in the act of being naturally spunky, considerate, and--though not one of these photographs is posed in the glossy Hollywood tradition--inherently radiant. A movie buff's treasure. No index. ~--Brad Hooper