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Oscars quote of the day: Hepburn comforts Hepburn

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Oscar’s biggest winner, Katharine Hepburn (‘Morning Glory,’ ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,’ ‘The Lion in Winter,’ ‘On Golden Pond’), once sent a consoling telegram to Audrey Hepburn when she got snubbed for ‘My Fair Lady’ (Oscar’s best picture of 1964).

‘Don’t worry about not being nominated,’ it read. ‘Someday you’ll get it for a part that doesn’t rate it.’

Looking back from our modern perspective, that telegram may seem like a thoughtful gesture by a veteran trying to comfort a young star, but it was actually a clueless display of outrageous gall.

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Sure, Katharine Hepburn had been a Hollywood trouper for three decades in the early 1960s, but she only had one Oscar at that point (‘Morning Glory’). Audrey Hepburn had won one too (‘Roman Holiday,’ 1953), but was Katharine unaware of that? Or had she forgotten?

--Tom O’Neil

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