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Katharine Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an iconic star of American 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 Oscars at four. She held the record for most Best Actress nominations at 12, until Meryl Streep earned 13. Hepburn won an Emmy Award in 1975 for her lead role in , 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 the greatest actress of all time. Hepburn had a famous and longtime romance with Spencer Tracy, both on- and off-screen.

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Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to Dr. Thomas Norval Hepburn, a successful urologist from Virginia, and Katharine Martha Houghton, a suffragette and birth control advocate, who, along with Margaret Sanger, helped to found the organization that became Planned Parenthood. Hepburn's father was a staunch proponent of publicizing the dangers of venereal disease in a time when such things were not discussed, and her mother campaigned for birth control and equal rights for women. 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 , which is now held up as an exemplar of screwball comedy.

When Hepburn was young, she found her older brother Tom, whom she idolized, hanging from the rafters by a rope, dead of an apparent suicide. Her family denied that it was self-inflicted, arguing that he had been a happy boy; rather, 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 his father had taught him. Hepburn was devastated by his death and sunk into a depression. She shyed away from children her own age and was mostly schooled at home. For many years she used Tom's birthday as her own. It was not until she wrote her autobiography, , that Hepburn revealed her true birth date.

She was educated at Bryn Mawr College, receiving a degree in history and philosophy in 1928, the same year she debuted on Broadway after landing a bit part in .

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 so she would not be called "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.

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 , which opened in Great Neck, New York. The producer had suddenly fired the play's original leading lady 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 from the play, 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 . 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 ), which 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 leaping down 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, .

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, launching her film career aside legendary actor John Barrymore and director George Cukor, who would become a lifetime friend and colleague.

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. Off-set, Hepburn, who had begun to attract significant press attention, would wear overalls and ratty tennis shoes instead of glamorous clothing fit for a starlet, prompting RKO executives to confiscate her overalls when she refused to change her wardrobe. After RKO refused to return her clothing, Hepburn followed through with her threat to walk across the studio lot in her underwear in full view of several cameras. Embarrassed, the RKO executives confiscated all the photographs and gave her back her overalls.

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 , which broke box-office records.

Intoxicated with her success — an Oscar followed by a smash hit at the box office — Hepburn felt it time to make her return to the theater. She chose , but was unable to obtain a release from RKO and instead went back to Hollywood to film the forgettable movie 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. Generally considered a flop, Hepburn's acting in resulted in 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 , Hepburn earned her second Oscar nomination. By 1938 Hepburn was a bona fide star, and her foray into comedy with the films was well-received critically. But audience response to the two films was tepid, and the good reviews from critics were not enough to rescue her from an earlier string of flops (

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 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 for an extended two-day interview.

She could also be prickly with fans — though she relented as she aged, in her early career Hepburn often denied requests for autographs, feeling it an invasion of her privacy. On the set she was saddled with the label "difficult to work with", an attitude that earned her the nickname "Katharine of Arrogance" among directors and crew. Soon audiences began staying away from her movies.

Hepburn was already reeling from a devastating series of earlier 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. In 1939, Hepburn was offered the part of Scarlett O'Hara in . However she (and David O. Selznick) insisted that she did not have the lustful, sexual appeal that the part needed. Hepburn said she would be a backup for the part if no one could be found. The night before the deadline, Selznick finally cast Vivien Leigh.

Yearning for a comeback on the stage, Hepburn returned to her roots on Broadway, appearing in , a play written especially for her by Philip Barry, a year after Hepburn had starred in the movie version of his play . She played spoiled socialite Tracy Lord to rave reviews. With the help of Howard Hughes, who at one time had been her lover, she purchased the rights to the play and turned it into a hit movie. She was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her work in the movie, in which she appeared with Cary Grant and James Stewart. She enhanced James Stewart's performance; in turn he received his only Oscar. Her career was revived almost overnight.

. Behind the scenes the pair fell in love, beginning what would be one of Hollywood's most famous romances.

They are one of Hollywood's most recognizable pairs both on-screen and off, and have in large part become the standard by which other film romances are judged. Hepburn, with her agile mind and New England brogue, complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo. Tracy seemed to be the only one Hepburn would allow to tame her. When Joseph Mankiewicz introduced them, 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 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."

The pair carefully hid their love 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 didn't live together regularly until the last few years of Tracy's life. Even then, they maintained separate homes to keep up appearances. Tracy, a devout Catholic, had been married to another woman since 1923 and remained so until his death. Friends and biographers have speculated that Tracy's Catholicism was not the main reason why he never sought a divorce — rather, he would have felt too guilty about abandoning his deaf son, John. Though devastated by his death, Hepburn, out of respect for Tracy's family, did not attend his funeral.

Hepburn appeared in a total of nine movies with Tracy, including , for which Hepburn won her second Best Actress Oscar.

Before Tracy, Hepburn 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 be the one true love of her life, and she was so heart broken after he died that she never watched their last film, claiming that watching it with the memories of Tracy were too painful for her.

Hepburn figures in Martin Scorsese's 2004 biopic of Hughes, . However, the movie is a highly fictionalized portrayal of Hepburn and Hughes's relationship, and many portions of the movie involving the relationship are inaccurate. Hepburn was portrayed by Cate Blanchett, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for the role. Hepburn did not, as noted in the film, leave Hughes for Tracy; Hepburn and Hughes had split up years before, in 1938.

(1951), for which she received her fifth Best Actress nomination, although she did not win (losing to Vivien Leigh in ). 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 boozing 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 (1956), although at 49 she was considered by some to be 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'

Hepburn received her second Best Actress Oscar for what some said was essentially a pedestrian role in . She always said she believed the award was meant to honor Spencer Tracy, who died shortly after filming of the movie was completed. The following year she won a record-breaking third Oscar for her role as Eleanor of Aquitaine in

Two years later Hepburn received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Special Program (Drama or Comedy) for , which costarred Laurence Olivier and was directed by George Cukor. Hepburn also appeared opposite John Wayne in , and in "This Can't Be Love" directed by one her close friends, Anthony Harvey ("The Lion in Winter").

Hepburn died of natural causes on June 29, 2003, at 2:50 p.m., at Fenwick, the Hepburn family home, in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She was 96 years old. In honor of her extensive theater work, the bright lights of Broadway were dimmed for an hour.

Her autobiography, , by A. Scott Berg, was published just 13 days after her death. It documents the friendship between the actress and Berg. The book bills itself as an authorized biography, but that has been called into question by [[1]]

Berg was also criticized for inserting himself into the book too much, including by a columnist for the columnist Liz Smith called the book a "self-promoting fakery," and suggested that Hepburn "would have despised it and his betrayal of her friendship." [[2]]

Hepburn's professional legacy is today carried on within her family. Hepburn's niece is actress Katharine Houghton, who appeared with her in (1967). Hepburn's grandniece is actress Schuyler Grant; the two appeared together in the 1988 television movie .

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.

It is sometimes claimed that Audrey Hepburn and Katharine Hepburn were sisters. The truth is they were only very distantly related, and certainly had never met before the former's rise to prominence. The closest relationship that has been identified for them is 19th cousin once removed. It has also been claimed that Audrey chose the last name Hepburn in honor of Katharine when she became an actress, however the record shows that it was part of her family name for some time before she entered show business.

Katharine Hepburn lent her name to some liberal social and political causes, particularly family planning. On the subject of religion, she told a reporter, "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." In 1985 she received the Humanist Arts Award of the American Humanist Association, presented by her friend Corliss Lamont.

There is a Garden dedicated to Katharine Hepburn in New York City on East 49th Street and 2nd Ave. Hepburn lived in a brownstone on East 49th Street. The garden contains 12 stepping stones each enscribed with quotes. One reads "I remember walking as a child, it was not customary to say you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition."

Katherine Hepburn always maintained that she never watched