Portrait of Anne Hathaway original portrait traced by Curzon depicted Hathaway. Samuel A. Tannenbaum's editorial in the "Shakespeare Association Bulletin", discussing the Colgate acquisition in 1942, suspected that the "whole business (portrait, notation, and verses) is probably a comparatively modern fake" on the grounds of oddities in the text and handwriting, notably the fact that the ink inscription seemed to have been covering an earlier version in pencil and that parts of it seemed "meaningless or absurd". However, the bulletin reserved judgement. Later scholars have not supported the forgery theory. Assistant Professor of English George M. Friend, funded by the Colgate Research Council, conducted
Anne Hathaway for the musical, Charles Isherwood of "Variety" called Hathaway the highlight of the show and "remarkably unaffected and winning", praising her convincing performance. She won a Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Female. Later, Hathaway voiced the audiobook release of the first three books in "The Princess Diaries" novels. Hathaway portrayed princesses and appeared in family-oriented films over the next three years, subsequently becoming known in mainstream media as a children's role model. After voicing Haru Yoshioka for the English version of "The Cat Returns" (2002), she starred in Douglas McGrath's comedy-drama "Nicholas Nickleby" (2002), which opened to positive reviews.