GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer and written by William Rose. It stars Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn’s niece Katharine Houghton. The film contains a (then rare) positive representation of the controversial subject of interracial romance, which historically had been illegal in most states of the United States, and still was illegal in 17 states — mostly Southern states — until six months before the film was released. The film is notable for being the ninth and final on-screen pairing of Tracy and Hepburn, with filming ending just 17 days before Tracy’s death. (More from Wikipedia)
When she was just 13, folksinger Janis Ian – perhaps the most relentlessly soul-baring folksinger ever – began writing a heartbreaking song about interracial dating that she called “I’ve Been Thinking”; it was ultimately released in 1965 under the name “Society’s Child”. Unable to bear the hatred of her parents and the taunts of her schoolmates, she eventually breaks under the pressure and calls off the romance herself at the end of the song. Though slow to gain airplay (not to mention record sales), the song eventually peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967 – the same year that the similarly themed film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was released.
(March 2013)
