Kate Hepburn also is known as Katharine Hepburn was born on May 12th, 1907 was an American actress and a well-known woman in the Hollywood industry. She is one of the few ladies who has rocked Hollywood and is known for more than 60 years. Kate appeared in various movies starting from Screwball comedy to many others.
Early Life
She was born on May 12th, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut. She was the second child of six children. Her father’s name was Thomas Norval and her mother’s name was Katharine Houghton. Her father was a Urologist in Hartford Hospital and her mother was a feminist campaigner. Both of them were playing an important part in the social cause in the United States. Her parents did many great works at the time.
All of her children were taught about the freedom of speed and similar things. This is why they were encouraged to think about any topic they want. There are many things that Kate learned during her childhood as their parents were working for various social causes.
In the early days, Kate was a tomboy type of girl. She used to call herself Jimmy and like all the tomboys, she liked short hair more than long hair. Along with the social cause, Kate’s father even taught his kids to swim, run, dive, and ride. This is why the sport was a common thing in their life.
That’s where Kate got her interest in gold when she was young. Once she and her older brother were staying with her mother’s friend. They found her older brother’s body and was staged as a suicide. Her family denied it by saying it must have been an experiment that went wrong.
Due to this, the girl dropped out of Oxford and she shied away from all the other children. She loved her brother so much that she used to keep Tom’s birthday as her birthdate for many years. In her autobiography, she revealed her real birthdate.
College Life
She was in the Byrn Mawen College in 1924 where she was studying in that particular college because her mother also had studied in the same college. She was very uncomfortable in front of the new people because she already dropped out of school and had no idea of how to go ahead.
Hepburn was not that good in the studies, she always struggled with the same thing. Various things in the university were out of her mind. However, acting was not one of them. Unfortunately, the acting was only for people with food grades.
Thereafter, when her grades started to improve, she got a chance to play in the college acting. There were various roles she did. In the final year, she got the lead role in the production of “The Woman in the Moon”. People have a very good response and praised her acting. This is when she was all clear about her acting career.
One of the known memories of her college life was the suspension. She got suspended from college as she was smoking. She was mostly smoking due to the bad academic performance in the previous years.
In June 1928, she completed the education with a degree in Philosophy and was all set to enter into the theatre and be the actress.
Entry into Film Career
Like all the Hollywood star, the entry into the movies was surely not easy. She left the college and was all set to become an actress. She went to Baltimore to meet Edwin who was running a stock heater company.
That’s where she got her first role in the production of The Czarina. She got a pretty good response for her acting which is why she also got the second role. However, the second role wasn’t that good and many people criticized her. She mostly faced criticism because of the voice and not because of the acting.
Kate was not from the people who will give up this soon. She went to a voice tutor and did all the things she could to improve the choice. Knopf Edwin was producing another film where the lead lady was fired and he hired Kate as the leading lady. She did well for four weeks straight. However, she messed up when it was the opening scene. That’s where she was fired and the original lady was back in the film.
After failing a couple of times, she started doing good when she started performing with the help of Summer Stock company located in Connecticut. Among all the movies, the best film that she did was “The Warrior’s Husband”. This film helped her to give the breakout performance and she was being noticed in the Hollywood industry because of this. Leland Hayward found Hepburn in this movie and asked her to feature in the next RKO film. At that time, the upcoming RKO film was “A Bill of Divorcement”. The director was also impressed by the acting skills. Her career life had a lot of setbacks and comeback due to which she was active in parts of years.
Final Years
When she was in her 80s, one of the lines that she said was “I have no fear of death. Must be wonderful, like a long sleep”.
After her final film, she was not that good in the terms of health. She was hospitalized and diagnosed with pneumonia. By the end of 1997, she became very weak and people were feared that was going to die soon. In the final years, she even showed some of the signs of dementia. In May 2003, doctors also found an aggressive tumor in her neck. Not long after that, on 29th June 2003, he passed away due to cardiac arrest. She was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford.
There were many tributes given on television and many people were moved by her death. Many organized also tribute to the actress after hearing the news.