Academy Awards®

KATHARINE HEPBURN
b. Katharine Houghton Hepburn, Hartford, Connecticut, 12 May 1907, d. 29 June 2003

A legend for her prodigious talent and lengthy career, which stretched from the 1930s through the early 1990s, Katharine Hepburn has been voted more Academy Awards ^® than any other actor (as of 2005), though Meryl Streep holds the record (13) for nominations. Of Hepburn's twelve nominations for Best Actress, she received four Awards: Morning Glory , her first nomination (1933); Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967); The Lion in Winter (1968); and On Golden Pond (1981), forty-nine years after her first Oscar ^® . The Academy also nominated her for Alice Adams (1935); The Philadelphia Story (1940), which earned her the New York Film Critics' Best Actress award; Woman of the Year (1942); The African Queen (1951); Summertime (1955); The Rainmaker (1956); Suddenly, Last Summer (1959); and Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), for which she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes International Film Festival.

Following her initial popularity in the early 1930s, Hepburn became known as a feisty, outspoken nonconformist who refused to capitulate to studio publicity demands, gaining a reputation in the mid- to late 1930s as "box office poison." Today her films from this period retain immense appeal, and she seems an independent, intelligent woman forging ahead of social customs (she became infamous for wearing pants) and eschewing demure demeanor. Demonstrating her extraordinary range, Hepburn starred in comedies and dramas as well as theatrical adaptations for television and cinema in her later years. For example, she displays dazzling comic timing and airy grace in the screwball comedy classics Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Holiday (1938), as well as in The Philadelphia Story . Her extraordinary intensity and poignant emotional appeal are evident in Suddenly, Last Summer and Long Day's Journey into Night . Hepburn's fourth Academy Award ^® nomination singled out her performance in Woman of the Year , the first pairing of Hepburn with Spencer Tracy. Hepburn starred with him in a total of nine successful films, most of them addressing topical issues such as gender equality ( Adam's Rib , 1949) and racism ( Guess Who's Coming to Dinner ). The latter film featured Tracy's final appearance, for which the Academy nominated him posthumously; Hepburn won her second Oscar ^® .

The recipient of numerous awards and honors (multiple Emmy and Tony Award nominations, voted top-ranking woman in the American Film Institute's greatest movie legends, lifetime tributes), Hepburn remained unimpressed with all awards, never attending an Academy Awards ^® event as a nominee, though she did contribute a filmed greeting for the Fortieth Academy Awards ^® ceremonies in 1967, the year she won for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner . Despite these slights, Hepburn received a standing ovation when she finally appeared in person at the Forty-sixth Academy Awards ^® show (1973) to present the Irving G. Thalberg Award to her friend and producer Lawrence Weingarten, with whom she had worked on Without Love (1945), Adam's Rib , and Pat and Mike (1952).

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Christopher Strong (1933), Morning Glory (1933), Alice Adams (1935), Stage Door (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Woman of the Year (1942), Adam's Rib (1949), The African Queen (1951), Pat and Mike (1952), Summertime (1955), The Rainmaker (1956), Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Long Day's Journey into Night (1962), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), On Golden Pond (1981)

FURTHER READING

Berg, A. Scott. Kate Remembered . New York: Putnam, 2003.

Britton, Andrew. Katharine Hepburn: Star as Feminist . London: Studio Vista, 1995.

Edwards, Anne. A Remarkable Woman: A Biography of Katharine Hepburn . New York: Morrow, 1985.

Hepburn, Katharine. Me: Stories of My Life . New York: Knopf, 1991.

Leaming, Barbara. Katharine Hepburn . New York: Crown Publishers, 1995.

Diane Carson