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Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29,
2003) was an iconic four-time Academy Award-winning American star of film,
television and stage, widely recognized for her sharp wit, New England gentility
and fierce independence.
A screen legend, Hepburn holds the record for the
most Best Actress Oscar nominations, with 12, and wins, with 4 (Meryl Streep
currently holds the record for most overall acting nominations, but that
includes both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nominations). Hepburn won
an Emmy Award in 1975 for her lead role in Love Among the Ruins, and was
nominated for four other Emmys and two Tony Awards during the course of her more
than 70-year acting career. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Hepburn
as the number one female star in their Greatest American Screen Legends list (AFI's
100 Years... 100 Stars). Hepburn had a famous and longtime romance with Spencer
Tracy, both on- and off-screen.
****
Birth name: Katharine Houghton Hepburn
Date of birth: May 12, 1907
Birth location: Hartford, Connecticut, USA
Date of death: June 29, 2003
Death location: Old Saybrook, Connecticut, USA
****
Hepburn's early years
Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to Dr.
Thomas Norval Hepburn, a successful urologist from Virginia, and Katharine
Martha Houghton, a suffragette and birth control advocate, who, along with
Margaret Sanger, helped to found the organization that became Planned
Parenthood. Hepburn's father was a staunch proponent of publicizing the dangers
of venereal disease in a time when such things were not discussed, and her
mother campaigned for birth control and equal rights for women. The Hepburns
demanded frequent familial discussions on these topics and more, and as a result
the Hepburn children were well versed in social and political issues. The
Hepburn children were never asked to leave a room no matter what the topic of
conversation was. Once a very young Katharine Hepburn even accompanied her
mother to a suffrage rally. The Hepburn children, at their parents'
encouragement, were unafraid of expressing frank views on various topics,
including sex. "We were snubbed by everyone, but we grew quite to enjoy that,"
Hepburn later said of her unabashedly liberal family, who she credited with
giving her a sense of adventure and independence.
Her father insisted that his children be athletic,
and encouraged swimming, riding, golf and tennis. Hepburn, eager to please her
father, emerged as a fine athlete in her late teens, winning a bronze medal for
figure skating from the Madison Square Garden skating club, shooting golf in the
low eighties, and reaching the semifinal of the Connecticut Young Women's Golf
Championship. Hepburn especially enjoyed swimming, and regularly took dips in
the frigid waters that fronted her bayfront Connecticut home, generally
believing that "the bitterer the medicine, the better it was for you." She
continued her brisk swims well into her 80s. Hepburn would come to be recognized
for her athletic physicality — she fearlessly performed her own pratfalls in
films such as Bringing up Baby, which is now held up as an exemplar of screwball
comedy.
When Hepburn was young, she found her older brother
Tom, whom she idolized, hanging from the rafters by a rope, dead of an apparent
suicide. Her family denied that it was self-inflicted, arguing that he had been
a happy boy; rather, they insisted that it must have been an experimentation
gone awry. It has also been speculated that the boy was trying to carry out a
trick that his father had taught him. Hepburn was devastated by his death and
sank into a depression. She shied away from children her own age and was mostly
schooled at home. For many years she used Tom's birthday (November 8) as her
own. It was not until she wrote her autobiography, Me: Stories of my Life, that
Hepburn revealed her true birth date.
She was educated at Bryn Mawr College, receiving a
degree in history and philosophy in 1928, the same year she had her debut on
Broadway after landing a bit part in Night Hostess.
A banner year for Hepburn, 1928 also marked her
nuptials to socialite businessman Ludlow ("Luddy") Ogden Smith, whom she had met
while attending Bryn Mawr and married after a short engagement. Hepburn and
Smith's marriage was rocky from the start — she insisted he change his name to
S. Ogden Ludlow so she would not be confused with well-known musician Kate
Smith. They were divorced in Mexico in 1934. Fearing that the Mexican divorce
was not legal, Ludlow got a second divorce in the United States in 1942 and a
few days later he remarried. Although their marriage was a failure, Katharine
Hepburn often expressed her gratitude toward Ludlow for his financial and moral
support in the early days of her career.
On September 21, 1938, Hepburn was staying in her
Fenwick, Connecticut home when the 1938 New England Hurricane struck and
destroyed her house. Hepburn narrowly escaped before the home was washed away.
Hepburn's acting career begins
Theatre
Hepburn cut her acting teeth in plays at Bryn Mawr
and later in revues staged by stock companies. During her last years at Bryn
Mawr, Hepburn had met a young producer with a stock company in Baltimore,
Maryland, who cast her in several small roles, including a production of The
Czarina and The Cradle Snatchers.
Hepburn's first leading role was in a production of
The Big Pond, which opened in Great Neck, New York. The producer had fired the
play's original leading lady at the last minute, and asked Hepburn to assume the
role. Terror stricken at the unexpected change, Hepburn arrived late and, once
on stage, flubbed her lines, tripped over her feet and spoke so rapidly that she
was almost incomprehensible. She was fired from the play, but continued to work
in small stock company roles and as an understudy.
Later, Hepburn was cast in a speaking part in the
Broadway play Art and Mrs. Bottle. Hepburn was fired from this role as well,
though she was eventually rehired when the director could not find anyone to
replace her. After another summer of stock companies, in 1932 Hepburn landed the
role of Antiope the Amazon princess in The Warrior's Husband (an update of
Lysistrata), which debuted to excellent reviews. Hepburn became the talk of New
York City, and began getting noticed by Hollywood.
In the play, Hepburn entered the stage by leaping
down a flight of steps while carrying a large stag on her shoulders — an RKO
scout (Leland Hayward, whom she would later romance) was so impressed by this
display of physicality that he asked her to do a screen test for the studio's
next vehicle, A Bill of Divorcement, which starred John Barrymore and Billie
Burke.
In true Hepburn fashion, she demanded an outlandish
$1,500 per week for film work (at the time she was earning between $80 and $100
per week). After seeing her screen test, RKO agreed to her demands and cast her,
launching her film career aside legendary actor John Barrymore and director
George Cukor, who would become a lifetime friend and colleague. In one of
Barrymore's many attempts to bed her, he pinched Kate's behind on the set. She
said, "If you do that again I'm going to stop acting." Barrymore replied, "I
wasn't aware that you'd started, my dear."
Film
RKO was delighted by audience reaction to A Bill of
Divorcement and signed Hepburn to a new contract after it wrapped. But her
nonconformist, anti-Hollywood behavior offscreen, which would make her one of
the silver screen's most beloved stars and a feminist icon, at the time made
studio executives fret that she would never become a superstar. Though she was
headstrong, her work ethic and talent were undeniable, and the following year
(1933), Hepburn won her first Oscar for best actress in Morning Glory. That same
year, Hepburn played Jo in the screen adaptation of Little Women, which broke
box-office records.
Intoxicated with her success — an Oscar followed by
a smash hit at the box office — Hepburn felt it was time to make her return to
the theater. She chose The Lake, but was unable to obtain a release from RKO and
instead went back to Hollywood to film the forgettable movie Spitfire in 1933.
Having satisfied RKO, Hepburn went immediately back to Manhattan to begin the
play, in which she played an English girl unhappy with her overbearing mother
and wimpy father. Generally considered a flop, Hepburn's acting in The Lake
resulted in Dorothy Parker’s famous quip that the actress "ran the gamut of
emotions from A to B."
In 1935, in the title role of the film Alice Adams,
Hepburn earned her second Oscar nomination. By 1938 Hepburn was a bona fide
star, and her foray into comedy with the films Bringing Up Baby and Stage Door
was well-received critically. But audience response to the two films was tepid,
and the good reviews from critics were not enough to rescue her from an earlier
string of flops (The Little Minister, Spitfire, Break of Hearts, Sylvia
Scarlett, A Woman Rebels, Mary of Scotland, Quality Street). Her career began to
decline.
Box office poison
Some of what has made Hepburn greatly beloved today
— her unconventional, straightforward, anti-Hollywood attitude — at the time
began to turn audiences sour. Outspoken and intellectual with an acerbic tongue,
she defied the era's "blonde bombshell" stereotypes, preferring to wear
pantsuits and disdaining makeup. She also had a famously difficult relationship
with the press, turning down most interviews, which did not help her exposure to
the public. When she did speak with the press, occasionally she fed them lies to
amuse herself. On her first outing with the Hollywood press corps after the
success of A Bill of Divorcement, Hepburn talked with reporters who had invaded
her and her husband's cabin aboard the ship City of Paris. A reporter asked if
they were really married; Hepburn responded, "I don't remember." Following up,
another reporter asked if they had any children; Hepburn's answer: "Two white
and three colored." Hepburn's aversion to media attention did not thaw until
1973, when she appeared on The Dick Cavett Show for an extended two-day
interview.
She could also be prickly with fans — though she
relented as she aged, in her early career Hepburn often denied requests for
autographs, feeling it an invasion of her privacy. On the set she was saddled
with the label "difficult to work with", an attitude that earned her the
nickname "Katharine of Arrogance", (an allusion to Catherine of Aragon), among
directors and crew. Soon audiences began staying away from her movies.
Hepburn was already reeling from a devastating
series of earlier flops when in 1938 she (along with Fred Astaire, Joan
Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and others) was voted "box office poison" in a poll
taken by motion picture exhibitors. In 1939, Hepburn wanted the role of Scarlett
O'Hara, but David O. Selznick insisted that she did not have the lustful, sexual
appeal that the part needed. The night before the deadline, Selznick finally
cast Vivien Leigh.
Yearning for a comeback on the stage, Hepburn
returned to her roots on Broadway, appearing in The Philadelphia Story, a play
written especially for her by Philip Barry, a year after Hepburn had starred in
the film version of his play Holiday. She played spoiled socialite Tracy Lord to
rave reviews. With the help of Howard Hughes, who at one time had been her
lover, she purchased the rights to the play and turned it into a hit movie. She
was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her work in the movie, in which she
appeared with Cary Grant and James Stewart. She enhanced James Stewart's
performance; in turn he received his only Oscar. Her career was revived almost
overnight.
Hepburn and Spencer Tracy
In 1942, Hepburn made her first appearance opposite
Spencer Tracy in Woman of the Year. Behind the scenes the pair fell in love,
beginning what would become one of the silver screen's most famous romances.
They are one of Hollywood's most recognizable pairs
both on-screen and off, and have in large part become the standard by which
other film romances are judged. Hepburn, with her agile mind and New England
brogue, complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo. Most of their films
together stress the sparks that can fly when a couple try to find an equable
balance of power. When Joseph Mankiewicz introduced the two, Hepburn, who was
wearing special heels that added several inches to her lanky frame, said, "I'm
afraid I'm too tall for you, Mr. Tracy." Mankiewicz retorted, "Don't worry,
he'll soon cut you down to size." The sexy sparring over power and control
almost always resolves, in their movies together, into an agreement to share and
share alike.
As the Daily Telegraph observed in Hepburn's
obituary, "Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were at their most seductive when their
verbal fencing was sharpest: it was hard to say whether they delighted more in
the battle or in each other."
The pair carefully hid their love from the public,
using back entrances to studios and hotels and assiduously avoiding the press.
Hepburn and Tracy were undeniably a couple for decades, but did not live
together regularly until the last few years of Tracy's life. Even then, they
maintained separate homes to keep up appearances. Tracy, a Roman Catholic, had
been married to the former Louise Treadwell since 1923, and remained so until
his death.[1]
Hepburn appeared in a total of nine movies with
Tracy, including Adam's Rib and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, for which Hepburn
won her second Best Actress Oscar.
Before Tracy, Hepburn had relationships with
several Hollywood directors and personalities, including her agent Leland
Hayward. Hepburn also had a famous affair with billionaire aviator Howard
Hughes. Tracy, however, seemed to be her one true love. She was so heartbroken
after he died that she never watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, saying it
evoked memories of Tracy that were too painful.
Hepburn figures in Martin Scorsese's 2004 biopic of
Hughes, The Aviator. However, the movie is a highly fictionalized portrayal of
Hepburn and Hughes' courtship, and many portions of the movie involving their
relationship are inaccurate. Hepburn did not, as noted in the film, leave Hughes
for Tracy; Hepburn and Hughes had split up years before, in 1938. Hepburn was
portrayed by Cate Blanchett, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her
performance.
The African Queen
Hepburn is perhaps best remembered for her role in
The African Queen (1951), for which she received her fifth Best Actress
nomination, although she did not win (losing to Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar
Named Desire). She played a prim spinster missionary in Africa who convinces
Humphrey Bogart's character, a hard-drinking riverboat captain, to use his boat
to attack a German ship.
Filmed mostly on location in Africa, almost all the
cast and crew suffered from malaria and dysentery — except director John Huston
and Bogart, neither of whom ever drank any water. Hepburn, ever the urologist's
daughter, disapproved of the two men's boozing and piously drank gallons of
water each day to spite them. She wound up so sick with dysentery that even
months after she returned home the famously vigorous actress was still ill. The
trip and the movie made such an impact on her that later in life she wrote a
book about filming the movie: The Making of The African Queen: Or, How I Went to
Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, which made her a
best-selling author at the age of 77.
Later Film Career
Following The African Queen Hepburn often played
spinsters, most notably in her Oscar-nominated performances for Summertime
(1955) and The Rainmaker (1956), although at 49 some considered her too old for
the role. She also received nominations for her performances in films adapted
from stage dramas, namely as Mrs. Venable in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last
Summer (1959) and as Mary Tyrone in the 1962 version of Eugene O'Neill's Long
Day's Journey Into Night.
Hepburn received her second Best Actress Oscar for
what some said was essentially a pedestrian role in Guess Who's Coming to
Dinner. She always said she believed the award was meant to honor Spencer Tracy,
who died shortly after filming of the movie was completed. The following year
she won a record-breaking third Oscar for her role as Eleanor of Aquitaine in
The Lion in Winter, an award shared that year with Barbra Streisand for her
performance in Funny Girl.
Hepburn continued to do filmed stage dramas,
including The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), The Trojan Women (1971) by Euripides,
and Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1973). In 1973 she first appeared in an
original television production of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie.
Two years later Hepburn received an Emmy Award for
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Special Program (Drama or Comedy) for Love Among
the Ruins, which costarred Laurence Olivier and was directed by George Cukor.
Hepburn also appeared opposite John Wayne in Rooster Cogburn, which was
essentially The African Queen done as a western. Hepburn won her fourth Oscar
for On Golden Pond (1981) opposite Henry Fonda. In 1994, Hepburn gave her final
three movie performances — One Christmas, based on a short story by Truman
Capote, as Ginny in the remake of Love Affair; and This Can't Be Love, directed
by one of her close friends, Anthony Harvey (The Lion in Winter).
Hepburn's legacy
On June 29, 2003, Hepburn died of natural causes at
Fenwick, the Hepburn family home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She was 96 years
old. In honor of her extensive theater work, the bright lights of Broadway were
dimmed for an hour.
Her autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life, was
published in 1991. The book Kate Remembered, by A. Scott Berg, was published
just 13 days after her death. It documents the friendship between the actress
and Berg. The book bills itself as an authorized biography, but that has been
called into question by The New York Times (see[1]).
Berg has been criticized for inserting himself into
the book too much, including by a columnist for the Hartford Courant. New York
Post columnist Liz Smith called the book a "self-promoting fakery," and
suggested that Hepburn "would have despised it and his betrayal of her
friendship" (see [2]).
Hepburn's professional legacy is today carried on
within her family. Hepburn's niece is actress Katharine Houghton, who appeared
with her in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Hepburn's grandniece is actress
Schuyler Grant; the two appeared together in the 1988 television movie Laura
Lansing Slept Here.
In 2004, in accordance with Hepburn's wishes, her
personal effects were put up for auction with Sotheby's in New York. Hepburn had
meticulously collected an extraordinary amount of material relating to her
career and place in Hollywood over the years, as well as personal items such as
a bust of Spencer Tracy she sculpted herself and her own oil paintings. The
auction netted several million dollars, which Hepburn willed mostly to her
family and close friends, including television journalist Cynthia McFadden.
On September 8 and 9, 2006, Bryn Mawr College,
Hepburn's alma mater, launched the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center, dedicated
to both the actress and her mother. At the launch celebration, Lauren Bacall and
Blythe Danner were awarded the Katharine Hepburn Medals for "lives, work and
contributions that embody the intelligence, drive and independence of the
four-time-Oscar-winning actress." [3]
Trivia
It is sometimes claimed that Audrey Hepburn and
Katharine Hepburn were related. The truth is they were only very distantly
related, and certainly had never met before the former's rise to prominence. The
closest relationship that has been identified for them is 19th cousins once
removed. It has also been claimed that Audrey chose the last name Hepburn in
honor of Katharine when she became an actress; however, the record shows that it
was part of her family name for some time before she entered show business.
Katharine Hepburn lent her name to some liberal
social and political causes, particularly family planning. Her paternal
grandfather, Sewell Hepburn, was an Episcopal clergyman, but on the subject of
religion, she told a Ladies Home Journal reporter, "I'm an atheist and that's
it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each
other and do what we can for other people." In 1985 she received the Humanist
Arts Award of the American Humanist Association, presented by her friend Corliss
Lamont.
There is a garden dedicated to Katharine Hepburn in
New York City on East 49th Street and 2nd Ave. Hepburn lived in a brownstone on
East 49th Street. The garden contains 12 stepping stones each enscribed with
quotes. One reads "I remember walking as a child, it was not customary to say
you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition."
In 1910, the Hepburn family lived at 133 Hawthorne
St. in Hartford, CT. Eight years later, they were recorded living at 352 Laurel
St., also in Hartford. By 1930, Katharine's parents and four younger siblings
had moved to a large eight bedroom house at 201 Bloomfield Avenue in West
Hartford, CT. As of 2006, the house is owned by the University of Hartford.
Katharine Hepburn always maintained that she never
watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, because it was Spencer Tracy's last film.
Out of respect for his wife and family, Katharine Hepburn did not attend Tracy's
funeral.
Height: 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm).
Margaret "Peg" Perry, Hepburn's last surviving
sister, died on February 13, 2006, aged 85 (see [4]). Perry was a librarian in
Canton, Connecticut. She was survived by a daughter and three sons, as well as a
brother (who is Katharine Hepburn's last surviving sibling).
Katharine Hepburn is buried in the Hepburn family
plot in Cedar Hill Cemetery, 453 Fairfield Avenue, Hartford, CT.
Stage work
Night Hostess (1928)
These Days (1928)
Art and Mrs. Bottle (1930)
The Warrior's Husband (1932)
The Lake (play) (1933)
Jane Eyre (1936-1937)
The Philadelphia Story (1939)
Without Love (1942)
As You Like It (1950)
The Millionairess (1952)
The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, and
The Taming of the Shrew (1955)—On tour in Australia with the Old Vic
The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado About Nothing
(1957)—Stratford, Connecticut Shakespeare Theatre
Antony and Cleopatra and Twelfth Night
(1960)—Stratford, Connecticut Shakespeare Theatre
Coco (1969) (Tony Award nomination for Leading
Actress in a Musical)
A Matter of Gravity (1976) (her costar was a young
Christopher Reeve)
The West Side Waltz (1981) (Tony Award nomination
for Leading Actress in a Play)
Filmography
1930s
A Bill of Divorcement (1932)
Christopher Strong (1933)
Morning Glory (1933)—Academy Award for Best Actress
Little Women (1933)
Spitfire (1934)
The Little Minister (1934)
Break of Hearts (1935)
Alice Adams (1935)—Best Actress nomination
Sylvia Scarlett (1936)
Mary of Scotland (1936)
A Woman Rebels (1936)
Quality Street (1937)
Stage Door (1937)
Bringing up Baby (1938)
Holiday (1938)
1940s
The Philadelphia Story (1940)—Best Actress
nomination
Woman of the Year (1942)—Best Actress nomination
Keeper of the Flame (1942)
Stage Door Canteen (1943)
Dragon Seed (1944)
Without Love (1945)
Undercurrent (1946)
The Sea of Grass (1947)
Song of Love (1947)
State of the Union (1948)
Adam's Rib (1949)
1950s
The African Queen (1951)—Best Actress nomination
Pat and Mike (1952)
Summertime (1955)—Best Actress nomination
The Rainmaker (1956)—Best Actress nomination
The Iron Petticoat (1956)
Desk Set (also known as His Other Woman) (1957)
Suddenly Last Summer (1959)—Best Actress nomination
1960s
Long Day's Journey into Night (1962)—Best Actress
nomination
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)—Academy Award
for Best Actress
The Lion in Winter (1968)—Academy Award for Best
Actress
The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969)
1970s
The Trojan Women (1971)
The Glass Menagerie (1973)
A Delicate Balance (1974)
Rooster Cogburn (1975)
Love Among the Ruins (1975)
Olly Olly Oxen Free (also known as The Great
Balloon Adventure and The Great Balloon Race) (1978)
The Corn is Green (1979)
1980s
On Golden Pond (1981)—Academy Award for Best
Actress
George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey (1984)
The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley (1985)
The Spencer Tracy Legacy (1986)
Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986)
Laura Lansing Slept Here (also known as Penthouse
Paradise) (1988)
1990s
The Man Upstairs (1992)
Katharine Hepburn: All About Me (1993)
This Can't be Love (1994)
Love Affair (1994)
One Christmas (1994)
Preceded by:
Helen Hayes
for The Sin of Madelon Claudet Academy Award for
Best Actress
1933
for Morning Glory Succeeded by:
Claudette Colbert
for It Happened One Night
Preceded by:
Elizabeth Taylor
for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Academy Award
for Best Actress
1967
for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Succeeded by:
Katharine Hepburn
for The Lion in Winter
co-awardee with Barbra Streisand
for Funny Girl
Preceded by:
Katharine Hepburn
for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Academy Award for
Best Actress
1968
for The Lion in Winter
co-awardee with Barbra Streisand
for Funny Girl Succeeded by:
Maggie Smith
for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Preceded by:
Sissy Spacek
for Coal Miner's Daughter Academy Award for Best
Actress
1980
for On Golden Pond Succeeded by:
Meryl Streep
for Sophie's Choice
Notes and references
1 Tracy's decision not to divorce was not based on
Catholic Church law. His wife Louise was not Catholic, and they were not married
in the Catholic church, making divorce and remarriage possible for Tracy without
violation of church law.
****
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