in which a dog buries a rare dinosaur bone. RKO paid King Features $1,000 to use the idea for the film on September 21. Unscripted ad-lib by Grant It has been debated whether Bringing Up Baby is the first fictional work (apart from pornography) to use the word gay in a homosexual context. In one scene, Cary Grant's character is wearing a woman's marabou-trimmed négligée; when asked why, he replies exasperatedly "Because I just went gay all of a sudden!" (leaping into the air at the word gay). As the term gay was not familiar to the general public until the Stonewall riots in 1969, it is questioned whether the word is used by Grant in its original sense (meaning "happy") or is an intentional, joking reference to homosexuality. The line in the film was an ad-lib by Grant, and was not in the script. According to Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet (1981, revised 1987), the script originally had Grant's character say "I...I suppose you think it's odd, my wearing this. I realize it looks odd...I don't usually...I mean, I don't own one of these". Russo suggests that this indicates that people in Hollywood (at least in Grant's circles) were familiar with the slang connotations of the word; however, neither Grant nor anyone involved in the film suggested this. The 1933 film My Weakness had previously used the word "gay" as an overt descriptor of homosexuality; one of two men pining away for the same woman suddenly suggests a solution to their mutual problem: "Let's be gay!" However, the Studio Relations Committee censors decreed that the line was too risqué and had to be muffled. The film This Side of Heaven (1934) included a scene in which a fussy, gossipy interior decorator tries to sell a floral fabric pattern to a customer, who knowingly replies, "It strikes me as a bit too gay." Casting After briefly considering Hawks' cousin Carole Lombard for the role of Susan Vance, producers chose Katharine Hepburn to play the wealthy New Englander because of her background and similarities to the character. RKO agreed to the casting, but had reservations because of Hepburn's salary and lack of box-office success for several years. Producer Lou Lusty said, "You couldn't even break even, if a Hepburn show cost eight hundred grand." At first, Hawks and producer Pandro S. Berman could not agree on whom to cast in