Iconic Actress Katharine Hepburn Dies at 96
June 29 Katharine Hepburn, the revered American actress whose career spanned well over six decades, has died. She was 96.
The Hollywood legend died at her home in Old Saybrook, Conn., at 2:50 p.m., ABCNEWS has learned. She was surrounded by family and friends.
One of the last stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Hepburn's roles ranged from ingenue in A Bill of Divorcement to indomitable queen in The Lion in Winter. Some of her better-known films include Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, Pat and Mike, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and On Golden Pond.
Hepburn's life and career were marked by fierce independence, unending vitality and remarkable dedication to friends, family and work. She was the only actor or actress in history to have been nominated for 12 Academy Awards, and the only woman to win four as best actress three of them after the age of 60.
Master of Her Fate
Commenting on why she rarely attended the awards ceremonies at which she was to be honored, Hepburn explained in typically frank fashion, "As for me, prizes mean nothing. My prize is my work." The American Film Institute voted her the greatest American female screen legend of all time.
Hepburn once remarked of her celebrated status in show business, "I'm a legend because I've survived over a long period of time and still seem to be master of my fate I'm still paddling the goddamned boat myself."
Her uniquely East Coast establishment personality made her one of the most outspoken and vital figures in Hollywood history and earned her the unabashed admiration of colleagues and audiences alike.
She always credited her distinctive character to her parents: "The single most important thing anyone needs to know about me," she said, "is that I am totally, completely the product of two damn fascinating individuals who happened to be my parents."
The daughter of a wealthy and unconventional family her father, Thomas Hepburn, was a prominent surgeon and urologist, and her mother, Katharine Hepburn (née Houghton) was a famous suffragette and birth control activist Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born May 12, 1907, in Hartford, Conn.
She would also be deeply affected by the death of her beloved brother, Tom, who hanged himself (it's unclear whether it was a suicide or an accident). It was 14-year-old Kate who found him. For many years after, she would use his birthday, Nov. 8, as her own.
After Tom's death, Hepburn was largely schooled at home, but then went on to Bryn Mawr College. After graduating in 1928, she commenced a career as a theatrical actress, earning a string of increasingly conspicuous parts in summer stock and Broadway productions.
That same year, she married businessman Ludlow Ogden Smith, whom she convinced to change his name to S. Ogden Ludlow so that she would not be known by the plain-Jane name "Kate Smith." The couple soon separated.
A Style All of Her Own
Hepburn's big break came in the form of a starring role as Antiope the Amazon queen in the 1932 Broadway comedy The Warrior's Husband. After summarily rejecting some unacceptable clauses in a film contract offered by RKO, Hepburn joined the studio, debuting in the role of John Barrymore's daughter in George Cukor's A Bill of Divorcement (1932).
She won her first best actress Oscar for her performance in her third feature film outing, the 1933 movie Morning Glory, as an actress trying to make it on Broadway. Her early films positioned her to play physically and verbally strong, rebellious female characters, a forceful persona developed to best advantage in Little Women (1933), Alice Adams (1935, an Oscar-nominated performance) and Sylvia Scarlett (1936).
Katharine Hepburn receives an award from Planned Parenthood in 1988. (Ed Bailey/AP Photo)
From her earliest days in Hollywood, Hepburn exhibited an arrogant disdain for star etiquette. The angular redhead dressed mannishly and unbecomingly by movie idol standards (she wore slacks and refused to wear makeup); her crisp New England diction and uniquely ema
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29 Jun 2003, 11:05 pm
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