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Stage Door
Stage Door theatrical poster
Directed by	Gregory LaCava
Produced by	Pandro S. Berman
Written by	Edna Ferber (play) George S. Kaufman (play) Morrie Ryskind Anthony Veiller
Starring	Katharine Hepburn Ginger Rogers Adolphe Menjou Andrea Leeds
Distributed by	RKO
Release date(s)	October 8, 1937 (USA)
Running time	92 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Stage Door is a 1937 RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a single boarding house. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Lucille Ball, Huntley Gordon, Eve Arden, Ann Miller, Constance Collier, Gail Patrick and Andrea Leeds.

The film was adapted by Morrie Ryskind and Anthony Veiller from the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, but the play's storyline and the characters' names were almost completely changed for the movie. The writers listened to the young actresses talking off set during rehearsals and incorporated their style of talking into the film. The film was directed by Gregory LaCava.

Stage Door was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Leeds was nominated as Best Supporting Actress.

Hepburn plays Terry Randall, a young debutante who wants to be an actress. She moves into The Footlights Club, a theatrical rooming house, while trying to make it and rooms with a flippant, cynical dancer, Jean Maitland (Rogers). When producer Anthony Powell (Menjou) makes a play for Jean, Terry breaks up the situation. Terry is given the lead in Powell's new play (her father is working behind the scenes), which breaks the heart of Kaye Hamilton (Leeds), an aspiring actress who had been unable to land any roles and who was hoping that this would be her big break. The totally inexperienced Terry is horribly bad during rehearsals, but on opening night Kaye commits suicide and an emotional Terry gives a heartfelt performance. Terry's father, who had pulled strings to get Terry the role, hoping that the experience would disillusion her and that her stage career would go nowhere, has no choice but to accept the fact that she is now a star.

This is the film in which Hepburn delivers the famous lines: "The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower--suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day; now I place them here in memory of something that has died." When we first hear Terry deliver these lines she is laughably inept, but then on opening night she delivers the same lines with emotional devastation.

• The Internet Broadway Database http://www.ibdb.com
• Dooley, Roger From Scarface to Scarlett: American Films in the Thirties

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