Beyond her reputation as a talented but feisty actor, Hepburn was one-half of a controversial celebrity love affair. An encouraged scholar and fiercely independent free-thinker from an early age, one childhood summer she cut her hair short and insisted on being called Jimmy. Tracy was born into a devout Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, his father a truck salesman. Rumors about Hepburns and Tracys sexual orientation would circulate during their lives and continue to fuel media reports long after their deaths. Hepburn won a second Academy Award for Guess Whos Coming to Dinner (1967), a dramedy about interracial marriage; a third for The Lion in Winter (1968), in which she played Eleanor of Aquitaine; and an unprecedented fourth Oscar for On Golden Pond (1981), about long-married New Englanders (Hepburn and Henry Fonda). It's very queer. Katherine Hepburn holds the record for most Academy Awards (Oscars) won (4), having been nominated for 12 (a record until 2003, broken by Meryl Streep). History reports that she died in her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, from natural causes. A strict Catholic, divorce was not and would never be an option for Tracy, who remained married to his wife throughout his life. Whether the relationship was a cover to hide what was then considered improper or one of the greatest romantic unions on and off the big screen, the affection between Tracy and Hepburn existed until their deaths. Tracy and Hepburn in a promotional photo for Without Love. Her tailor-made Hepburn lines included these: "I've always lived my life exactly as I wanted. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.". Through most of her career, Miss Hepburn had a reputation for being private and elusive with the press. Such ease together in front of the camera often had fans assuming Hepburn and Tracy were simply playing themselves. But Parkinsons is a devastating disease, mine is just an irritation.. She also appeared on Broadway in 1976 in "A Matter of Gravity," by Enid Bagnold, and in 1981 in "The West Side Waltz," by Ernest Thompson, who had written "On Golden Pond. Shortly after her death, Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton revealed that the star's head shake was due to a specific type of essential tremor known as a familial tremor, which is inherited from an individual's parents. She was one of six children (three of each gender) born to a socially prominent, well-to-do, activist family. She was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College. Katharine Hepburn, Me: Stories of My Life. (Hepburn had divorced her husband of six years, Ludlow Ogden Smith, in 1934.) She won the Oscars for best actress for her performances in Morning Glory (1933), Guess Whos Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981). It was Grant who introduced her to his friend, the celebrity billionaire Howard Hughes. It's never your fault. She was dismissed from more than one play when she was starting out, but she retained supreme self-confidence. They never got married, but the ring and her love letters to him sold at auction in 2020, per Reuters. She also had relationships with actor Spencer Tracy and entrepreneur and filmmaker Howard Hughes. It was an eloquent and sentimental performance that distilled the way her public and private lives blended. Tracy was unhappily married and the father of two when they met, and he remained married until the end of his life. Her quavering voice and trembling hands unmistakably betrayed the disorder. Hepburn was the daughter of a respected Hartford, Connecticut surgeon and suffragist mother. She added, laughing, "Sometimes I wonder myself.". She also requested that no funeral or memorial service be held. Hepburn, who had been in declining health in recent . History reports that she died in her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, from natural causes. Katharine Hepburn's diet was famously healthy and she was known for her love of spinach. Named the greatest actress in Hollywood history by the American Film Institute in 1999, she set a record by winning four Academy Awards for Best Actress for the films The African Queen (1951), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981). According to TCM, Katharine Hepburn died on June 29, 2003 at the age of 96. She immediately made him change his name to S. Ogden Ludlow, partly because she didn't want to be known as Kate Smith. Lastly, Hepburn requested that her homes in Connecticut and New York be sold and the profits given to her sister, Margaret, her brother, Robert, and the families of her deceased brothers Richard and Marion. Katharine Hepburn's death was caused by cardiac arrest. Her mother, Katharine Houghton, was a suffragist and a strong advocate of birth control. Miss Hepburn is survived by a brother, Dr. Robert H. Hepburn, and a sister, Margaret H. Perry, both of Canton, Conn.; four nieces; and nine nephews. She introduced into her roles a strength of character previously considered to be undesirable in Hollywood leading ladies. Hepburn quickly became a full-fledged star and by 1933, she had won her first Academy Award for her role in "Morning Glory." Katharine Hepburn (May 12, 1907-June 29, 2003) was a celebrated American actress who won a record four Academy Awards for Best Actress in a career that spanned seven decades. "They did a lot for the general public," she said, "to make the world an easier place to live in. It was in "Pat and Mike" that Tracy spoke the often-quoted line about Miss Hepburn's figure, "Not much meat on her, but what's there is `cherce.' Also perBiography, they fell in love and made a total of nine films together. Katharine Hepburn was a spirited film and stage actress with a touch of eccentricity. Parkinsons tremors tend to start on one side of the body, commonly in the hands, and then progress to the other side. She played a free-spirited heiress in "Bringing Up Baby" (1938), opposite Cary Grant and a leopard. According to TCM, Katharine Hepburn died on June 29, 2003 at the age of 96. The frisson of their off-screen romance, always hinted at but never acknowledged during his lifetime, followed them on screen and became especially poignant when they played a married couple in their last movie together, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." When she was diagnosed with cancer of the appendix in 1992, Audrey Hepburn showed true grace. I honestly dont know, she replied. Academy Award (1982): Actress in a Leading Role, Academy Award (1969): Actress in a Leading Role, Academy Award (1968): Actress in a Leading Role, Academy Award (1934): Actress in a Leading Role, Emmy Award (1975): Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Katharine-Hepburn, Turner Classic Movies - Katharine Hepburn, LiveAbout - Katharine Hepburn Biography: Classic Hollywood's Independent Star, AllMovie.com - Biography of Katharine Hepburn, National Portriat Gallery - Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Katharine Hepburn in. That year she made her Broadway debut in Night Hostess, appearing under the alias Katharine Burns. Later she achieved one of her great artistic triumphs in an unlikely role, as the 12th-century Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter" (1968). Spencer Tracy never divorced Louise. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Hepburn recovered some lost ground with her sparkling performances in the screwball comedies Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Holiday (1938), both of which also starred Cary Grant. She was extremely thin all her life. Researchers remain uncertain as to what causes the condition in the first place, but one theory suggests that it is due to the part of the brain known as the cerebellum being unable to communicate correctly with other parts of the brain. Hepburn scored her first major Broadway success in The Warriors Husband (1932), a comedy set in the land of the Amazons. He was 89. David Teather in New York. Katharine Hepburn, who was one of the most well-known and beloved actresses of all time, died at the age of 63 on May 6, 1993, after a long battle with ovarian cancer. ", Katharine Hepburn, Spirited Actress, Dies at 96, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/obituaries/katharine-hepburn-spirited-actress-dies-at-96.html. The cerebellum controls muscle coordination, and when communication is disturbed symptoms connected with motor coordination can occur. The success of "Woman of the Year" (1942) and the stars' off-screen relationship led to other Tracy and Hepburn films that followed a similar pattern. For her third film, Morning Glory (1933), Hepburn won an Academy Award for her portrayal of an aspiring actress. Hepburn once said, I think Howard could understand me better than he could understand himself. In the 1970's she acted in television movies, including the Edwardian romantic drama "Love Among the Ruins" (1975), with Laurence Olivier, and "The Corn Is Green" (1979), both directed by Cukor. We lived a life which he liked. She became an outspoken proponent of liberated womens fashions and was known to ruffle feathers with her preference to wear pants at a time when it was considered taboo for a woman to do so. Her father, Thomas Hepburn, was a successful doctor. Performer Gene Kelly once recalled Hepburn and Tracy getting together at lunchtimes at the studio, where theyd just meet and sit on a bench on the lot. Hepburn had been married previously to Pennsylvania businessman Ludlow Ogden Smith but had divorced in 1934. They led separate lives long before their divorce in 1934, but they remained friendly. Katharine Hepburn, the famously gravel voiced, feisty and stylish actress, died last night at the age of 96. There was still something of the typical Hepburn persona in the steely manipulation and breaking heart of the aging, dismissed queen, but none of the actress's contemporary mannerisms. Although her head shook visibly in television interviews from the 1980's on, she vehemently denied the rumor that she had Parkinson's disease, saying she had inherited her shaking head from her grandfather Hepburn. He died from a heart attack in 1967, aged 66 years. On the day of the service, she followed the procession in her car but turned around right before arriving at the church. She appeared in "The Millionairess," by George Bernard Shaw, on Broadway in 1952. The film was devised to show off Miss Hepburn's well-cultivated athletic ability. One of her most enduring films without Tracy was "The African Queen" (1952), in which she played the straitlaced Rosie opposite Humphrey Bogart for the director John Huston. In her will, Hepburn also specified that she did not want a funeral. Tracy married actress Louise Treadwell in 1923 and the union produced two children, a. In the 2018 documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, Bowers claims to have slept with Tracy and procured female sex partners for Hepburn multiple times. But their offscreen union would remain publicly unacknowledged throughout Tracys life as the couple maintained separate residences and never wed. It was a unique feeling I had for [Tracy], Hepburn wrote in her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life. She became an outspoken proponent of liberated women's fashions and. Hepburn was a 1990 Kennedy Center honoree, and in 1999 the American Film Institute named her the top female American screen legend of all time. Playing a tough, determined actress in "Stage Door" (1937), she read a line from a play "The calla lilies are in bloom again" that became the all-time favorite of Hepburn impersonators. As an actress, she was noted for her brisk upper-class New England accent and tomboyish beauty. Hepburn had suspended her own career for nearly five years to nurse Tracy through what turned out to be his final illness. A mercurial child with little interest in formal education, he found escape in the form of motion pictures. Hepburn, 96, died last month of cardiac arrest at her waterfront home in Old Saybrook. In PEOPLE's . Try a skirt.' However, it was too late: a group of leading film exhibitors had already written off Hepburn as box office poison.. Hepburn's memorabilia collections--her four Oscars, costumes, scripts, photos, and scrapbooks--will be given to a "charitable organization" to be selected by her executors. But the question remains as to whether or not Katharine Hepburn did believe the house she occupied, located at 2320 Bowmont Drive not 2350was haunted. Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 - June 29, 2003) was an American actress. That role led to a Hollywood screen test and her first film role, as John Barrymore's daughter in "A Bill of Divorcement" (1932). Of course, I have an angular face, an angular body and, I suppose, an angular personality, which jabs into people.". In addition, Hepburn appeared frequently on television in the 1970s and 80s. Over time her screen presence softened and became more likable; meanwhile, society was catching up to her willful, independent style. Hughes proposed to Hepburn more than once, and in 1938, gave her a diamond and emerald engagement ring. In her book, Audition: A Memoir, Barbara Walters recalled chatting with Hepburn about Tracy. The play was a hit, and Miss Hepburn owned the rights to it because Howard Hughes, a sometime beau, had bought them for her. I thought of myself first, and that's a pig, isn't it? This gave me great pleasure. Next up is the psychological drama Suddenly, Last Summer, a departure from Hepburn's usual light-hearted fare. Her mother, Katharine Martha Houghton, was a great supporter of women's rights issues including the right to birth control. Audrey Hepburn's first husband was Mel Ferrer, whom she married in 1954. Undaunted, Hepburn accepted a role written specifically for her in Philip Barrys 1938 Broadway comedy The Philadelphia Story, about a socialite whose ex-husband tries to win her back. Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 - June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Tracy Lord is a beautiful, high-spirited rich woman, about to marry her second husband, when her first husband and a reporter who is covering the wedding arrive to create an unexpected romantic tangle. She was one of the most prolific and celebrated actresses of her generation, winning four Academy Awards for Best Actress. Together, Tracy and Hepburn starred in nine movies including their final one, Guess Whos Coming to Dinner before his death in 1967. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. They starred in nine films together, and had an affairan open secret in Hollywoodthat lasted 26 years, ending only with Tracy's death. In her autobiography (1991) Hepburn stated her birth date as 1907. In a rare 1987 interview, Hepburn herself was recorded talking about the tremor. And in later years she kept busy with minor television movies. Asked about the loss of her co-stars in the golden age of Hollywood, Hepburn says: "They're all dead. He and Louise Treadwell married in 1923 and had two children, one of whom was deaf. Throughout her career, she returned to the stage periodically. She continued to make periodic returns to the stage (notably as the title character in the 1969 Broadway musical Coco), but Hepburn remained essentially a film actor for the remainder of her career. He once recalled of her screen test: "She was unlike anybody I'd ever seen or heard. And my head shakes. Theyd hold hands and talk and everybody left them alone in their little private world.. In the film, she plays Violet . However, they neither married nor made their romance public. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. She nonetheless made an impressive movie debut in George Cukors A Bill of Divorcement (1932), a drama that also starred John Barrymore. "Life is hard," she once said. However, Hepburn's idyllic childhood came to end when she encountered the scene of her older brother Tom's suicide. Alongside attempts at keeping his relationship with Hepburn out of the media, Tracy was also battling inner demons. While part of Hepburn's waterfront estate in Old Saybrook will be sold, the actress directed that a portion of the 7.17 acre property be turned over to a government agency or "environmental or conservation organization" that will "protect the lot from development" and maintain the space "for the benefit of the general public.". While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Katharine Hepburn: The star passed away aged 96 back in 2003 (Image: Getty) It is important to note that many suffer from a trembling disorder where movements are so small they cannot be seen. O L D S A Y B R O O K, Conn. Oct. 20, 2000 -- Richard Hepburn, a playwright and the younger brother of actress Katharine Hepburn, has died, his family said Friday. Biography - A Short Wiki. OLD SAYBROOK -- Katharine Hepburn's hometown became the postal capital of the nation today. Miss Hepburn won three more, for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," "The Lion in Winter" and "On Golden Pond," but never showed up to collect any of them. In one 2020 research paper, which compared the prevalence of essential tremors to other cerebellar degenerations, it was logically concluded that essential tremor is by far, the most common form of cerebellar degeneration, suggesting a strong link between the two. American actress, singer, director, producer. Once a medical professional has ruled out any other conditions that could be causing a tremor or shaking, individuals may be advised to abstain from heavy alcohol use, avoid caffeine and avoid certain medications in order to see if this curbs the effect of the shaking. Britannica writes that she was born and raised in Connecticut. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) explains that Hepburn managed to convince MGM to make the movie with her and to allow her to pick the film's director as well as her co-stars. Tracy, whos health had been declining, died of a heart attack before she could reach him. And in "On Golden Pond" (1981) she starred opposite Henry Fonda as a feisty older woman coping with her husband's failing memory and insisting that they should go on and live life to the fullest. Tracy died just 17 days after they had finished filming it. Katharine Hepburn may have been a lesbian, but never a trans man. Alternate titles: Katharine Houghton Hepburn. View Complete Answer Who inherited Audrey Hepburn's wealth? What disease did Katharine Hepburn develop and die from? You can unsubscribe at any time. Essential tremor affects about 5% of people over age 50. But after the death of Tracy's wife, Louise, in 1983, Miss Hepburn felt free to discuss the love affair. He and Miss Hepburn lived together for 27 years, until his death in 1967, and made nine films together. Her stature increased as she chalked up such cinematic triumphs as John Hustons The African Queen (1951), in which she played a missionary who escapes German troops with the aid of a riverboat captain (Humphrey Bogart), and David Leans Summertime (1955), a love story set in Venice. It garnered Hepburn her tenth Oscar nomination and her second win. I can only say that I could never have left him. Eventually, Hepburn was accepted into Bryn Mawr College and discovered acting. Who then inherited her large estate? The movie actress Katharine Hepburn passed away at age 96, astounding.. She also authorized her executors, if they so choose, to pursue publication of her "manuscripts, letters or other personal papers or records." ", After graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1928, she had small parts in stock theater companies.
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