NY Public Library gets starlet’s papers

NEW YORK – Picture this: Katharine Hepburn and her chauffeur stopped for speeding in the tiny town of Blackwell, Okla. Hepburn berates the strapping young officer as a “moron” and “dumbbell,” then adds, “If I ever found an Oklahoma car in Connecticut, I would flatten all the tires.”\nWhat could be a scene from a screwball comedy is actually drawn from Hepburn’s real life – at least her version of it.\nA typed, single-spaced account of the arrest during a 1950-51 tour of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” was in one of 22 boxes of papers from Hepburn’s theater career that have been donated to the New York Public Library. They will be available to scholars and fans after they have been cataloged.\nCynthia McFadden, co-executor of Hepburn’s will, said the arrest story is written in the voice of the woman she loved – “impatient, funny and occasionally just a little high-handed.”\n“I suspect she was driving,” McFadden added. “She frequently drover her driver.” \nWhen Hepburn died in 2003, the trustees of her estate chose to donate papers from her film career to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library. They decided to donate papers from her extensive though less-known stage career to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.\nCurator Bob Taylor said the library’s archivists are still going through the papers, which include scripts, photos, letters and scrapbooks.\nTaylor said the materials will be indexed by early February, at which point members of the public will be able to check them out and read them – while wearing white gloves in a special reading room.\nHighlights from the collection were displayed last week on a table at the library.