Stage Door, is significant not only for Kate's great performance' but for its great ensemble cast of all the best female talent at RKO that included Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, and Ann Miller.

Kate's role in this film was to play a determined amateur who becomes a powerful actress through another's tragedy. There is a play within a play scene that is modeled after Kate's scene in The Lake and her rendition of the line "the calla lilies are in bloom again" became a tag line for years.

The cast includes:

• Katharine Hepburn .... Terry Randall
• Ginger Rogers .... Jean Maitland
• Adolphe Menjou .... Anthony Powell
• Lucille Ball .... Judy Canfield
• Eve Arden .... Eve
• Ann Miller .... Annie
• Gail Patrick .... Linda Shaw
• Constance Collier .... Catherine Luther
• Andrea Leeds .... Kaye Hamilton
• Samuel S. Hinds .... Henry Sims