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Kate
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born on May 12, 1902 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the
second child born to Katharine and Thomas Hepburn. Kate, as she was called by her family
members, had two sisters, Peg and Marion, and three brothers, Tom, Dick, and Bob. Both her
parents always encouraged Katharine to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to
her full potential. She was an actress even as a child. When she was eight years old, she cast and
presented a dramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin with the neighborhood children. She was also
very close to her brother, Tom, and was devastated at age fourteen to find him dead, from
accidentally hanging himself while practicing a trick their father had taught them. Kate then
become very shy around girls her age, and was schooled at home. She attended Bryn Mawr
College, however, and it was here that she decided to become an actress. She appeared in many of
the schools productions. After graduating, she began getting small roles in plays on Broadway
and elsewhere.
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Stardom
Kate finally broke into stardom when she took the starring role of the Amazon princess Antiope in
A Warriors Husband in 1932. Many film offers followed. After a few screen tests she was cast in
Bill of Divorcement, opposite John Barrymore. The film was a hit, and after agreeing to her
salary demands, RKO signed her to a contract.
She made five films between 1932 and 1934. For her third film, Morning Glory, she won her first
Academy Award. Her fourth film, Little Women was the most successful picture of its day. But
stories were beginning to leak out of her haughty behavior off-screen and her refusal to play the
Hollywood game. Katharine always wore slacks and no make-up and never posed for pictures or
gave interviews. Audiences were shocked at her unconventional behavior instead of applauding
it, and so when she returned to Broadway in 1934 to star in The Lake, the critics panned her. The
audiences, who at first bought up tickets, soon deserted her. When she returned to Hollywood
things did not get much better. From the period 1935 to 1938, she had only two hits: Alice
Adams and Stage Door. The many flops included Break of Hearts in 1935, Sylvia Scarlet in 1936,
Mary of Scotland in 1936, Quality Street in 1937, and
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Bringing Up Baby in 1938. With so many flops, she came to be labeled "box-office poison." She

decided to go back to Broadway to star in The Philadelphia Story, and was rewarded with a
smash. She quickly bought the film rights, and so was able to negotiate her way back to
Hollywood on her own terms. The film version of Philadelphia Story, was a box-office hit, and
Hepburn, was bankable again. For her next film, Woman of the Year, she was paired with Spencer
Tracy, and the chemistry between them lasted for eight more films, spanning the course of 25
years, and a romance that lasted that long off-screen. Their films included the very successful
Adam's Rib, Pat and Mike, and Desk Set.
Hepburn moved into middle-aged spinster roles, receiving her fifth Oscar nomination for the film.
She played more of these types of roles throughout the 50's, and won more Oscar nominations for
many of them, including her roles in Summertime, Rainmaker, and Last Summer. Her film roles
became fewer and farther between in the sixties, as she devoted her time to her partner Spencer
Tracy. After a five-year absence from films, she then made Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, her
last film with Tracy and the last
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film Tracy ever made; he died just weeks after finishing it. The next year, she did Lion in Winter.
In the seventies, she turned to making made for TV films, with Glass Menagerie, Love Among the
Ruins and Corn Is Green. She still continued to make an occasional appearance in feature films,
such as Rooster Cogburn, with John Wayne, and On Golden Pond, with Henry Fonda. This last
brought her a twelfth Oscar nomination and fourth win. She holds the record of being the actress
with the most Oscar nominations and most Oscar wins. She made more TV films in the
eighties, and wrote her autobiography, Me, in 1991. Her most recent feature film was Love Affair,
with Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, and her last TV film to date was
One Christmas. She is still very much alive, now in her 90's and retired to Connecticut.
Genius
<Tab/>Genius is personal force and energy of an extremely high order, usually leading to
outstanding achievement. Katharine Hepburn became more than a movie star. Her legend started,
first on screen, then grew into the hearts of people everywhere. Her movies where classics and her
style phenomenal. She proved that women didn't have to show their bodies to get rave reviews.
Katharine once
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said "If you are given a choice between money and sex appeal, take the money," she advised. "As
you get older
the money will become your sex appeal". Katharine who says she is "revered rather like an old
building," always
makes the lists of the world's most admired women. Her career spans more than seven decades,
and she is the only actor or actress who has been nominated for twelve Academy
Awards and the only woman to win four as Best Actress, three of them after the age of sixty.
Katharine Hepburn stood out amongst the other performers of her time, defining beauty in her
own way. She was simple, yet so rare, and her performance was always powerful. Kate kept her
ladylike image in her movie character even with leeches all over her in African Queen
and during an extensive family illness in On Golden Pond. One thing that did set her apart was
that Katharine was full of contradictions. Though always gorgeous, she is not
usually thought of as a glamour girl. She made it seem,
glamorous and even sexiness were attainable for women everywhere and that you can truly make
beauty from the inside shine through.
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My Opinion
<Tab/>Through her accomplishments as an actress I do believe she was a genius. She was
able to change herself through out her life time any acting job. She was nominated for many
awards through out her lifetime. She was a powerful woman on the screen, yet not very many
people knew the real Katharine Houghton Hepburn.
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Reference:
Berg, Scott A (2003). Kate Remembered. New York:
G.P. Putnam's Sons.
"Genius." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2001.
<:2128> (October 28, 2003)
Halliwell, Leslie, "Hepburn, Katharine." Grolier
Multimedia Encyclopedia. Scholastic Library
Publishing, 2004 :2129

(October 28, 2003).