Hepburn, Gelman-Waxner, and On The Lot

The other day I finished Katharine Hepburn’s memoir, appropriately titled Me. If you’re looking for a straightforward, factual biography, Me is not the book for you. But if you want to know how it felt for Hepburn to live her life (and don’t mind jumping around in time), this will do the trick. Its place in my reading queue has already been occupied by Citizen Welles, Frank Brady’s biography of the actor-director.

Also on my shelf: If You Ask Me, a collection of columns Libby Gelman-Waxner (aka screenwriter Paul Rudnick) wrote for the dearly-departed Premiere. Very fun, even if too many of these early pieces spend too much time on the fictitious Gelman-Waxner’s family life.

Because of a family commitment, I missed half of Fox’s new reality series, On the Lot. I did get home in time, though, to catch the one director who thought taking off his belt and whipping the stage with it would be a good way to impress the judges. Impress, yes, Good, no.

It’ll be interesting to watch tonight’s episode to see how the directors fared with the 24-hour challenge. When they were told at the end of episode 1 that they would get to work in crews of three, they cheered. I know enough about production issues and group dynamics to say, “Oh, no!” instead.