Long before feminism was fashionable, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy breezily played out the battle of the sexes on the silver screen, their flinty, acid-tongued exchanges devilishly belying the fact that neither one of them would ever come out on top. Audiences recognized, long before their characters did, the combatants were so hopelessly perfect for one another that their clashes could only end in a romantic détente. And, of course, all that bubbling chemistry spilled over into the actors’ real lives.
Tracy and Hepburn first starred together–or is that contended?–in 1942 when they teamed for the lighthearted feminist fable Woman of the Year, and they couldn’t have been more exquisitely matched. The 42-year-old Tracy–already a two-time Oscar-winner, charismatic and compelling but hardly a handsome screen idol–represented the tough, old-school, masculine side of the equation, a irascible everyman who blustered around women but nevertheless hid a sentimental side. Hepburn, 35, was a blueblood knockout who was fast with a withering quip for patronizing, patriarchal males; her ahead-of-her-time independent streak ruffled feathers in and out of Hollywood and earned her the label “box office poison”-until, that is, she was teamed with “Spence,” as she called him, and audiences were enraptured by their glorious courtship dance. That dance continued through seven more films together over 25 years–Keeper of the Flame, Sea of Grass, State of the Union, Adam’s Rib, Pat and Mike, Desk Set and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner–and grew even more passionate off the set. The couple became inseparable, save for one enduring complication. A devout Catholic, Tracy could never bring himself to divorce his wife (despite the fact that they lived apart for decades) and marry his devoted co-star, so it was only on screen that the couple would play man and wife. They did just that for the last time in 1967’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner–. Their long-standing ardor–and their lively differences–well informed their performances in the racially charged story, making it both real and relatable for all generations in the socially changing times. It was a career-capping moment for Tracy, who died only a few weeks after finishing the film. Hepburn, of course, was at his side in the end–as she will be forever in the films that chronicle the joyous push and pull of their (and our) romantic struggles.
