(A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year One of Publishers Weekly's 100 Best Books of the Year Katharine Hepburn was her own creation. She charmed the public with the image of an East Coast aristocrat, wearing pants and freely speaking her mind, and the image stuck. But that show didn't come easily to her, or without tremendous effort and concealment. None of her success did. What lay beneath Hepburn's public roles was an ambitious, vulnerable woman whose relationships and sexuality were never as simple and wholesome as Kate--and her biographers--suggested. With this biography, William J. Mann challenges much of what we think we know about the Great Kate, and shows how a woman originally considered too controversial for Hollywood stardom learned the fine art of imagemaking, and transformed herself into an icon as all-American as the Statue of Liberty.

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