Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn

 On this date in 1982, at the 54th Academy Awards, Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn were awarded Oscars for Best Actor and Actress, respectively, in "On Golden Pond" (1981).

Jane Fonda purchased the rights to the play specifically for father Henry to play the role of the cantankerous Norman Thayer. The father-daughter rift depicted on-screen closely paralleled the real-life relationship between the two Fondas.

The producers originally offered the role of Norman Thayer to James Stewart, but he declined. Barbara Stanwyck was on call to replace Hepburn in the event Hepburn was unable to appear in the film due to the surgery she had undergone just prior to production. That same year, Stanwyck received her honorqary Academy Award.

Apparently, Fonda and Hepburn had not only never worked together, but had never even met prior to working on this picture, despite having mutual friends and acquaintances.

The brown Fedora worn by Fonda in the film belonged to Spencer Tracy and was given to Fonda by Hepburn on the first day on the set. Fonda, overwhelmed with the gesture, painted a still life watercolor of the three hats he wore in the film and gave the original to Hepburn as a gift. He had 200 lithographs made of the painting and sent one to every person who worked on the film. Each copy was numbered and personally signed by Fonda thanking each person by name. In her autobiography, Hepburn wrote that she gave the painting to screenwriter Ernest Thompson. After Fonda's death, she found the painting to be a sad reminder of him and Tracy.