She Runs the Gamut of Human Emotion from A to B | Quote Investigator She Runs the Gamut of Human Emotion from A to B Dorothy Parker? Katharine Hepburn? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a famously severe criticism that was aimed at an inexpressive theater performer or movie star in the 1930s. Here are two prototypes: This performer ran gamut of human emotion all the way from A to B. This thespian runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. Can you tell me who spoke this line and who was being criticized? Quote Investigator: This quip is usually credited to the notable wit Dorothy Parker, and she reportedly was attacking the skills of the movie star Katharine Hepburn. But there is some uncertainty about when Parker made the remark. The earliest evidence in the 1930s is not directly from Parker; in fact, the information appears to be thirdhand. Finally, in a 1971 book the movie director and writer Garson Kanin stated that he asked Parker about the gibe, and she acknowledged that it was hers, but she also extolled Hepburn’s artistry.

In January 1934 a columnist in The New York Sun newspaper stated that Parker spoke the jest at a cocktail party. The columnist also referred negatively to Katharine Hepburn’s performance in the film “Christopher Strong”: 1 Which calls to mind the latest sweetly venomous remark of Miss Dorothy Parker anent Miss Hepburn (the Miss Hepburn principally of the lamentable “Christopher Strong”). It was delivered as Miss Parker swept or lolled recently into a cocktail party: “Come,” she said, “let’s all go to see Miss Hepburn and hear her run the gamut of emotions from A to B!” On February 16, 1934 an article in a newspaper in New Orleans, Louisiana ascribed the barb to Parker and suggested that the precipitating event was a Broadway show: 2 When Katharine Hepburn appeared in a play on Broadway, ’tis said that Dorothy Parker cracked: “Miss Hepburn ran the whole gamut of emotions—from A to B.” On February 19, 1934 Time magazine discussed the joke and gave a precise location.

According to the periodical Parker delivered the line during an intermission period of “The Lake” which was a Broadway production that ran from December 26, 1933 to February 1934. Hepburn had a primary role in this play, but the show and her efforts were not well-received: 3 4 During an intermission of The Lake, Dorothy Parker remarked to others in her party: “Well, let’s go back and see Katharine Hepburn run the gamut of human emotion from A to B.” Here are additional selected citations in chronological order. On February 21, 1934 a Canadian newspaper in Winnipeg repurposed the gag and applied it to the political domain: 5 The House last night listened to itself going through the gamut of human emotions from A to B. Emotion A was despair and emotion B was hope, but the effect on the spectators—of whom many were on hand in the galleries to get some value for their gas tax—was grief and pain. On February 24, 1934 a popular columnist named O. O. Mclntyre expressed irritation.

He suggested that the words ascribed to Parker were actually an old joke that had been used by a critic named William Winter many years earlier: 6 A mot accredited to Dorothy Parker reported Katharine Hepburn running the gamut of emotion from A to B in her stage play .. . It was fresher when William Winter, a gentler critic, pulled it on an actress of 30 years ago . . . Most Algonquin gags are that way. In March 1934 a newspaper in Greeley, Colorado printed a version of the remark. But the paper praised Hepburn’s acting ability, and noted that her work in recent films was being embraced by moviegoers: 7 That Katherine Hepburn is featured in two of the medal pictures will surprise many. Her return to the stage in The Lake, not a very good play, was a flat failure. It inspired the barbed comment of Dorothy Parker, “Now we’ll see Katherine Hepburn run the gamut of emotions from A to B.” In April 1934 “The Boston Herald” newspaper of Massachusetts presented a different tale.

According to the paper “The Lake” did not trigger the rebuke from Parker; instead, Hepburn’s appearance in the film “Little Women” provoked the gibe: 8 The celebrated Dorothy Parker, mistress of the wise crack and high priestess of the bon mot, got off a snide wallop at Katharine Hepburn’s film histrionics—or at least she’s so credited in a current monthly. Having witnessed La Hepburn’s performance in “Little Women,” Miss Parker is reputed to have observed, “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.” Which is certainty a peach of a line, but it still ain’t doing right by our Kath—or do they call her Kit? In May 1934 the mass-circulation Reader’s Digest included the joke and asserted that it was in a movie review written by Parker: 9 Reviewing the motion picture, Little Women, Dorothy Parker writes of Katherine Hepburn’s acting: “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.” In June 1934 the top columnist Walter Winchell spoke to the humorist Irvin S.

Cobb, and he was told that the quip had a long history going all the way back to Jonathan Swift: 10 Oh, yes—talking about tracing quips and gags—Cobb also told me that Dorothy Parker was accused of uttering: “She runs the gamut of human emotion from A to B” (Speaking of Hepburn in “The Lake”), but William Winter, the critic, wrote it in a notice years ago—and that Dean Swift said it in the seventeenth century! In December 1934 a version of the anecdote was reported in a London periodical: 11 Dorothy Parker was asked her opinion of a popular and over-praised actress: ‘O! What do I think of her? She runs the gamut of emotion from A to B.’ In 1934 Alexander Woollcott published “While Rome Burns” which included a chapter profiling Dorothy Parker. He and Parker were both members of the Algonquin Round Table. Woollcott presented a version of the statement credited to Parker.

However, it is difficult to place this citation into a chronological ordering because it is not certain when in 1934 Woollcott wrote the following: 12 And more recently she achieved an equal compression in reporting on The Lake. Miss Hepburn, it seems, had run the whole gamut from A to B. The writer and movie director Garson Kanin was a close friend of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. In 1971 he published “Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir” which revealed the personal knowledge he had gained through his friendship. The book also described an interesting episode during which he questioned Dorothy Parker. Kanin knew about the harsh remark credited to Parker, and he was surprised when she recommended Hepburn for an acting assignment: 13 “I thought you didn’t like her,” I said. Those great brown eyes became greater and browner. “Me?” said Dottie, “I don’t think there’s a finer actress anywhere.” “But what about ‘all the way from A to B’?” I reminded her. “Or didn’t you say it? Or do you think she’s improved?” Dottie sighed. “Oh, I said it all right.

You know how it is. A joke.” She looked distressed. She shrugged and swallowed. “When people expect you to say things, you say things. Isn’t that the way it is?” In conclusion, this popular barb has been ascribed to Dorothy Parker and there is substantive evidence supporting the ascription. Katharine Hepburn was the target of the criticism, but perceptions are labile, and Hepburn went on to a magnificent career. A similar comment may have been made earlier, and some individuals credit the joke to William Winter, but QI has not yet located a supporting citation. Update: On September 27, 2013 the 1971 citation was added and some sections were rewritten. Notes: 1934 January 6, New York Sun, The Talking Pictures by John S. Cohen, Jr., Quote Page 9, Column 1, New York, New York. (Old Fulton) ↩ 1934 February 16, Times-Picayune, Up and Down the Street by the Want Ad Reporter, Quote Page 27, Column 2, New Orleans, Louisiana.

(GenealogyBank) ↩ Website: IBDB Internet Broadway Database, Entry: The Lake, Martin Beck Theatre, 1933, Website description: “IBDB (Internet Broadway Database) archive is the official database for Broadway theatre information. IBDB provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theatre until today.” (Accessed ibdb.com on September 26, 2013) link ↩ 1934 February 19, Time, “The Theatre: New Plays in Manhattan: Feb. 19, 1934”, Time Inc., New York. (Accessed time.com on September 26, 2013; Time magazine online archive) ↩ 1934 February 21, Winnipeg Free Press, Under the Dome, Quote Page 13, Column 7, Winnipeg, Manitoba. (NewspaperArchive) ↩ 1934 February 24, Daily News Standard, Fannie Brice Is Missing Meal a Day, Reports O. O. Mclntyre, Quote Page 8, Column 2, Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

(NewspaperArchive) ↩ 1934 March 17, Greeley Daily Tribune, Some Movie Medals, Quote Page 8, Column 1, Greeley, Colorado. (NewspaperArchive) ↩ 1934 April 30, Boston Herald, The Cinema and Such by Neal O’Hara, Quote Page 14, Column 4, Boston, Massachusetts. (GenealogyBank) ↩ 1934 May, Reader’s Digest, Volume 24, Number 145, Barbed Amenities, Quote Page 38, Reader’s Digest Association, Pleasantville, New York. (Verified on paper) ↩ 1934 June 9, Syracuse Journal On Broadway by Walter Winchell, Quote Page 5, Column 2, Syracuse New York. (Old Fulton) ↩ 1934 December, Life and Letters, Volume 11, Number 60, Overheard, Quote Page 347, Column 1, Published by Life & Letters, London.

(Verified on paper in 1967 reprint edition from Kraus Reprint Corporation of New York) ↩ 1934, While Rome Burns by Alexander Woollcott, Chapter: “Some Neighbors: IV: Our Mrs. Parker”, Quote Page 147, Viking Press, New York. (Verified on paper) ↩ 1971, Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir by Garson Kanin, Quote Page 17, Viking Press, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩ Dorothy Parker - Wikiquote Dorothy Parker Jump to: navigation , search You can't teach an old dogma new tricks. Dorothy Parker ( August 22 , 1893 – June 7 , 1967 ) was an American writer, poet, and critic. A fixture of 1920s literary society known for her acerbic wit and low opinion of romantic relationships, she became a member of the famous Algonquin Round Table . Contents Quotes[ edit ] There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words. Excuse my dust.

Her proposed epitaph for herself, quoted in Vanity Fair (June 1925) And she had It. It, hell; she had Those. Regarding a character in Elinor Glyn's novel It; in her review, "Madame Glyn Lectures on 'It,' with Illustrations" in The New Yorker (26 November 1927) Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart. New Yorker (4 February 1928) Well, Aimee Semple McPherson has written a book. And were you to call it a little peach, you would not be so much as scratching its surface. It is the story of her life, and it is called In the Service of the King, which title is perhaps a bit dangerously suggestive of a romantic novel. It may be that this autobiography is set down in sincerity, frankness and simple effort. It may be, too, that the Statue of Liberty is situated in Lake Ontario .

"Our Lady of the Loudspeaker" in The New Yorker (25 February 1928) And it is that word 'hummy,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up. That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. "But the One on the Right" in The New Yorker (1929) A lady … with all the poise of the Sphinx though but little of her mystery. Concerning a child actress in A. A. Milne's play Give Me Yesterday; in her review of same, "Just Around Pooh Corner" in The New Yorker (14 March 1931) The House Beautiful is, for me, the play lousy. Review of "The House Beautiful" by Channing Pollock, New Yorker (21 March 1931) Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die!

(But, alas, we never do.) "The Flaw in Paganism" in Death and Taxes (1931) The ones I like … are "cheque" and "enclosed." On the most beautiful words in the English language, as quoted in The New York Herald Tribune (12 December 1932) And I'll stay away from Verlaine too; he was always chasing Rimbauds. "The Little Hours" in Here Lies (1939); this plays on the title of the popular song "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows"; Paul Verlaine was Arthur Rimbaud 's lover. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things. "The Little Hours" in Here Lies (1939) I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.

"The Little Hours" in Here Lies (1939) One more drink and I'd have been under the host. As quoted in Try and Stop Me by Bennett Cerf (1944) Misattributed as quatrain beginning “I like to have a martini,” (see below). It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence—no first draft. I can’t write five words but that I change seven. Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956) There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words. Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956) It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes. Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956) All those writers who write about their own childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me. Interview in The Paris Review, Issue #13 (Summer 1956) [On being told of Calvin Coolidge 's death] How do they know?

(Coolidge was well-known for being a man of very few words.) Quoted in Writers at Work 1st Series by Malcolm Cowley (1958) There is no such hour on the present clock as 6:30, New York time. Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night. "New York at 6:30 P.M.", Esquire (November 1964) You can't teach an old dogma new tricks. Attributed to Parker after her death, by Robert E. Drennan The Algonquin Wits (1968), p. 124. However the same quip appears anonymously fifteen years earlier, in the trade journal Sales Management (Chicago: Dartnell Corp., 1918-75), vol. 70 (Survey of Buying Power, 1953), p. 80: "Marxism never changes. You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks." Too fucking busy, and vice versa.

Response to an editor pressuring her for overdue work, as quoted in The Unimportance of Being Oscar (1968) by Oscar Levant , p. 89 It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard. On her abortion, as quoted in You Might as well Live by John Keats (1970) You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think. Parker's answer when asked to use the word horticulture during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence?, as quoted in You Might as well Live by John Keats (1970). What fresh hell can this be? "If the doorbell rang in her apartment, she would say, 'What fresh hell can this be?' — and it wasn't funny; she meant it." You might as well live: the life and times of Dorothy Parker, John Keats (Simon Schuster, 1970, p124). Often quoted as "What fresh hell is this?" as in the title of the 1987 biography by Marion Meade, "Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?".

Enough Rope (1926)[ edit ] Ballads of a Great Weariness Scratch a lover, and find a foe. Observation If I didn't care for fun and such, I'd probably amount to much. But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn. First printed in New York World, (16 August 1925) Comment May view John Knox in Paradise. First printed in Life, 24 February 1927 p. 5 A Pig's-Eye View of Literature: Oscar Wilde If with the literate I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it. First printed in Life, (2 June 1927) p. 13 Fair Weather They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. First printed in New York World, (20 January 1928) p. 13 Thoughts for a Sunshiny Morning It costs me never a stab nor squirm To tread by chance upon a worm.

"Aha, my little dear," I say, "Your clan will pay me back some day." First printed in New Yorker, (9 April 1927) p. 31 Our Mrs Parker (1934)[ edit ] Quotes of Parker from Alexander Woollcott 's biographical essay "Our Mrs Parker" in While Rome Burns (1934) which is the original published source for some of the most famous things she said at the Algonquin Round Table. That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say No in any of them. A similar line was later used by Ira Gershwin in " The Saga of Jenny " in Lady in the Dark (1942): "In 27 languages she couldn't say no." And there was that wholesale libel on a Yale prom. If all the girls attending it were laid end to end, Mrs Parker said, she wouldn't be at all surprised. Brevity is the soul of lingerie. Caption written for Vogue 1916 Katharine Hepburn delivered a striking performance that ran the gamut of emotions, from A to B.

Woollcott writes in While Rome Burns that Parker had "recently...achieved an equal compression in reporting on The Lake, Miss Hepburn, it seems, had run the whole gamut from A to B." These words do not appear in Dorothy Parker's 1934 printed review of The Lake, but were elsewhere described as a spoken remark. "'We might as well go back,' said Dorothy Parker during an intermission of The Lake in 1934, 'and watch Katharine Hepburn run the gamut of emotions from A to B.'" "Hepburn From A to B : Close-up of a Stage Struck Youngster" by Alan Jackson, in Cinema Arts Vol. 1 No. 2, (July 1937) Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (1996)[ edit ] Dotty had They exude an atmosphere of The New Republic—a sort of Crolier -than-thou air. p. 36 There is one thing about Fiddlers Three, though, that held my attention all through the evening: Try as I might I could only discern two fiddlers. p.

42 Chapter 2: 1919[ edit ] To quote the only line of Gertrude Stein’s which I have ever been able to understand, “It is wonderful how I am not interested.” p. 64 You know how a play in dialect is. At the first act, you think, “How quaint!”; at the second act, you wish they would either stop using dialect or keep quiet; and at the third act, you wish you hadn’t come. And Tillie, may I mention in passing, has four acts. p. 64 If the English version is in what, in our youth, we used to speak of affectionately as dear old iambic pentameter, the actors mercifully abstain from reciting it that way; they speak their lines as good, hardy prose. p. 76 The musical comedies of the month are She’s a Good Fellow and The Lady in Red, both of which owe their book and lyrics to Anne Caldwell —evidently a native of New York, judged by the casualness with which she rhymes “teacher” and “reach a.” p.

82 And you remember, Rabbi Wise has declared, in a heated moment, that our plays seem to be written for the hosiery buyers. If Dr. Wise had only witnessed our new summer reviews, he doubtless would have amended his statement to read “by the hosiery buyers.” p.89 This use of soldiers to make a play popular seems too much like taking an unfair advantage of the uniform—hitting below the Sam Browne belt, as it were. p. 93 In short, there is everything about this season’s entertainment to make the Hippodrome what it always is—a Temple of the Arts to all those who hang pennants on their automobiles, use “Shake hands with my friend” as a formula for introduction, and sprinkle powdered sugar on their sliced tomatoes. p. 106 Chapter 3: 1920[ edit ] The play holds the season’s record, thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinée. By an odd coincidence, it ran just five performances too many. p. 121 Writing a book for the Follies seems to be about as profitable an occupation as furnishing flannel petticoats for the showgirls. p.

151 The management’s method of procedure is evidently to hire some well-known man to write the book, and then, as soon as it is written, to give it away to some deserving family, and go out and engage an assortment of specialty acts. p. 151 Van and Schenck put their songs over so skillfully that it isn’t until their act is all done that you realize what extremely indifferent songs they are. Now, when John Steel is singing, on the other hand, you are never fooled for a moment. p.153 Mr. Hodge plays with his accustomed ease, even carrying the thing so far as to repeat many of his lines with his eyes shut; and in a pretty spirit of reciprocity, many members of the audience sit through the play with their eyes shut. p. 175 Chapter 4: 1921[ edit ] Of course, there are many things to be said for the afternoon performance, chief among them being that it cuts in so generously on one’s work. p.

201 Naturally, you know how you would feel on setting out to see a performance of Aucassin and Nicolette done by a company of little ones; you would strive to hurl yourself beneath the wheels of a friendly truck, on your way to the theatre. p. 233 Bringing in a wounded soldier is getting to be rather like waving an American flag at the end of an act. One cannot harbor feelings of unmixed admiration for the playwright who will hide behind either of them. p. 250 Chapter 5: 1922[ edit ] So seeing that there is nothing further to say, I shall go right on talking about The Circle , thus proving that I am a born reviewer of plays. p. 256 Rockliffe Fellowes gives a likable performance of the secondary crook’s rôle, and there are some decidedly agreeable-looking doughnuts consumed in the first act. And that is about all one can say for Pot Luck. p. 260 If you arrive late, you won’t know what anything is about, and if you are there all the way from the beginning, you won’t care. p.

277 There is one thing that appreciably eases the strain for the plays that arrive at this time of year, and that is that practically nothing is expected of them. p. 306 The murdered man meets his death in an intriguing and novel manner, which the management asks its customers, as a personal favor, not to reveal to possible future audiences. It remains a secret, chummily shared by those that have seen the play and the four or five million who read it in its original form as a Saturday Evening Post story a year or so ago. p. 320 It is advertised as “a seagoin’ comedy,” and anytime they go leaving off the final g that way, you know what to expect. p. 324 Chapter 6: 1923[ edit ] Two things made The Dice of the Gods, another play about drugs, seem much better than it had any real right to seem. One was that Morphia had come first, and once you had seen Morphia, nothing seemd so very terrible to you. p. 375 The cure for boredom is curiosity . There is no cure for curiosity.

Widely attributed to Dorothy Parker and to Ellen Parr, but the origin is unknown. “Age Before Beauty.” “Pearls Before Swine.” Widely attributed to Dorothy Parker and Clare Boothe Luce. “Age before beauty” said Luce while yielding the way. “And pearls before swine,” replied Parker while gliding through the doorway. [1] “ Martini Madness: Dorothy Parker didn’t write the famous quatrain about martinis that’s always attributed to her. ”, Troy Patterson, Slate , April 8, 2013 This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. Quoted in The Algonquin Wits (1968) edited by Robert E. Drennan, and The Dispatch (October 1962). As noted at Snopes, Drennan's source seems to be a Parker review which does not seem to contain this quote. If Parker wrote this statement anywhere the primary source seems to have gone missing.

The earliest attribution of this quote was published in the February 1960 Readers' Digest, and credited to a book review by Sid Ziff in the Los Angeles Mirror-News, which existed from 1955 to 1960. This is a little odd, considering that Sid Ziff was a sports columnist; the reference in Readers' Digest has been confirmed but the quote from the Mirror-News has not - see Quote Investigator for details. Quotes about Parker[ edit ] Katharine Hepburn at Reel Classics: Article: The incomparable Katharine Hepburn is woman of the year, every year Personalities: The incomparable Hepburn is woman of the year, every year By Larry Swindell, Star-Telegram Staff Writer The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 11, 1997 For her third Broadway turn and first leading role, she was an Amazon heroine in 'The Warrior's Husband;' and her entrance was a spectacular 15-foot leap to the stage. Night after night, that breathtaking leap, never a broken bone or even a sprained ankle. She was an athlete. Broadway never had seen even a near equivalent of her, and Hollywood of course beckoned.

She said no, the stage was her destiny. The RKO Radio company was persistent, she named an outrageous figure . . . and the studio agreed to it. Every 22-year-old girl has her price. That's how old Katharine Hepburn supposedly was when she met the great John Barrymore in 1932 and commenced working with him for the film of 'A Bill of Divorcement.' Almanacs, movie yearbooks, Who's Who -- every source listed her birth date as Nov. 8, 1909. But when she produced her autobiography four years ago (reportedly without ghostly assistance), she came clean, offering that she was born on May 12, 1907, "despite whatever I may have said earlier." So here's Katharine Hepburn at 90, attaining that milestone tomorrow. Hers has been an eventful life, often tumultuous, certainly triumphant, garnished by what now is acknowledged as one of the world's great love stories for two famous people. Her career? Nothing ever quite like it, Lillian Gish perhaps apart.

Kate Hepburn is a phenomenon of American life, and it's time to take stock of an incomparable nonagenarian. "Box-office poison" She was an immediate movie sensation. David Shipman in his now-standard work `The Great Movie Stars' accords her the highest praise among all those monographed, noting that she was "a star from the word go." Critics the world over -- England's Graham Greene, Russia's Sergei Gerasimov, America's Pauline Kael -- put her above Garbo , above Bette Davis , in a galaxy all her own. But not just yet. Her screen debut in 'A Bill of Divorcement' was historic. Watch it today and she still captivates, as modern as tomorrow. She and Barrymore didn't get on well, but a few years later he rated her the finest actress he'd worked with in a marathon career.

She gained above-the-title billing in her second film, 'Christopher Strong,' enacting an aviatrix with Amelia Earhart overtones; took her first Oscar for 'Morning Glory,' her third movie opus; and for her fourth outing was the best Jo March in the best of all movie versions of 'Little Women.' But she took some getting used to, and toward that end was not very cooperative. She strode through the film colony in trousers, sassed the press and the movieland establishment at every turn, denied having been married although she had been, briefly. When once asked about children, said, "I have five. Three of them are colored." She was her own calculated act and it worked for a time, while the pictures were accomplished and entertaining and profitable. For RKO she registered superbly in 'Alice Adams,' 'Stage Door' and 'Bringing Up Baby.' But she made a disastrous return to the stage in `The Lake,' inciting Dorothy Parker's classic quip that "Hepburn ran the gamut of emotions from A to B".

She was further defamed by pictures that flopped despite her valiant work in them -- 'Spitfire; Break of Hearts; Sylvia Scarlett; Quality Street.' So Hollywood chose to scorn her. In 1938 a major exhibitor's report labeled her "box-office poison," along with such luminaries as Marlene Dietrich , Fred Astaire and Joan Crawford , all of whom kept their calm. But an enraged Hepburn settled her contract with RKO . After contributing a glowing performance at Columbia in 'Holiday' for her most frequent director -- George Cukor -- she left Hollywood for the stage, vowing to return only on her own terms. Philip Barry wrote ' The Philadelphia Story ' especially for her, and as Tracy Lord her second conquest of Broadway was absolute, supported by such then-unknown players as Van Heflin, Shirley Booth and Joseph Cotten . In seeking movie rights to the play, MGM 's Louis B. Mayer learned that Hepburn herself owned them. Mayer capitulated to her salary demand, and gave her the stellar leading men she requested -- Cary Grant and James Stewart .

To this day the 57-year-old ' The Philadelphia Story ' is the screen's supreme comedy of manners and it rehabilitated Hepburn permanently. She joined the MGM star family just as Garbo and Norma Shearer were slipping into retirement. Her contract even gave her script and director approval. For 'Woman of the Year' her chosen director was George Stevens , with whom she had an amorous fling earlier when he directed her in 'Alice Adams' and 'Quality Street.' As Mary Stuart in the 'Mary of Scotland' film made between those two, she had a semiscandalous romance on and off the set with director John Ford . She was also entangled with Howard Hughes near the same time, while he made news circling the globe in an airplane. But permanent love eluded her until 'Woman of the Year' teamed her with a top male star she hadn't met previously. Anti-feminist slant In her memoir Hepburn noted that Spencer Tracy at this time "probably thought I was a lesbian." She coyly added "Not for long." They were a combustible item soon after the project went before the camera . . . and for 26 years afterward.

Katharine Hepburn in her frequent returns to the stage often essayed Shakespearean heroines -- Viola in 'Twelfth Night;' Portia in 'The Merchant of Venice;' a particularly winning Beatrice in 'Much Ado About Nothing,' all at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Conn. But the role she was born to play and didn't is Katherina in 'The Taming of the Shrew.' She did, however, enact the role in life, with Tracy the only Petruchio who could tame her. Indeed, some of their subsequent co-starring exercises, cued by 'Woman of the Year,' were variations on their own relationship; 'Adam's Rib' and 'Pat and Mike' come especially to mind. The Hepburn character typically is in fussy, demonstrative high gear until the Tracy character muffles her, and she likes it. It's ironic, of course, that Hepburn is an icon for feminists, when some of her more memorable movies reveal an anti-feminist slant. That they ultimately appeared in nine films together was a benefit to Tracy and Hepburn both professionally and personally.

Tracy , a tormented Irish soul, had been a careening vessel, mortgaged to alcohol, until Hepburn gave him an anchor. Contrary to popular belief, they could have married. Religion usually was cited as the reason they didn't, with Tracy beheld as unable to divorce the mother of his children. But Louise Tracy was not Catholic, and she and Spencer were married not in a religious ceremony but by a justice of the peace. Tracy and Hepburn did not marry simply because Kate believed it best not to. Through their years together, both stars bloomed. Hepburn the terror metamorphosed into lovable Kate, causing her to remark some 20 years ago that "People have grown fond of me, like some old building." Nor was the steadily upward curve of the Hepburn movie career dependent upon the Tracy connection.

She gave memorable performances in a broad range of Tracy -less ventures -- in 'Song of Love' (as Clara Schumann); in 'Summertime,' whose director -- David Lean -- said bowing to Kate's every whim proved his redemption; in 'The Rainmaker,' a sharp teaming with Burt Lancaster ; and in two of the richest performances ever put on film -- perfectly matched with Humphrey Bogart in John Huston 's ' The African Queen ;' and greater still as the dope-ravaged matriarch of Eugene O'Neill's `Long Day's Journey Into Night.' From a once-hostile movieland community, Hepburn finally attained absolute worship. Their love and her stature are certified by four starring Academy Awards -- no other player has more than two -- and her first and last Oscars were 48 years apart. Her 12 nominations also are record, and look at them: two in the 1930s, two in the '40s, four in the '50s, three in the '60s, and the valedictory nomination and award for `On Golden Pond' in 1981.

Rather like Tracy , she was a durable wonder, going ever stronger while her contemporaries either were retiring or sliding into grade-B horrifics. She never cheapened herself, and prestige was not diminished by her few mistakes -- 'Dragon Seed,' Chinese in an all-non-Chinese cast; 'The Iron Petticoat,' a dubious foil for Bob Hope ; and `Rooster Cogburn,' opposite John Wayne in the disappointing reprise of his 'True Grit' character. Will she film again? Maybe, maybe not, who knows? Lillian Gish essayed a star role at 94. Hepburn's brief appearance in last year's third edition of `Love Affair' was heartbreaking to watch, but no more embarrassing than every other aspect of an ill-advised venture. Yes, a remarkable life, keynoted by spirited independence. In her youth Kate was invited to join the now-fabled Group Theatre that was just starting up, but she wished to succeed as an individual, not as a component of an ensemble. Every great star is highly individual, none more so than Hepburn the Connecticut Yankee.

She tells us that success came despite absence of beauty, but she's wrong, and so were all those who found her looks "interesting" but withheld the compliment of beauty. Look especially at the youthful Hepburn, from 'A Bill of Divorcement' to ' The Philadelphia Story ' (1940), in which she would be -- let's see -- 33. She is radiant, and some of her once-maligned photoplays are indeed excellent, particularly her boy impersonation in 'Sylvia Scarlett' (1936) and her Barrie heroine in 'Quality Street' (1937). Hepburn's RKO tenure merits revaluation; for the 1930s, no other body of work is quite up to it. Oscars and everything else aside, her fame that is sure to be everlasting may always be linked to Spencer Tracy , and perhaps that's as it should be. Happy birthday, Kate. Yes, and many, many more. © 1997 Fort Worth Star-Telegram Katharine Hepburn | Quote Investigator Quote Investigator She Runs the Gamut of Human Emotion from A to B Dorothy Parker? Katharine Hepburn?

Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a famously severe criticism that was aimed at an inexpressive theater performer or movie star in the 1930s. Here are two prototypes: This performer ran gamut of human emotion all the way from A to B. This thespian runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. Can you tell me who spoke this line and who was being criticized? Quote Investigator: This quip is usually credited to the notable wit Dorothy Parker, and she reportedly was attacking the skills of the movie star Katharine Hepburn. But there is some uncertainty about when Parker made the remark. The earliest evidence in the 1930s is not directly from Parker; in fact, the information appears to be thirdhand. Finally, in a 1971 book the movie director and writer Garson Kanin stated that he asked Parker about the gibe, and she acknowledged that it was hers, but she also extolled Hepburn’s artistry. In January 1934 a columnist in The New York Sun newspaper stated that Parker spoke the jest at a cocktail party.

The columnist also referred negatively to Katharine Hepburn’s performance in the film “Christopher Strong”: 1 Which calls to mind the latest sweetly venomous remark of Miss Dorothy Parker anent Miss Hepburn (the Miss Hepburn principally of the lamentable “Christopher Strong”). It was delivered as Miss Parker swept or lolled recently into a cocktail party: “Come,” she said, “let’s all go to see Miss Hepburn and hear her run the gamut of emotions from A to B!” On February 16, 1934 an article in a newspaper in New Orleans, Louisiana ascribed the barb to Parker and suggested that the precipitating event was a Broadway show: 2 When Katharine Hepburn appeared in a play on Broadway, ’tis said that Dorothy Parker cracked: “Miss Hepburn ran the whole gamut of emotions—from A to B.” On February 19, 1934 Time magazine discussed the joke and gave a precise location. According to the periodical Parker delivered the line during an intermission period of “The Lake” which was a Broadway production that ran from December 26, 1933 to February 1934.

Hepburn had a primary role in this play, but the show and her efforts were not well-received: 3 4 During an intermission of The Lake, Dorothy Parker remarked to others in her party: “Well, let’s go back and see Katharine Hepburn run the gamut of human emotion from A to B.” Here are additional selected citations in chronological order. celebrity insults about famous women She has discovered the secret of perpetual middle age. - - - Oscar Levant (about Zsa Zsa Gabor) She not only worships the golden calf, she barbecues it for lunch. - - - Oscar Levant (about Zsa Zsa Gabor) The only person who ever left the Iron Curtain wearing it. - - - Oscar Levant (about Zsa Zsa Gabor) You can calculate Zsa Zsa Gabor's age by the rings on her fingers. - - - Bob Hope Zsa Zsa Gabor has been married so many times she has rice marks on her face. - - - Henny Youngman Katherine Hepburn She has a face that belongs to the sea and the wind, with large rocking-horse nostrils and teeth that you just know bite an apple every day.

- - - Cecil Beaton (about Katherine Hepburn) She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B. - - - Dorothy Parker (about Katherine Hepburn) Marilyn Monroe Her body has gone to her head. - - - Barbara Stanwyck (about Marilyn Monroe) She has breasts of granite and a mind like a Gruyere cheese. - - - Billy Wilder (about Marilyn Monroe) She's a vacuum with nipples. - - - Otto Preminger (about Marilyn Monroe) Elizabeth Taylor Elizabeth Taylor looks like two small boys fighting underneath a thick blanket. - - - Mr. Blackwell Elizabeth Taylor's so fat, she puts mayonnaise on aspirin. - - - Joan Rivers Every minute this broad spends outside of bed is a waste of time. - - - Michael Todd (about Elizabeth Taylor) Other Actresses Her hair lounges on her shoulders like an anesthetized cocker spaniel. - - - Henry Allen (about Lauren Bacall, 1994) A buxom milkmaid reminiscent of a cow wearing a girdle, and both have the same amount of acting talent. - - - Mr.

Blackwell (about Brigitte Bardot, 1962) She's like an apple turnover that got crushed in a grocery bag on a hot day. - - - Camille Paglia (about Drew Barrymore) She speaks five languages and can't act in any of them. - - - John Gielgud (about Ingrid Bergman) A great actress, from the waist down. - - - Dame Margaret Kendal (about Sarah Bernhardt) She looks like she combs her hair with an eggbeater. - - - Louella Parsons (about Joan Collins) Joan always cries a lot. Her tear ducts must be close to her bladder. - - - Bette Davis (about Joan Crawford) A kind of cross between Julia Roberts and Jack Nicholson. - - - Jeremy Novick (about Lolita Davidovich, Modern Review, 1994) She turned down the role of Helen Keller because she couldn't remember the lines. - - - Joan Rivers (about Bo Derek) A woman whose face looked as if it had been made of sugar and someone had licked it. - - - George Bernard Shaw (about Isadora Duncan) Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite sameness.

- - - David Shipman (about Marlene Dietrich) The worst and most homeliest thing to hit the screens since Liza Minelli. - - - John Simon (about Shelley Duvall) Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a boy! - - - Ava Gardner (about Mia Farrow's marriage to Frank Sinatra) Maybe it's the hair. Maybe it's the teeth. Maybe it's the intellect. No, it's the hair. - - - Tom Shales (about Farrah Fawcett) Jane Fonda coming back to the screen after a decade-and-a-half absence in Monster-in-Law is like Brando returning from the dead to star in a Police Academy movie. - - - Michael Sragow Purists, be warned: This scare-flick quickie [House of Wax] has as much relation to the 1953 Vincent Price classic with the same title as Paris Hilton does to acting. - - - Peter Travers Dramatic art in her opinion is knowing how to fill a sweater. - - - Bette Davis (about Jayne Mansfield) Miss United Dairies herself.

- - - David Niven (about Jayne Mansfield) The Russians love Brooke Shields because her eyebrows remind them of Leonid Brezhnev. - - - Robin Williams It's a new low for actresses when you have to wonder what's between her ears instead of her legs. - - - Katherine Hepburn (about Sharon Stone) Whatever it was that this actress never had, she still hasn't got it. - - - Bosley Crowther (about Loretta Young) Insults about famous athletes Martina was so far in the closet she was in danger of being a garment bag. - - - Rita Mae Brown (about Martina Navratilova) Insults about famous comics Roseanne Barr is a bowling ball looking for an alley. - - - Mr. Blackwell The closest thing to Roseanne Barr's singing the national anthem was my cat being neutered. - - - Johnny Carson She is as much fun as barbed wire. - - -Tom Hutchinson (about Sandra Bernhard) I treasure every moment that I do not see her. - - - Oscar Levant (about Phyllis Diller) When it comes to acting, Joan Rivers has the range of a wart.

- - - Stewart Klein Armed with a wiggle and a Minnie Mouse squawk, she is coarse and charmless. - - - Sheila Johnson (about Madonna, 1987) I look at my friendship with her as like having a gall stone. You deal with it, there is pain, and then you pass it. That's all I have to say about Schmadonna. - - - Sandra Bernhard (about Madonna) Not in this lifetime. Why? Because I'm the only one she hasn't done it to. - - - Sharon Stone (when told Madonna has said she wants to kiss her) She is closer to organized prostitution than anything else. - - - Morrissey (about Madonna, 1986) She is so hairy, when she lifted up her arm, I thought it was Tina Turner in her armpit. - - - Joan Rivers (about Madonna) Mariah the fashion pariah ... the queen of catastrophic kitsch - - - Mr Blackwell (about Mariah Carey) I didn't know her well, but after watching her in action I didn't want to know her well.

- - - Joan Crawford (about Judy Garland) She aught to be arrested for loitering in front of an orchestra. - - - Bette Midler (about Helen Reddy) A cross between an aardvark and an albino rat. - - - John Simon (about Barbra Streisand) All legs and hair with a mouth that could swallow the whole stadium and the hot-dog stand. - - - Laura Lee Davies (about Tina Turner) Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed. - - - Ralph Novak (about Yoko Ono) If I found her floating in my pool, I'd punish my dog. - - - Joan Rivers (about Yoko Ono) Insults about famous politicians A senescent bimbo with a lust for home furnishings. - - - Barbara Ehrenreich (about Nancy Reagan) Attila the Hen. - - - Clement Freud (about Margaret Thatcher) Nowadays a parlor maid as ignorant as Queen Victoria was when she came to the throne would be classed as mentally defective. - - - George Bernard Shaw (about Queen Victoria) In feathered hats that were once the rage, she resembles a petrified parakeet from the Jurassic age.

A royal wreck - - - Mr. Blackwell (about Camilla Parker-Bowles) Insults about famous writers She preserved to the age of fifty-six that contempt for ideas which is normal among boys and girls of fifteen. - - - Odell Shepherd (about Louisa May Alcott) A fungus of pendulous shape. - - - Alice James (about George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans) George Eliot has the heart of Sappho; but the face, with the long proboscis, the protruding teeth of the Apocalyptic horse, betrayed animality. - - - George Meredith (about George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans) Every word she writes is a lie, including "and" and "the." - - - Mary McCarthy (about Lillian Hellman) She bellies up to the gourmet cracker-barrel and delivers laid-back wisdom with the serenity of a down-home Buddha who has discovered that stool softeners really work. - - - Florence King (about Molly Ivins) To those she did not like . . . she was a stiletto made of sugar.

- - - John Mason Brown (about Dorothy Parker) Isn't she a poisonous thing of a woman, lying, concealing, flipping, plagiarizing, misquoting, and being as clever a crooked literary publicist as ever. - - - Dylan Thomas (about Dame Edith Sitwell) I am fairly unrepentant about her poetry. I really think that three quarters of it is gibberish. However, I must crush down these thoughts, otherwise the dove of peace will shit on me. - - - Noel Coward (about Dame Edith Sitwell) In her last days, she resembled a spoiled pear. - - - Gore Vidal (about Gertrude Stein) She was a master at making nothing happen very slowly. - - - Clifton Fadiman (about Gertrude Stein) Virginia Woolf's writing is no more than glamorous knitting. I believe she must have a pattern somewhere. - - - Dame Edith Sitwell (about Virginia Woolf) She needs open-heart surgery, and they should go in through her feet. - - - Julie Andrews (about columnist Joyce Haber) Hometown About Maurice Retired . Love reading , real ale , trips to WW1 battlefields Wiltshire villages .

Long time member Western Front Association . Main area of interest in WW1 - Aisne 1914 Likes watching cricket , rugby , football . Music - New Orleans Jazz , Ella Fitzgerald , Ottillie Paterson .Bessie Smith .and the late lamented Eva Cassidy The divineJoan Baez . Curworthy cheese . Dislikes - Darts and snooker and apricot jam . Oh and gardening . Favorite Quotes Dorothy Parker on Katherine Hepburn after a first night - She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B Favorites Dorothy Parker (Go to It Happened in History Archives ) Dorothy Parker On August 23, 1893, an extraordinary event exploded across the universe. On that day, the indomitable, wise-cracking Dorothy Rothschild Parker decided to join the party. Parker was born and raised in West End, New Jersey, to a Jewish father and a Scottish mother who died when her daughter was only five. The loss initially devastated her, although in time she grew to rely more heavily on her father, who had amassed a small fortune in the garment industry.

Father and daughter soon developed a strong bond, and Parker shared with him all of the secrets and joys that only a young child can know. Two years later, he married a strict Roman Catholic woman, and trouble loomed in paradise. Parker disliked her step-mother intensely, and the feeling was mutual. As a young girl, she was enrolled at a Catholic school for girls in Manhattan, later transferring to Miss Dana's Boarding School. Her father told school authorities that she was Episcopalian, although her dark Jewishness marked her as an outsider. She maintained that image of herself--dark, brooding, alone--and in the face of early alienation and disappointment, she developed a biting and irreverent sense of humor to help her cope with her loneliness. Late in life, she described herself as "one of those awful children who wrote verses." Despite her earliest literary inclinations, Parker left school suddenly at the age of fourteen, never to return, to take care of her ill father, who had once again become a widower. When her father died in 1913, Parker moved to New York City to seek a better life. She wrote by day and earned money playing the piano at the Manhattan School of Dance by night.

Few people who knew her then would have guessed that she would work herself up to become a legendary figure in New York's literary scene, as well as one of the most talked about, revered, and feared critics in literary history. Parker began selling poetry to the prestigious Vogue magazine at the age of 19 and soon accepted an editorial position there. From 1917 to 1920, she also worked as a freelance critic for Vanity Fair and formed, along with Robert Benchley and Robert Sherwood, the nucleus of a group they dubbed the Algonquin Round Table, an informal luncheon clique held at New York City's Algonquin Hotel on Forty-Fourth Street. Other Round Table members included writers Ring Lardner, James Thurber, and Harold Ross, who created the New Yorker magazine. Ross said later that he borrowed the tone of voice for his magazine--irreverent, witty, and sarcastic--from those early meetings. Parker was the only female member of the club and often the only woman in attendance. Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania.

- from Comment Parker began her literary career shortly after World War I during an era when slick magazines were one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the country. The best writers of the day relied heavily on sarcasm, adopting a sophisticated, wise-cracking tone of voice. Parker soon proved that she could be just as sassy as any man. An enigma of the day, she stood barely four feet-eleven inches tall. She loved to drink, she loved to dance, she loved to smoke, she loved to swear. And she loved to fall in love with men who didn't love her back. Drama critic Alexander Woollcott described her as "A blend of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth." Parker replied, "[I'm] just a little Jewish girl, trying to be cute." In 1920, Parker was fired from Vanity Fair because her drama reviews had become too harsh and heartless, so she decided to put her cutting-edge cynicism to work in her first book of poems, Enough Rope, which became a national bestseller when it hit the shelves in 1926.

Perfectly suited to the role of the Queen of the Flappers, she bobbed her hair, endured several extra-marital affairs, suffered frequent bouts with alcoholism, and attempted suicide on three (or possibly four, but who was counting?) occasions. Through it all, she somehow managed to maintain the high quality of her writing. She managed, too, despite her cynicism, to take a lifelong if intermittent interest in political activism. One of those projects would affect her for the remainder of her life. It was her "pet" project, or so she called it--a demand for the release of two Italian immigrants who had been arrested for murder. She brought the project to the Algonquin where she engaged the other members of the club in heated debate. She felt strongly that long-time political anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had been set up to take the rap for a crime they didn't commit, and she worked diligently at getting their death sentence overturned. She enticed several other celebrities into joining her, and she was arrested while marching with Robert Benchley and Heywood Broun for the Italians' release.

It was only one of her political crusades that included going to Spain to work against Franco in the Spanish Civil War (the "proudest thing" she ever did), organizing Hollywood screenwriters into a protective guild, and getting blacklisted by the House on Un-American Activities Committee for her leftist social views. But Parker the Activist had to reconcile herself to Parker the working girl; and, in 1927, she joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine where she wrote book reviews under the pen name, Constant Reader. While she was there, she became famous for her two-line quip, Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses. Independent and feisty, Parker--by now an established author--followed up her first book with Sunset Guns (1928) and Death and Taxes (1931), which were collected in Collected Poems: Not So Deep as a Well (1936). Her works in verse were sardonic, dry, and elegantly written commentaries on lost love or on the shallowness of modern life. Why is it no one sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah, no, it's always just my luck to get One perfect rose.

Parker's short stories, which were collected in After Such Pleasures (1932) and Here Lies (1939), illuminated her deep knowledge and understanding of human nature. Among her best-known tales are A Big Blonde and A Telephone Call. During the 1930s, Parker moved with her second husband, Alan Campbell, to Hollywood where she worked as a screenwriter on A Star Is Born (1937), directed by William Wellman and starring Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, and Adolphe Menjou. She received An Academy Award for the screenplay, along with Campbell and Robert Carson. She also collaborated with Peter Vierter and Joan Harrison on Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1940). But her success in Hollywood failed to quench her thirst for sardonic wit, much to the chagrin of many big-name celebrities of the day.

Once, after meeting Joan Crawford, who was married at the time to Franchot Tone, Parker said, "You can take a whore to culture, but you can't make her think." Of the acting talents of Katherine Hepburn, she wrote, "She ran the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B." When Parker turned 70, she said, "If I had any decency, I'd be dead. Most of my friends are." She also said, "Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words." Much of Parker's best writing was collected in the Portable Dorothy Parker , which has been in print since 1944. Of the first ten Portables published by Viking, only the Portable Shakespeare and the Portable Bible have sold as well and as steadily. Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

- from Resume Besides her witty limericks, Parker contributed several words and phrases to America's pop vernacular, including bobbed (hairstyle: 1915), queer (homosexual: 1929), bundle of nerves (1915), it's a small world (1915), and what the hell (colloquial: 1923), not to mention the ubiquitous high society, one-night stand, and, appropriately enough, wisecrack. Dorothy Parker, who once said, "I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true" and "People are more fun than anybody," penned her last sardonic quip on June 7, 1967. She died alone and broken in the New York hotel she had helped to make famous and that had become her final home.

Zia Mahmood on bridge: The extremes of emotions experienced in a single deal | Sport | The Guardian Friday 14 August 2009 The following clarification was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday 19 August 2009 It was not Katharine Hepburn who said, "She ran the entire gamut of emotions from A to B." She was the target of the witticism, which is attributed to Dorothy Parker. We also spelled the actor as Katherine. "She ran", said Katherine Hepburn uncharitably of a fellow actor, "the entire gamut of emotions from A to B." But for bridge players and spectators, even the full alphabet cannot cope with the extreme feelings encountered in a single deal. The team captained by Jan Jansma won the recent Spingold Trophy in the US in impressive fashion, carving their way through a field of champions. On the way, they dispatched my team, thanks in part to today's deal. Game all, dealer North. Imagine yourself as an impartial spectator – what is the par result?

East-West can make five hearts from plus 650, but North-South can sacrifice in five spades at a cost of 500 on best defence. If you were watching developments from my table, you might perhaps not need to go much beyond D in the gamut of emotions, for this was the bidding: If you were North, though, your expectations would be raised by my club lead to dummy's ace – perhaps now you might make the contract. Perhaps not; Hamman ruffed the second round of diamonds, and declarer had to go two down anyway. At the other table, though, supporters of both teams went through the emotional wringer: The auction began at my table, but Ekeblad – perhaps hoping for a spade lead to allow his partner to discard a loser and make a slam – continued to six hearts. Indeed, if North had led a spade the slam would have been cold, but North had a more attractive alternative, and we were due to lose 200 at this table to go with 500 at the other. But, unsure who was doing what to whom, Jansma in turn bid six spades, doubled by Rubin.

Again a club was led, and declarer muddled the play slightly to concede 1100 and 12 IMPs. He had lost this particular battle, but he went on to victory in the war. Today in pictures

Question: Who said of Katherine Hepburn She ran the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B?
Answer: Dorothy Parker