In Memoriam: European Journal Remembers 

KATHARINE H. HEPBURN (1907-2003)     One of the world’s most accomplished actresses. Winner of four Academy Awards.

Katharine Hepburn was born and raised in Hartford and West Hartford. She was the daughter of Katharine  Houghton Hepburn, a member of the rich and socially prominent family that founded the Corning Glass Works and an active supporter of women's rights, and Dr. Thomas Hepburn, a prominent surgeon. The second of five children, Katharine was bright and independent and excelled in athletics. She became interested in the theater at an early age, and at 8, she dramatized Uncle Tom's Cabin, cast it with neighborhood children and presented it in the tiny theater that her father had built for her in the back yard. In 1918, Katharine enrolled at Oxford School and in 1924, at Bryn Mawr College, where she was known as a strange, aloof young woman with few friends. During her first two years at Bryn Mawr, she did not do well scholastically, nor did she participate in any college activities, but sometime during this period she decided that she would become an actress. Two days after her graduation from college, and over the strenuous objections of her father, she began work in a stock company in Baltimore. It was here that she began her long and illustrious acting career. She has received four Oscars and twelve Academy Award nominations; she was named best actress for Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981). Among her other honors are a gold medal as the "world's best motion picture actress" from The Venice International Motion Picture Exposition (1934) and being named "Woman of the Year" by Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club (1958). She has also co-authored and narrated a documentary entitled Katharine Hepburn: All About Me (1991) as well as a book on The Making of "The African Queen" (1987).

Filmography : One Christmas (1994)(TV). Love Affair (1994). This Can't Be Love (1994) (TV). Man Upstairs, The (1992) (TV). Katharine Hepburn: All About Me (1992) (TV). Tales of Helpmann, The (1990) (archive footage). Laura Lansing Slept Here (1988) (TV). James Stewart: A Wonderful Life (1987) (TV). Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986) (TV). George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey (1984). Grace Quigley (1984). On Golden Pond (1981) (AA). Corn Is Green, The (1979) (TV). Olly, Olly, Oxen Free (1978). Love Among the Ruins (1975) (TV). Rooster Cogburn (1975). Delicate Balance, A (1973). Glass. Menagerie, The (1973) (TV). Trojan Women, The (1971). Madwoman of Chaillot, The (1969). Lion in Winter, The (1968) (AA). Guess Who's Coming toDinner (1967) (AA). Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) (AAN). Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) (AAN). Desk. Set (1957). Iron Petticoat, (1956). The Rainmaker, (1956) (AAN). Summertime (1955) (AAN). . Pat and Mike (1952). African Queen, The (1951) (AAN). Adam's Rib (1949). State of. the Union (1948). Sea of Grass, The (1947). Song of Love (1947). Undercurrent (1946). Without Love (1945). Dragon Seed (1944). Stage Door Canteen (1943). Keeper of the Flame (1942). Woman of the Year (1942) (AAN). Women in Defense (1941) (voice). Philadelphia Story, The (1940) (AAN). Bringing Up Baby (1938). Holiday (1938). Stage Door (1937). Quality Street (1937). Mary of Scotland (1936). Woman Rebels, A (1936). Alice Adams (1935) (AAN). Break of Hearts (1935). Sylvia Scarlett (1935). Little Minister, The (1934). Spitfire (1934). Little Women (1933). Christopher Strong (1933). Morning Glory (1933) (AA). Bill of Divorcement (1932) .

Photos from L to R: #1. Bringing Up Baby (1938).  #2. The Philadelphia Story (1940)

One of the silver screen's most unique and enduring personalities, onscreen and off, Katharine Hepburn's career as a leading lady spanned seven decades, over fifty quality films (running the gamut from screwball comedies and romances to high drama), a record twelve Oscar nominations and four gold statuettes.  She formed memorable screen partnerships with the likes of Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy and director George Cukor but outlasted all of them and excelled just as easily on her own.  One of the first stars to take control of her career while still working within the confines of the studio system, Hepburn's career suffered its share of ups and downs, but Hollywood learned never to write her off. After a screen debut performance in George Cukor’s A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT (1932) which earned her favorable notices and the attention of Hollywood, Hepburn joined the ranks of RKO’s highest paid stars and her career took off rapidly.  For her third film, MORNING GLORY (1933), she won the first of her record four Best Actress Oscars for her portrayal of Eva Lovelace, an aspiring actress, opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Adolphe Menjou.  Several dramas soon followed with varying degrees of success, among them notables like LITTLE WOMEN (1933) in which she plays Louisa May Alcott's tomboy heroine Jo, and forgettables like THE LITTLE MINISTER (1934) and BREAK OF HEARTS (1935), both of which failed at the box office. Data: (Reel Classic).

Photo: A  publicity portrait of Kate and Cary for their second screwball comedy of 1938, George Cukor’s HOLIDAY, a comedic love story between two free-thinking social outcasts.

After proving her dramatic merit in a series of melodramas for RKO, Hepburn launched into romantic comedies, beginning with George Stevens’ ALICE ADAMS (1935), based on the novel by Booth Tarkington.  Featuring Hepburn as a wallflower from a poor family with high social and romantic aspirations, the film co-starred Fred MacMurray. In 1937, Hepburn faced off against fellow RKO contract player Ginger Rogers  in STAGE DOOR, the screen adaptation of Edna Ferber and George F. Kauffman's play about a boarding house of aspiring actress who match wits to mask their fears and disappointments.  It is in STAGE DOOR that Hepburn delivers her famous line about the calla lilies. Beginning in 1935 with SYLVIA SCARLETT, Hepburn teamed with the haplessly frazzled yet debonair comedian Cary Grant in a series of screwball comedies which have stood the test of time to become the most popular films of her early career.  In Howar Hawks’ BRINGING UP BABY (1938), Kate and Cary run around Connecticut in evening clothes with nets and ropes trying to catch a leopard and recover a missing dinosaur bone. Unfortunately, despite the success of these comedies, Hepburn was labeled "box-office poison" by a group of independent exhibitors in 1937, and fearing the label marked the end of her film career, she bought out the remainder of her RKO contract and returned to New York to resume her acting career Broadway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PAT AND MIKE (1952), Hepburn and Tracy's seventh film together, was written for them by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and was designed to showcase Hepburn's natural athletic abilities.  In the role of a professional athlete, she plays tennis with Don Budge and golf against Babe Didrikson Zaharias, among other notable professionals of the day.   Tracy plays her manager, determined to keep her on the straight and narrow training path and away from Aldo Ray, her boyfriend whose presence causes her to lose confidence in herself and fall apart in competition. In their final film together, Stanley Kramer’s GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967), Hepburn and Tracy play a middle-aged couple whose grown daughter (played by Hepburn's niece Katharine Hougton) announces she is going to marry a black man (played by Sidney Poitier).  Though ground-breaking in many aspects of its approach to the issue of interracial marriage, the film is probably the most dated of the Hepburn-Tracy pairings, but nevertheless features outstanding performances from each, lending both their prestige and their talents to the making of this film.  Tracy died shortly after shooting wrapped.  Nominated for ten Academy Awards including Best Picture, GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER earned Hepburn her second Best Actress Oscar.  As was her custom, she did not attend the ceremony, and George Cukor accepted the award on her behalf.

In 1942, Hepburn launched the third great professional partnership of her career when she appeared with actor Spencer Tracy in MGM’s battle-of-the-sexes romantic comedy, WOMAN OF THE YEAR, directed by her ALICE ADAMS director George Stevens.  Hepburn earned yet another Oscar nomination for her performance as Tess Harding, an international political columnist who butts heads with sports writer Tracy at the same newspaper.  The Hepburn-Tracy pairing proved so successful in WOMAN OF THE YEAR that the couple went on to make a total of nine films together over the next 25 years, the most successful of them being the romantic comedies in which Hepburn's independence both attracts and annoys Tracy in a series of often-madcap adventures. In ADAM'S RIB (1949), Hepburn and Tracy  play  Amanda and Adam Bonner, married lawyers who end up on opposite sides of an attempted murder trial involving a woman who shot her philandering husband.  As advertised, "It's the hilarious answer to who wears the pants!"