Although this film went through vari­ous creative hands and actors in its jour­ney from stage to screen, it seems some­how made for Hepburn. Stage Door is an ensemble piece about aspiring actress­es living in a rundown boarding house in Manhattan. Directed by Gregory La Cava (adapted by Morrie Ryskind and Anthony Veiller from the Broadway play by Edna Ferber and George Kaufman), the movie features an irresistible and unforgettable cast of star and star-adja­cent actresses, with Hepburn as the first among equals. Some of the girls are just starting out, others have scored a play or a revue, most are desperate but trying to hide it. Only two are there for the long haul.

Gathering to bond and commiserate in the living room and stairs of the hos­tel are wisecracking Eve Arden, acerbic Ginger Rogers, bubbly Ann Miller, a warmhearted Lucille Ball, a snooty Gail Patrick, would-be acting coach Con­stance Collier and a desperately serious Andrea Leeds. Katharine Hepburn is the snobby outsider whose upper-class accent and lordly ways turn them off, but in a dramatic climax wins them over. Be­cause of various backstage shenanigans and the wiliness of producer Adolphe Menjou, she wins the part Andrea Leeds felt destined to play, leading to the film’s tragedy. Her theatrical debut features the famous “Calla lilies are in bloom again” line, which Hepburn speaks first stum­blingly then triumphantly.

In that unforgettable scene you have a condensation of her Broadway attempts and failures, her boldness and fragility. The girl who in real life went straight from Bryn Mawr to New York, and im­mediately got herself into a play. There were firings and poor reviews, but after tripping over her own feet and enduring and surviving humiliation, she was dis­covered by Leland Hayward in Bill of Divorcement (1932), then transported to Hollywood and into the hands of such as George Cukor, George Stevens, Doro­thy Arzner.

Molly Haskell