Me and Kate

OK, the day I met Katherine Hepburn--well, almost: It was about 20 million years ago, and I was working in Manhattan as a gofer ("editorial assistant") for a children's book publisher. The company was in the Crown Building on Fifth Avenue at 57th Street--a very chi-chi address for a book publisher, especially this one. (Their claim to fame was Disney's My First Encyclopedia, for which I actually wrote a few entries. It was illustrated with Disney characters, and we always called it The Mickey Mouse Encyclopedia.) One day, I had to take some papers to an office on another floor. I got into the elevator, noticing that two older women were in it also, but I didn't really look at them. Then I heard an oddly familiar voice. I looked up and realized that one of the women was Katherine Hepburn. She looked like she was in her late 70s, and she was talking with the other woman, who looked even older. Eventually "Kate" (ahh, why not call her that, at this point?) sensed that I was staring at her. She slowly turned her head and gave me a very imperious look and a little smile--"just like in the movies," as they say. I was too shy to say anything, and embarassed about staring, so I quickly looked down at my papers. The elevator stopped at my floor and I got off. As the doors closed, I heard the two women chuckling softly, and the "other one" (Hepburn's companion?) said, "Well, that was easy." I guess they had expected that I would ask for an autograph or something dumb like that. I later learned that Hepburn's dentist was in the same building, so presumably that's what she was doing there.

Maybe someday I'll tell you about passing Dustin Hoffman on the street.