The Making of the African Queen, Signed by Katharine Hepburn
[Signed by Katharine Hepburn] Hepburn, Katharine. The Making of The African Queen or How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind. First Edition, Fourth Printing. 1987. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. Signed "Katharine Hepburn" on the half title page.
Hepburn’s title aptly captures the spirit of this lively, informal memoir. Written unmistakably in her own voice—no ghostwriter here—it is Old Hollywood from beginning to end. The story opens in Irene Selznick’s Beverly Hills home with a telephone call from Sam Spiegel, follows the making of The African Queen through the jungles of the Congo alongside the hard-drinking Bogart and Huston, and concludes in Los Angeles at the Academy Awards, where Bogart finally claimed his only Oscar. Along the way, Hepburn comes to admire the larger-than-life Huston despite herself. More than three decades later, she would still regard his work on The African Queen as the finest direction she ever received.
“Supposedly we were getting appropriate clothes, etc., for the jungle. Nothing arrived for me but I couldn’t have cared less, as my own wardrobe was much more suitable to the jungle than it has ever been anywhere else. I may look odd walking across Claridge’s lobby but I’m at the height of chic in the jungle.”
--Katharine Hepburn