Hollywood: The Oral History

by Jeanine Basinger

Katharine Hepburn. WILLIAM TUTTLE: She just had confidence in herself. As a makeup man, I can’t think of any player who is just going to walk in with no makeup in front of a director or producer, except for Katie Hepburn, who was always pretty natural anyway. The makeup artist is really the only person who sees them as they are. You know their innermost secrets, and they must have a certain trust in you that you’re not going to go out and say, “Well, you ought to get a load of them without makeup.” But if you were working with Katharine Hepburn, you could forget all of that because she could care less whether she looks perfect. A person who is like that, as self-assured as she is, doesn’t have much respect for someone they feel is not qualified to do their makeup. And they would very quickly tell them. Very outspoken about it. You had to build up respect with the female stars, but Hepburn just had confidence and assumed she was going to be all right no matter who or what.