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Katharine Hepburn Filmography
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Katharine Hepburn: Hepburn's film career begins
Hepburn continued to work in theater, suffering her fair share of bad reviews. Her acting in The Lake resulted in Dorothy Parker’s famous remark that Hepburn "ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." Her big splash on Broadway came with the 1932 play The Warrior’s Husband
(an update of Lysistrata) in which she played an Amazon princess. She entered the stage by leaping down a flight of steps while carrying a large stag on her shoulders — an RKO scout was so impressed by this feat that he offered her a film contract.
But in true Hepburn fashion, she demanded an outlandish $1,500 per week for film work (at the time she was earning $80 per week). After seeing her screen test for A Bill of Divorcement (1932), 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.
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 Morning Glory
. That same year, Hepburn played Jo in the screen adaptation of Little Women, which broke box-office records. In 1935, in the title role of the film Alice Adams, Hepburn earned her second Oscar nomination. By 1938 Hepburn was a bona-fide star, and her foray into comedy with the film
Bringing Up Baby was well-received both critically and at the box office. But it was not enough to rescue her from an earlier series of flops such as The Little Minister (1934), Spitfire
(1934) and Break of Hearts (1935), and her career began to decline.
Some of what has made Hepburn greatly beloved—her unconventional, straightforward, anti-Hollywood attitude—also began to turn audiences sour. Outspoken and intellectual, she defied the era's "blonde bombshell" stereotypes, often choosing to wear pants suits and no makeup. She also had a famously difficult relationship with the press, turning down many interviews. Hepburn's aversion to media attention did not thaw until 1973, when she appeared on The Dick Cavett Show.
She could also be prickly with fans—though she relented as she aged, in her early career Hepburn often denied requests for autographs. 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.
In 1939, Hepburn's career came to what was perhaps its lowest point when she lost out on the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. It was around this time that a publication branded her "box office poison". Hepburn's retort was quick and telling: "Not everyone is lucky enough to understand how delicious it is to suffer."
Smarting, Hepburn returned to her roots on Broadway, appearing in The Philadelphia Story, a play which Philip Barry, the screenwriter for an earlier Hepburn film Holiday, wrote especially for her. She played spoiled socialite Tracy Lord to rave reviews. On the advice of millionaire Howard Hughes, who at the time was her lover, she purchased the rights to the play and turned it into a hit movie, which she appeared in with
Cary Grant and
James Stewart and was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. Her career was revived.
In 1942, Hepburn made her first appearance opposite
Spencer Tracy in Woman of the Year. Behind the scenes the pair fell in love, beginning what would be one of Hollywood's most famous romances.
Hepburn in all filmed nine movies with Tracy, including Adam's Rib
and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, for which Hepburn won her third Best Actress Oscar. They are one of Hollywood's most recognizable screen pairs, and have in large part become the standard by which other screen romances are judged. Hepburn, with her sharp wit and New England brogue, complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo, and he seemed to be the only one Hepburn would allow to tame her. When Joseph Mankiewicz introduced them, Hepburn 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 London Telegraph 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 were openly in love with one another but never married, though Tracy lived with Hepburn. Tracy, a devout Catholic, had been married to another woman since 1928 and remained so until his death. Hepburn, out of respect for his family, did not attend Tracy's funeral.
Before Tracy, Hepburn had relationships with Leland Hayward and Howard Hughes. Hepburn figures in
Martin Scorsese's 2004 biopic of Hughes, The Aviator, portrayed by actress
Cate Blanchett, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for the role. Blanchett, who thanked Hepburn during her acceptance speech, had carried one of Hepburn's silk gloves in her purse during the Oscars for luck.
Hepburn is perhaps best-remembered for her role in The African Queen (1951), for which she won her second Best Actress Oscar. 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 on location in Africa, most of the cast and crew suffered from malaria and diarrhea — except director
John Huston and Bogart, neither of whom ever drank any water. The trip and the movie made such an impact on her that she wrote a book about that portion of her life:
The Making of The African Queen: Or, How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, which made her a best-selling author at the age of 77.
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