Early years
Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Katharine Houghton Hepburn (an heiress to the Corning Glass fortune)(née Houghton) and Dr. Thomas Horval Hepburn, who was a successful urologist from Virginia with Maryland roots. She is of English ancestry from both sides of her family.
Hepburn's father insisted the girls do swimming, riding, golf and tennis. Hepburn, eager to please her father, won a bronze medal for figure skating from the Madison Square Garden skating club, shot golf in the low eighties and reached 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 Bringing
More about Katharine Hepburn (From Wikipedia)
Early Years
Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Katharine Houghton Hepburn (an heiress to the Corning Glass fortune)(née Houghton) and Dr. Thomas Horval Hepburn, who read more...
Career
Hepburn developed her acting skills in plays at Bryn Mawr and later in revues staged by stock companies. During her last years at Bryn Mawr, Hepburn met a young producer with a stock read more...
Hepburn And Spencer Tracy
Hepburn made her first appearance opposite Spencer Tracy in Woman of the Year (1942), directed by George Stevens. Behind the scenes the pair fell in love, beginning what would become read more...
The African Queen
One of Hepburn's best performances came as she played Rose Sayer in The African Queen (1951), for which she received her fifth Best Actress nomination, losing to Vivien Leigh in read more...
Personal Life
On June 29, 2003, Hepburn died of natural causes at Fenwick, the Hepburn family home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She was 96 years old, and was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, read more...
Family
Hepburn's genealogy has been researched through the Whittier line back to King Louis IX of France. She is listed as one of the descendants of the Mayflower compact author William read more...
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress of film, television and stage.
Acclaimed throughout her career, Hepburn holds the read more...