Oh, I just love this old girl! And I'm so jealous of The Bumbles for getting to tramp around her old stomping grounds. Because I so completely adore her, it's hard for me to choose favorite performances from her incomparable career. But here are three.
Linda Seton. Holiday. Sheltered, impetuous, good-hearted and loving. We watch her fall in love with her sister's beau, Cary Grant, and wrestle with issues of the heart and altruism and integrity. She's a great girl, a great sister and a great soul mate, and you can't help but cheer and ache for her in this romance.
Tracy Lord. T
he Philadelphia Story. Spoiled, imperious and destined to be brought down a peg. Like Holiday, this script is based on a Philip Barry play. And as in Holiday, she's paired with Cary Grant, and once again they have great chemistry. And that seductive scene at the pool with Jimmy Stewart ... sigh ... Nice work if you can get it, Kate, you lucky girl!Christina Drayton. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. While I appreciate it, I don't really like this movie because it's so heavy-handed and dated. But there is this scene. It just slays me every time. Watch Kate watch Spence deliver one of the last speeches of his career. Is she in character? Or is she torn up because she knows how ill her costar is, and how hard this scene is for him physically? Or is she watching her longtime lover tell the world what she's meant to him? I vote for the last option, but that's the romantic in me. She's so beautiful, so graceful, so compelling ... and this most verbal of movie stars is uncharacteristically silent. I think this is the moment that won her a second Oscar.
