The Real Philadelphia Story

With the passing of the glamorous East Coast heiress whose story was to rekindle Katharine Hepburn's career and provide Grace Kelly with her most famous role in "High Society",Ian Irvine examines the legacy of the original Tracy Lord

by Ian Irvine

Sunday Telegraph, April 16, 1995

Helen Hope Montgomery Scott died, aged 90, on January 9 this year at her estate, Ardrossan, near Philadelphia. Her obituaries were long and respectful, as befitted someone who had been prominent in wealthy Philadelphia society for more than 70 years. They emphasised her career as a highly eligible heiress and party girl in the Twenties, and as a lavish hostess after her marriage. They mentioned her doing the Charleston with Josephine Baker in Paris, dancing a foxtrot with the Duke of Windsor at El Morocco ("He was pretty good") and lunching with Sir Winston Churchill on Aristotle Onassis's yacht. But all the obituaries opened with the element in her life which had had some curious consequences far from the ordinary life of a wealthy socialite - and which made her indirectly responsible for James Stewart's only Oscar, the establishment of Katharine Hepburn as a major film star and, later, the popularity of the Christian name Tracy. For Hope Montgomery Scott was the inspiration for Tracy Lord, heroine of The Philadelphia Story.

In 1940 the film was "socko boffo" in Variety-speak: winning Oscars and breaking box-office records. But since then it has retained its popularity, regularly featuring in lists of favourite films. The charm of this screwball comedy is obvious: a rich girl has doubts on the eve of her second marriage and, after an episode of self-discovery, remarries her first husband. Cary Grant as the husband and James Stewart as an intrusive reporter both give excellent performances. The humour is sophisticated, witty and bracingly anti-romantic. But it is the personality of Tracy Lord, incarnated by Katharine Hepburn, that compels: a character compounded of beauty, brains, wit, wealth, pedigree, position and, eventually, vulnerability.
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