(Redirected from Katharine Houghton Hepburn)
'Katharine Houghton Hepburn' (
May 12,
1907 –
June 29,
2003) was an
iconic 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 wins with four, from twelve nominations (
Meryl Streep currently holds the record for most overall acting nominations with fourteen). Hepburn won an
Emmy Award in 1975 for her lead role in ''
Love Among the Ruins'' opposite her friend
Laurence Olivier, 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 top female star of all time.
Hepburn had a famous and
longtime romance with
Spencer Tracy, both on- and off-screen.
Hepburn's early years
Hepburn was born in
Hartford, Connecticut, to Dr. Thomas Norval Hepburn, a successful urologist from
Virginia, and Katharine Martha
Houghton. Hepburn's father was a staunch proponent of publicizing the dangers of
venereal disease in a time when such things were not discussed. Hepburn's mother campaigned for equal rights for women, and co-founded
Planned Parenthood with birth control advocate
Margaret Sanger. 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'' (1938), which is now held up as an exemplar of
screwball comedy.
On
3 April 1921, while visiting friends in
Greenwich Village, Hepburn found her older brother Tom (born
8 November 1905), whom she idolized, hanging from the rafters of the attic by a rope, dead of an apparent
suicide. Her family denied that it was self-inflicted, arguing that he had been a happy boy. 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 he had seen in a play with Katharine. 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, '', that Hepburn revealed her true birth date.
She was educated at the
Kingswood-Oxford School before going on to attend
Bryn Mawr College, where she was suspended for smoking and breaking curfew, 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. "Luddy" continued to be a lifelong friend to her and the Hepburn family.
On
September 21,
1938, Hepburn was staying in her
Old Saybrook, Connecticut home when the
1938 New England Hurricane struck and destroyed her house. Hepburn narrowly escaped before the home was washed away.
Acting career
Theater
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, 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 required her to wear a very short costume and 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 jumping over 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. At 5 feet, 7 inches (1.71 m), Hepburn was one of the tallest leading ladies of her time.
[1] Her film career was launched alongside legendary actor
John Barrymore and director
George Cukor, who would become a lifetime friend and colleague. In one of Barrymore's many attempts to seduce 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."
To honor the late 20th century legendary actress, a theater is being built in her beloved town of Old Saybrook,Connecticut. Hepburn lived and died in the Fenwick section of Old Saybrook. In the summer of 2008, the state-of-the-art Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center and Theater will open.
[2]
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, Hepburn felt it was time to 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 ''
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. The play was generally considered a flop, and Hepburn's performance elicited
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 forays into comedy with the films ''
Bringing Up Baby'' and ''
Stage Door'' were well-received critically. But audience response to the two films was tepid, and the good reviews from the 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''). As a result, Hepburn's movie 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, early in her career, Hepburn often denied requests for
autographs, feeling it an invasion of her privacy. However, on movie sets, she was eager to learn the ways of the grip people and befriended many of them. Even so, her refusal to sign autographs and answer personal questions earned her the nickname "Katharine of Arrogance"
[3] (an allusion to
Catherine of Aragon). Soon, audiences began to stay away from her movies.
Hepburn was already reeling from a devastating series of 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.
[4] In 1939, Hepburn was going to do producer
David O. Selznick a favor and play the role of
Scarlett O'Hara because he did not yet have anyone else signed for the role. Hepburn insisted that she did not have the lustful sexual appeal that the part demanded and told Selznick that his studio needed to find the woman who did. Hepburn rehearsed the lines thoroughly just in case. The night before the deadline, Selznick finally cast
Vivien Leigh. Unbeknownst to Hepburn and the rest of Hollywood, Vivien Leigh was favored for the role early on, but as a British actress, she was deemed unsuitable for the part. In addition, her affair with
Laurence Olivier while he was in the middle of a divorce made her a controversial pick. The vast "search for Scarlett" was orchestrated to make it seem as if no other actress could be found, thus limiting the shock of Vivien Leigh landing the role. Hepburn was later the maid of honor at Leigh and Olivier's wedding in 1940.
[5]
Hepburn remained a close friend of
Vivien Leigh until Leigh's death in
1967.
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 ex-lover
Howard Hughes, she purchased the film rights to the play and sold them to
MGM, which adapted the play into one of the biggest hits of 1940. As part of her deal with MGM, Hepburn got to choose the director —
George Cukor — and her costars —
Cary Grant and
James Stewart. She was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Actress for her work. Her career was revived almost overnight.
Hepburn and Spencer Tracy
Tracy and Hepburn from the trailer for the film ''
Adam's Rib'' (1949)
Hepburn made her first appearance opposite
Spencer Tracy in ''
Woman of the Year'' (1942), directed by
George Stevens. Behind the scenes the pair fell in love, beginning what would become one of the silver screen's most famous romances, despite Tracy's marriage to another woman.
They became one of Hollywood's most recognizable pairs both on-screen and off. Hepburn, with her agile mind and distinctive New England accent, complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo. 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." 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."
Most of their films together stress the sparks that can fly when a couple try to find an equable balance of power. The sexy sparring over power and control is almost always resolved in an agreement to share and share alike. They appeared in a total of nine movies together, including ''
Adam's Rib'' (1949), ''
Pat and Mike'' (1952), and ''
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner'' (1967), for which Hepburn won her second Academy Award for Best Actress.
The pair carefully hid their affair 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.
[6]
Before Tracy, Hepburn had 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 have been her one true love. Hepburn took five years off from her film career after ''
Long Day's Journey Into Night'' (1962) to care for Tracy while he was in failing health. Out of consideration for Tracy's family, Hepburn did not attend his funeral. She described herself as too heartbroken to ever watch ''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''; she is portrayed by actress Cate Blanchett (who, quite ironically, won an Academy Award for playing Hepburn). 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 depicted in the film, leave Hughes for Tracy; Hepburn and Hughes had split up years before, in 1938.
''The African Queen''
Hepburn in ''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, 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 drinking 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.
In an interview in ''
Playboy'', Huston spoke of how on their days off, he and Bogart would go hunting for
big game, and how one day Hepburn asked to go along. He described her as a "
Diana of the Hunt", utterly fearless, and able to shoot with the best of them.
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 ''
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner''. She always said she believed the award was meant to honor Spencer Tracy, who died shortly after filming 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.''
Peter O'Toole, her co-star in ''The Lion in Winter'', has said in many interviews, including with host
Charlie Rose, that Hepburn was his favorite actor to work with. He and Hepburn remained great friends until her death.
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' ''
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 with
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'').
Death
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 lights of Broadway were dimmed for an hour.
The book ''Kate Remembered'', by award winning biographer
A. Scott Berg, was published just 13 days after her death. It documents the friendship between the actress and Berg. He addresses Hepburn's bisexuality.
[7] Later writers, such as
William J. Mann in ''Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn''
[8], James Robert Parish in ''Katharine Hepburn: The Untold Story''
[9], and Darwin Porter in ''Katharine the Great: A Lifetime of Secrets Revealed (1907-1950)''
[10] treat her bisexuality in more detail.
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.
Honors
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 Katharine Hepburn Medals for "lives, work and contributions that embody the intelligence, drive and independence of the four-time-Oscar-winning actress."
[1]
Katharine Hepburn lent her name to some liberal social and political causes, particularly family planning. In 1985, she received the Humanist Arts Award of the
American Humanist Association, presented by her friend
Corliss Lamont.
Hepburn who resided in a
brownstone located at 244 East 49th Street in the
borough of
Manhattan of New York City was honored posthumously by neighbors in her community. First, a garden near her home was dedicated in her name in 2004.
[11] The garden contains 12 stepping stones each inscribed with quotes. One reads ''"I remember when walking as a child, it was not customary to say you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition."'' In addition to the garden, the intersection of East 49th Street and 2nd Avenue has been renamed Katherine Hepburn Way by the city.
[12]
To mark her 100th birthday in May 2007, the cable channel
Turner Classic Movies dedicated a week of its evening broadcast hours to her films and documentaries on her life.
Family
Katharine Hepburn is listed as one of the descendants of the Mayflower compact author
William Brewster (
her family tree). Her paternal grandfather, Sewell Hepburn, was an Episcopal clergyman, but on the subject of religion, she told a ''
Ladies Home Journal'' reporter in October 1991, "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."
[2]
In 1910, the Hepburn family lived at 133 Hawthorne St. in Hartford, Connecticut. 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. As of 2006, the house is owned by the
University of Hartford.
Margaret "Peg" Perry, Hepburn's last surviving sister, died on
February 13 2006, aged 85 (see
[3]). Perry was a librarian in
Canton, Connecticut. She was survived by a daughter and three sons, as well as a brother (who is Hepburn's last surviving sibling).
Hepburn's professional legacy is today carried on within her family. Hepburn's niece is actress
Katharine Houghton, who appeared as her daughter 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''.
Stage work
★ ''
Night Hostess'' (1928)
★ ''These Days'' (1928)
★ ''Art and Mrs. Bottle'' (1930)
★ ''The Warrior's Husband'' (1932)
★ ''
The Lake'' (1934)
★ ''
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)
★ ''
The West Side Waltz'' (1981) (
Tony Award nomination for Leading Actress in a Play)
★
Constance Collier was a drama coach for many famous actors, including Hepburn during her world tour performing Shakespeare in the 50's. Upon Collier's death in 1955, Hepburn "inherited" Collier's secretary Phyllis Wilbourn, who remained with Hepburn as her secretary for 40 years.
Filmography
Television Work
★ ''
The Glass Menagerie'' (1973)
★ ''
Love Among the Ruins'' (1975)
★ ''
The Corn is Green'' (1979)
★ ''Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry'' (1986)
★ ''The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn'' (1986)
★ ''
Laura Lansing Slept Here'' (1988)
★ ''The Man Upstairs'' (1992)
★ ''This Can't Be Love'' (1994)
★ ''One Christmas'' (1994)
References
1. films42.com
2. kathearinehepburntheater.org
3. Film icon Katharine Hepburn dies at 96 Ann Oldenburg
4. Movie Review: The Hepburn Story, Katharine Hepburn's Career is Back in the Spotlight Ted Mahar
5. Sneak Previews of Forthcoming Books of Special Interest to Southern Californians, Secretly Married Anthony Holden
6. 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.
7. Interview with A. Scott Berg
8. William J. Mann in ''Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn''
9. James Robert Parish in ''Katharine Hepburn: The Untold Story''
10. Darwin Porter in ''Katharine the Great: A Lifetime of Secrets Revealed (1907-1950)''
11. Kate's Place from the New York Post 29/03/2007
12. New York Songlines: 2nd Avenue/Chrystie Street
Further reading
★
Me, Stories of My Life, Katharine Hepburn, Knopf, 1991
★
Kate Remembered, A. Scott Berg, Putnam, 2003
★
Tracy and Hepburn, Garson Kanin, Viking, 1971
★
Kate, Charles Higham, Norton, 1975
★
Knowing Hepburn, James Prideaux
★
Kate - The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann, 2006
External links
★
★
★
★
Katharine Hepburn: Woman of the Year, a tribute site
★
BBC Obituary
★
An Uncommon Woman: Katharine Hepburn (article from Premiere magazine)
★
Katharine Hepburn at Classic Movie Favorites Tribute site: galleries, bio, filmography and more.
★
"Hepburn, Revisited" by William Mann in the New York Times, 12 May 2007
★
★
The Shelf: 100th Anniversary Tribute
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