Katharine Hepburn
Today we tell about Katharine Hepburn, one of America’s great film and stage actresses. Hepburn’s career lasted almost seventy years. During that time she made more than fifty films. She became known all over the world for her independence, sharp intelligence, and acting ability.
Katharine Hepburn holds the record for the most Academy Awards for Best Actress. She won the honor four times. This star holds a special place in American film and popular culture.
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1907. She came from a wealthy and highly educated family. Her father, Thomas Hepburn, was a successful doctor. Her mother, Katharine Martha Houghton, was a great supporter of women’s rights issues including the right to birth control. The Hepburns made sure to educate their children about important political and social subjects. The family members were not afraid to express their liberal opinions.
Doctor Hepburn also believed in the importance of intense exercise. For most of her life Kate was an excellent athlete. She rode horses, swam and played golf and tennis. Here is a recording of Katharine Hepburn from a film about her life. She is talking about the values her family taught her. She says she is not strange, but is fearless.
KATHARINE HEPBURN: “I don’t think I’m an eccentric, no! I’m just something from New England that was very American and brought up by two extremely intelligent people…who gave us a kind of, I think the greatest gift that man can give anyone, and that is…sort of freedom from fear.”
Katharine graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania in 1928. She soon started appearing in small roles in plays on Broadway in New York City. That year she also married a businessman named Ludlow Ogden Smith. Their marriage lasted only a few years. But Katherine later said Ludlow’s support was very important to her during the early part of her career.
Katharine Hepburn was not the usual kind of actress during this period. She had a thin and athletic body. She spoke with a clear East Coast accent. And she was very independent in her thoughts and actions.
For example, she wore men’s pants as clothing at a time when women wore only skirts or dresses. Sometimes her independence and liberal opinions got her in trouble. After a few successful plays in New York, Hollywood filmmakers became interested in her. She later signed with the film production company called RKO pictures. Her first movie came out in nineteen thirty-two.
The next year she made the film “Morning Glory.” In her role as Eva Lovelace, Hepburn plays a stage actress fighting for a successful career. Few directors are interested in her. But by the end of the movie, she has a chance to let her acting skills shine and she becomes a star. This movie earned Hepburn her first Academy Award for Best Actress. Here is a recording from the movie. Hepburn’s character, Eva, tells about how she has changed her name in preparation for becoming a great actress. She talks very quickly, but you can sense the energy behind her performance.
During the nineteen thirties, critics either loved or hated Katharine Hepburn. Some thought she was a fresh and exciting addition to the Hollywood industry. Others decided she was too bold and self-important. They thought her way of speaking sounded false. But Hepburn wanted to face the movie industry in her own way. She liked to play the roles of strong women.
She did not want to be like other actresses. She did not wear make-up on her face. She would not let photographers take sexy pictures of her. And she did not like talking to her fans or the media.
Katharine Hepburn continued to work very hard making movies. Yet by the late nineteen thirties she had become unpopular with the public. So movie producers stopped wanting her in their films.
But Hepburn was not raised to quit easily. She decided to return to the stage on Broadway in New York City. She starred in a play called “The Philadelphia Story." Hepburn's friend Philip Barry wrote the play especially for her. It is about a wealthy and intelligent woman named Tracy Lord. She is about to marry a man she does not love. In the movie she learns to be more honest with herself and others. She decides to marry a man from her past whom she has always loved.
The play was a great success. Hepburn immediately bought the legal rights to the play. She knew “The Philadelphia Story” would be made into a movie. And she wanted to make sure she was the star of the film version.
In nineteen forty, “The Philadelphia Story” became a great movie success. Hepburn received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She had taken control of her career once again. And she would stay in control of it from now on.
In nineteen forty-two, Katherine Hepburn starred in “Woman of the Year.” This was the first of nine movies she starred in with actor Spencer Tracy.
They would soon become a famous couple both on and off the movie screen. Usually their movies dealt with finding a balance of power between their two strong characters. Hepburn and Tracy had a magical energy when they acted together. But in real life they kept their love hidden from the public.
Spencer Tracy was married to another woman. For religious reasons, he would not end his marriage and divorce his wife. So Hepburn and Tracy led a secret love affair for more than twenty years. Katharine Hepburn had had other love interests. She once had a relationship with the famous American millionaire Howard Hughes. But Spencer Tracy remained the love of her life.
One of Katharine Hepburn’s most famous roles was in the movie “The African Queen.” She made this movie in nineteen fifty-one with the famous actor Humphrey Bogart. In the film, their two very different characters fall in love on a riverboat in the middle of Africa.
As Katharine Hepburn became older, she played more and more wise and complex characters. In nineteen sixty-seven she starred in her last movie with Spencer Tracy. He died a few weeks after filming ended. For this movie, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” she won her second Academy Award. She won her third Academy Award the next year for “A Lion in Winter.” And, in her mid-seventies she won her last Academy Award for “On Golden Pond.”
Even into her eighties, Katharine Hepburn kept working. She had roles in several movies and television programs. She also wrote several books, including one about her life. In two thousand three, Katharine Hepburn died. She was ninety-six years old.
As part of her last wishes, she helped create the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center at Bryn Mawr College. This program helps support the things that were important to her: film and theater, women’s rights, and civic responsibility.
An actor who worked with Katharine Hepburn once said that she brought with her an extra level of reality. He said that when she was near, everything became more interesting, intense and bright.
This intensity and intelligence shine in the films that Katharine Hepburn made over her lifetime. People still enjoy her films today. Katharine Hepburn’s work and personality have had a great influence on American film and culture.
September 2001: How the life has changed 10 year later
Nearly three thousand people were killed in the attacks against the United States on September eleventh, two thousand one. Early that morning, terrorists hijacked four passenger airplanes. Two planes struck the World Trade Center in New York City. Another hit the Pentagon building, just across the river from Washington, D.C. Passengers on the fourth plane are said to have fought the hijackers. Their plane crashed on a field in western Pennsylvania.
The victims were from the United States and many other nations. It was the worst terrorist attack in American history. But for many people, the event does not feel like history. Today, we hear some of the ways the nine eleven attacks changed lives around the world.
The attack on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers not only destroyed those buildings, it changed the personality of the surrounding neighborhood. In the past ten years, the area has moved away from its business centered past to a family friendly area now called the Diaper District.
Stephanie Hryckowian is the daughter of a Ukrainian immigrant who owned the Beekman Deli. The family business served office workers from the Twin Towers for twenty-five years. Then, the nine eleven attacks changed her life forever. She remembers her reaction to the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
STEPHANIE HRYCKOWIAN: “When the president said they got Osama, I sat there crying, because I was so happy.”
The Beekman Deli went from earning twenty-five thousand dollars a week profit to nothing.
STEPHANIE HRYCKOWIAN: “We were sitting pretty before that [9/11]. After that, it all disappeared.”
The delicatessen failed. The place where it once stood is now an automated teller machine for a bank.
Nearby is one of the office buildings formerly served by the Beekman Deli. Like many older buildings in Lower Manhattan, its businesses left after the September eleventh attacks. It was then developed into housing. Lower Manhattan is now home to fifty-six thousand people. That is more than two times the number it had ten years ago.
Real estate agent Luis Vazquez is among the newcomers.
LUIS VAZQUEZ: “Today, the Financial District has the highest concentration of households with children in the city.”
So many families, in fact, that The New York Times newspaper has called the area the Diaper District. It is not uncommon to see mothers pushing baby strollers down the side streets.
Jocelyn Zoland is a mother. She saw one of the planes strike the World Trade Center.
JOCELYN ZOLAND: “It’s nice to see that in the shadow of that there are all these children and there are all these activities, and it has become a wonderful destination. We’ll see if things change though.”
Ms. Zoland says that change could include millions of visitors to the area with the completion of a nine eleven museum at Ground Zero. In addition, tens of thousands of office workers will occupy Freedom Tower, a skyscraper being built to replace the Twin Towers.
But the Beekman Deli is gone. Many other businesses are still closed. Stephanie Hryckowian says what did not disappear was the Deli’s responsibility to pay taxes and make rent payments through two thousand four. That cost her five hundred thousand dollars in savings. She now rents out her home and lives with family members.
STEPHANIE HRYCKOWIAN: “We have no health insurance. We have no retirement fund. We have nothing after 9/11.”
BOB DOUGHTY: Lower Manhattan has been rebuilding from what happened ten years ago. But Stephanie Hryckowian is unemployed and still struggling to deal with the effects of the attacks.
The United States answered the September eleventh attacks with a war against terror. First it sent troops to Afghanistan after the country’s Taliban government refused to expel al-Qaida leaders. Then, United States forces went to Iraq. The American-led invasion led to the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
One of the unplanned results of his ouster is a generation of Iraqi children who have lived through eight years of unrest.
Iraqi friends Mohammed Ahmed and Sadiq Ali have always been together. They grew up on the same street. They walked to school together and dreamed about becoming soccer stars.
The two friends were also together four years ago, playing near Mohammed’s home, when a rocket exploded next to them. Their lives changed forever. Ali lost his right leg, Ahmed, his left. A third friend died.
The two friends are part of a generation of Iraqi children scarred by the violence that followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Thousands of Iraqis suffered injuries over the years because of fighting between competing groups, criminal activity and a nationalist rebellion.
The United Nations says up to eight hundred thousand Iraqi children have lost at least one parent in the violence. Social services are uncommon in Iraq. Parents, officials and non-profit groups say the government is unable to provide many of these children with shelter, medical care and emotional support. Surgical operations on trauma patients are free, but Iraqis have to pay for nearly all other medical services.
Throughout their pain, Mohammed and Sadiq have never left each other’s side. Wherever their future lies, they will go there together, on donated crutches and a yellow prosthetic leg.
America’s collective sense of security changed after the nine eleven attacks. Many Americans now feel vulnerable, not only to more attacks but also to new measures designed to prevent terrorism.
Travelers have faced increased security at airports over the past ten years. Some measures are still being questioned, but traveler Bob Dubois believes they are necessary.
BOB DUBOIS: “I think it’s something that we need in this day and economy as it is right now with what’s going on. You never know what’s going to happen and the people that are out there, and I think that we need to do this.”
Oscar Del Castillo agrees the new measures are needed, but he says…
OSCAR DEL CASTILLO: “A few procedures, I’m not entirely pleased with, such as the full body scans. However, I understand their importance.”
Ameena Mirza Qazi is a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in Los Angeles. She says that the measures are directed at observant Muslims.
AMEENA MIRZA QAZI: “When I travel, I get pulled over almost every single time I go through security for extra pat-downs because of my head scarf.”
Transportation security officials say they do not target Muslims on purpose. But many Muslims say they suffer discrimination. Last year, a religious center near the city of San Diego faced neighborhood protests over its plans to expand.
Civil rights activists took legal action against the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this year for reportedly using informants to monitor Muslims. FBI officials would not comment. But officials say they take action only when they suspect criminal behavior.
Ahilan Arulanantham of the American Civil Liberties Union says the FBI’s methods are too invasive. He says the nation’s founding fathers wanted to guarantee basic rights.
Effective security measures still must respect the rights of Americans. Finding the right balance is the hard part.
Cold War
Today, we tell about the period known as the Cold War.
The Cold War began after World War Two. The main enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Cold War got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly. In a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, both sides fought each other indirectly. They supported opposing sides in conflicts in different parts of the world. They also used words as weapons. They threatened and denounced each other. Or they tried to make each other look foolish.
Over the years, leaders on both sides changed. Yet the Cold War continued. It was the major force in world politics for most of the second half of the twentieth century.
The Cold War world was separated into three groups. The United States led the West. This group included countries with democratic political systems. The Soviet Union led the East. This group included countries with communist political systems. The non-aligned group included countries that did not want to be tied to either the West or the East.
Harry Truman was the first American president to fight the Cold War. He used several policies. One was the Truman Doctrine. This was a plan to give money and military aid to countries threatened by communism. The Truman Doctrine effectively stopped communists from taking control of Greece and Turkey.
Another policy was the Marshall Plan. This strengthened the economies and governments of countries in Western Europe.
A major event in the Cold War was the Berlin Airlift. After World War Two, the United States and its allies divided Germany. Berlin was a part of communist East Germany. The city was divided into east and west.
In June 1948, Soviet-led forces blocked all roads and railways leading to the western part of Berlin. President Truman quickly ordered military airplanes to fly coal, food, and medicine to the city.
The planes kept coming, sometimes landing every few minutes, for more than a year. The United States received help from Britain and France. Together, they provided almost two and one-half million tons of supplies on about two hundred-eighty thousand flights.
The United States also led the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in nineteen forty-nine. NATO was a joint military group. Its purpose was to defend against Soviet forces in Europe.
The Soviet Union and its east European allies formed their own joint military group - the Warsaw Pact - six years later.
In 1953, Soviet leader Josef Stalin died. His death gave the new American president, Dwight Eisenhower, a chance to deal with new Soviet leaders.
In July 1955, Eisenhower and Nikolai Bulganin met in Geneva, Switzerland. The leaders of Britain and France also attended.
Eisenhower proposed that the Americans and Soviets agree to let their military bases be inspected by air by the other side. The Soviets later rejected the proposal. Yet the meeting in Geneva was not considered a failure. After all, the leaders of the world's most powerful nations had shaken hands.
Cold War tensions increased, then eased, then increased again over the years. The changes came as both sides attempted to influence political and economic developments around the world.
For example, the Soviet Union provided military, economic, and technical aid to communist governments in Asia. The United States then helped eight Asian nations fight communism by establishing the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, known as SEATO.
In the nineteen fifties, the United States began sending military advisers to help South Vietnam defend itself against communist North Vietnam. That aid would later expand into a long and bloody period of American involvement in Vietnam.
The Cold War also affected the Middle East. In the nineteen fifties, both East and West offered aid to Egypt to build the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. The West cancelled its offer, however, after Egypt bought weapons from the communist government in Czechoslovakia.
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser then seized control of the company that operated the Suez Canal.
A few months later, Israel invaded Egypt. France and Britain joined the invasion.
For once, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a major issue. Both supported a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.
The Suez crisis was a political victory for the Soviets. When the Soviet Union supported Egypt, it gained new friends in the Arab world.
In 1959, cold war tensions eased a little. The new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, visited Dwight Eisenhower in the United States. The meeting was very friendly. But the next year, relations got worse again.
An American U-2 reconnaissance airplane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The plane and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, were captured. Eisenhower admitted that such planes had been spying on the Soviets for four years. In a speech at the United Nations, Khrushchev got so angry that he took off his shoe and beat it on a table.
John Kennedy followed Eisenhower as president in nineteen sixty-one.
At the same time in Europe, tens of thousands of East Germans had fled to the West. East Germany's government decided to stop them. It built a wall separating the eastern and western parts of the city of Berlin. Guards shot at anyone who tried to flee by climbing over.
During Kennedy's second year in office, American intelligence reports discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba.
The Soviet Union denied the missiles were there. Yet American photographs, taken from high in the air, proved they were.
The Cuban missile crisis easily could have resulted in a nuclear war. Americans felt especially threatened, with those missiles just one hundred fifty kilometers from the Florida coast. But the crisis ended after a week. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if the United States agreed not to interfere in Cuba.
Some progress was made in easing Cold War tensions when Kennedy was president. In 1963, the two sides reached a major arms control agreement. They agreed to ban tests of nuclear weapons above ground, under water, and in space. They also established a direct telephone link between the White House and the Kremlin.
Relations between East and West also improved when Richard Nixon was president. He and Leonid Brezhnev met several times. They reached several arms control agreements. One reduced the number of missiles used to shoot down enemy nuclear weapons. It also banned the testing and deployment of long-distance missiles for five years.
A major change in the Cold War would take place in 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union. He met four times with President Ronald Reagan. Gorbachev withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan. And he signed an agreement with the United States to destroy all middle-distance and short-distance nuclear missiles.
By 1989, there was widespread unrest in eastern Europe. Gorbachev did not intervene as one eastern European country after another cut its ties with the Soviet Union.
The Berlin Wall, the major symbol of communist oppression, was torn down in November of that year. In less than a year, East and West Germany became one nation again. A few months after that, Warsaw Pact countries officially ended the alliance. The Cold War was over.
