Katharine Hepburn

Her parents were Thomas Norval Hepburn (1879–1962), a urologist at Hartford Hospital, and Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn (1878–1951), a feminist campaigner.

Both parents fought for social change in the United States: Thomas Hepburn helped establish the New England Social Hygiene Association, which educated the public about venereal disease, while the elder Katharine headed the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association and later campaigned for birth control with Margaret Sanger.

As a child, Hepburn joined her mother on several "Votes For Women" demonstrations.

The Hepburn children were raised to exercise freedom of speech and encouraged to think and debate on any topic they wished.

Her parents were criticized by the community for their progressive views, which stimulated Hepburn to fight against barriers she encountered.

Hepburn said she realized from a young age that she was the product of "two very remarkable parents", and credited her "enormously lucky" upbringing with providing the foundation for her success.

She remained close with her family throughout her life.

The young Hepburn was a tomboy who liked to call herself Jimmy and cut her hair short.

Thomas Hepburn was eager for his children to use their minds and bodies to the limit and taught them to swim, run, dive, ride, wrestle, and play golf and tennis.

Golf became a passion of Hepburn's; she took daily lessons and became very adept, reaching the semi-final of the Connecticut Young Women's Golf Championship.

She loved swimming in Long Island Sound, and took ice-cold baths every morning in the belief that "the bitterer the medicine, the better it was for you".

Hepburn was a fan of films from a young age and went to see one every Saturday night.

She would put on plays and perform for her neighbors with friends and siblings for 50 cents a ticket to raise money for the Navajo people.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress whose career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades.

She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, cultivating a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly playing strong-willed, sophisticated women.

She worked in a varied range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and earned her various accolades, including four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any performer.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born on May 12, 1907, in Hartford, Connecticut, the second of six children.

In March 1921, Hepburn, 13, and her 15-year-old brother Tom were visiting New York, staying with a friend of their mother's in Greenwich Village over the Easter break.

On March 30, Hepburn discovered the body of her adored older brother dead from an apparent suicide.

He had tied a curtain tie around a beam and hanged himself.

The Hepburn family denied it was suicide and maintained that Tom's death must have been an experiment that had gone wrong.

The incident made the teenage Hepburn nervous, moody, and suspicious of people.

She shied away from other children, dropped out of Oxford School (now Kingswood-Oxford School) and was tutored privately.

For many years she used Tom's birthday (November 8) as her own.

In 1924, Hepburn was admitted to Bryn Mawr College.

Her early years in film brought her international fame, including an Academy Award for Best Actress for her third film, Morning Glory (1933), but this was followed by a series of commercial failures culminating in the critically lauded box office failure Bringing Up Baby (1938).

Hepburn masterminded her comeback, buying out her contract with RKO Radio Pictures and acquiring the film rights to The Philadelphia Story, which she sold on the condition that she be the star.

That comedy film was a box office success and landed her a third Academy Award nomination.

In the 1940s, she was contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where her career focused on an alliance with Spencer Tracy.

The screen partnership spanned 26 years and produced nine films.

Hepburn challenged herself in the latter half of her life as she tackled Shakespearean stage productions and a range of literary roles.

She found a niche playing mature, independent, and sometimes unmarried women such as in The African Queen (1951), a persona the public embraced.

Hepburn received three more Academy Awards for her performances in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981).

In the 1970s, she began appearing in television films, which later became her focus.

She made her final screen appearance at the age of 87.

It was not until her 1991 autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life, that Hepburn revealed her true birth date.

In 1999, Hepburn was named the greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute.

Raised in Connecticut by wealthy, progressive parents, Hepburn began to act while at Bryn Mawr College.

Favorable reviews of her work on Broadway brought her to the attention of Hollywood.

After a period of inactivity and ill health, Hepburn died in 2003 at the age of 96.