Her injunction, said Berg in Time, was to work hard and to love someone. And to have some fun. "If you're lucky, you keep your health ... and somebody loves you back." Yes. But does this lead to a greater understanding of life's purposes? Berg writes that she "seldom philosophized." But then he told a story about her which is deeply philosophical in its implications. She was asked to attend a memorial tribute for an old friend who had played an important part in her life. She didn't want to go. "What's the point? She's dead. She won't know the difference." Berg persisted: It might mean something to the two sons of the deceased.
Well, OK; she went. After it was over, she told her biographer, "Don't ever have one of those for me." He countered that he was sure some tribute was inevitable. "Well, luckily I won't have to be there for it. And neither should you." The sentiments are emotionally jejune and spiritually empty.
She could be very sharp in deflating the affectations of fellow luminaries. She knew that there were consequences in being a theatrical public figure, and these should be borne. But she seemed to go further. Berg reports that she simply didn't understand stars who sued newspapers for printing lies about them. "I never cared what anybody wrote about me," said Kate, "as long as it wasn't the truth."
That is perplexing. If it's the truth, then she would not want it told? But what then was biographer Berg's commission? To write untruths? But she doesn't want those -- other biographers will do that aplenty. That means he is to write truths about Kate. But she just finished saying that's the one thing she didn't want.
One is forced to deliberate on the vat of nothingness that geniuses offer us when they leave off playing the violin, or painting landscapes, or waging war. There are exceptions, but Kate's life doesn't promise to be one.