Katharine Hepburn wrote about her father giving their money away so another father could buy circus tickets for his family.

Katharine Hepburn Real Money Pictures
Katharine Hepburn Real Money Value

Misattributed

Origin

Social media users have shared a poignant tale attributed to actress Katharine Hepburn in which she ostensibly relates how her father once stealthily gave $20 away to another father so he could afford to take his large family to the circus, even though it meant Hepburn and her father couldn’t see the circus themselves:

This heartwarming tale has no connection to the legendary actress, however. It’s a narrative that was published in the 1995 book “A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul,” part of the popular Chicken Soup collections of inspirational tales.

In that 1995 book, this narrative is credited not to Hepburn, who passed away in 2003, but to Dan Clark, a motivational speaker and life coach who has contributed a number of short stories to the Chicken Soup series.

Jul 03, 2021 Game, set and match: Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in Pat and Mike; Emma Stone in Battle of the Sexes; Andy Samberg, ‘a hoot’ in 7 Days in Hell. Photograph: Alamy, Shutterstock From. Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, CT on Sunday, May 12, 1907 (G.I. Generation generation). She is 114 years old and is a Taurus. Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 June 29, 2003) was an American actress. Known for her fierce independence and spirited personality, Hepburn was a leading lady in Hollywood for more than 60 years.

We note that if this story were actually about Hepburn, who was born in 1907, the $20 her father supposedly gave away back then would be the equivalent of about $270 in 2020 dollars.

Desk Set
Directed by	Walter Lang
Screenplay by	Phoebe Ephron Henry Ephron
Based on	Desk Set 1955 play by William Marchant
Produced by	Henry Ephron
Starring	Katharine Hepburn Spencer Tracy
Cinematography	Leon Shamroy
Edited by	Robert Simpson
Music by	Cyril J. Mockridge
Distributed by	20th Century-Fox
Release date
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,865,000^[1]
Box office	$1.7 million (US rentals)^[2]

Desk Set (released as His Other Woman in the UK) is a 1957 American romantic comedy film directed by Walter Lang and starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. The screenplay was written by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron from the 1955 play of the same name by William Marchant.

Plot[edit]

Spencer Tracy with Katharine Hepburn in a promotional image for Desk Set (1957)

At the Federal Broadcasting Network in Midtown Manhattan, Bunny Watson (Katharine Hepburn) is in charge of its reference library, which is responsible for researching facts and answering questions on all manner of topics, great and small. Watson has been involved for seven years with rising network executive Mike Cutler (Gig Young), with no marriage in sight.

The network is negotiating a merger with another company, but is keeping it secret. To help the employees cope with the extra work that will result, the network head has ordered two computers, or 'electronic brains.' Methods Engineer and efficiency expert Richard Sumner (Spencer Tracy), the inventor of EMERAC ('Electromagnetic MEmory and Research Arithmetical Calculator'), is brought in to see how the library functions, to figure out how to ease the transition. Though extremely bright, as he gets to know Bunny Watson, he is surprised to discover that she is every bit his match.

When they find out the computers are coming, the employees jump to the conclusion they are being replaced. Their fears seem to be confirmed when everyone on the staff receives a pink slip printed out by the new payroll computer. It turns out to have been a mistake; the machine fired everybody in the company, including the president.

Richard Sumner reveals his romantic interest in Bunny Watson, but she believes that EMERAC would always be his first priority. Sumner denies it, but then Watson puts him to the test, setting the machine to self-destruct. Sumner resists the urge to fix it as long as possible, but finally gives in. Watson accepts him anyway.

Cast[edit]

Spencer Tracy as Richard Sumner
Katharine Hepburn as Bunny Watson
Gig Young as Mike Cutler
Joan Blondell as Peg Costello, Bunny's friend and co-worker
Dina Merrill as Sylvia Blair, reference desk worker
Sue Randall as Ruthie Saylor, reference desk worker
Neva Patterson as Miss Warriner
Harry Ellerbe as Smithers
Nicholas Joy as Mr. Azae
Diane Jergens as Alice
Merry Anders as Cathy
Ida Moore as Old Lady
Rachel Stephens as Receptionist
Shirley Mitchell as Myra Smithers

Production[edit]

In the play, Watson (played by Shirley Booth, who was originally intended for the film as well) had only brief interactions with Sumner, and somewhat hostile. Screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron built up the role of the efficiency expert and tailored the interactions between him and the researcher to fit Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.^[3]

The exterior shots of the 'Federal Broadcasting Network' seen in the film is actually the RCA Building (now known as the Comcast Building) at 30 Rockefeller Center in Rockefeller Center, the headquarters of NBC.

The character of Bunny Watson was based on Agnes E. Law, a real-life librarian at CBS who retired about a year before the film was released.^[4]^[5]

Katharine Hepburn Real Money Pictures

This film was the eighth screen pairing of Hepburn and Tracy, after a five-year respite since 1952's Pat and Mike, and was a first for Hepburn and Tracy in several ways: the first non-MGM film the two starred in together, their first color film, and their first CinemaScope film. Following Desk Set their last film together would be 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

The computer referred to as EMERAC is a homoiophonemetonym for ENIAC ('Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer'), which was developed in the 1940s and was the first electronic general-purpose computer. Parts of the EMERAC computer, particularly the massive display of moving square lights, would later be seen in various 20th Century Fox science fiction productions, including both the motion picture (1961) and TV (1964-68) versions of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

The researchers furnish incorrect information about the career of baseball player Ty Cobb as having played for only the Detroit Tigers, when in fact he also played for the Philadelphia Athletics at the end of his career.

Reception[edit]

Bosley Crowther, film critic of The New York Times, felt the film was 'out of dramatic kilter', inasmuch as Hepburn was simply too 'formidable' to convincingly play someone 'scared by a machine', resulting in 'not much tension in this thoroughly lighthearted film'.^[6]

Today the film is seen far more favorably, with the sharpness of the script praised in particular. It has achieved a rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 22 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.78/10. The site's consensus reads: 'Desk Set reunites one of cinema's most well-loved pairings for a solidly crafted romantic comedy that charmingly encapsulates their timeless appeal'.^[7] Dennis Schwartz of Osuz' World Movie Reviews called it an 'inconsequential sex comedy', but contended 'the star performers are better than the material they are given to work with' and that 'the comedy was so cheerful and the banter between the two w