All All. Sign In. Top Female Actors Of All time. List activity. Katharine Hepburn. Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born on May 12, in Hartford, Connecticut to a suffragist, Katharine Martha Houghton , and a doctor, Thomas Norval Hepburn, who both always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential.
An athletic tomboy as a child, she was very close to her brother Tom; at 14 she was devastated to find him dead, the apparent result of accidentally hanging himself while practicing a hanging trick their father had taught them. For many years afterward, she used his November 8 birth date as her own. She became shy around girls her age and was largely schooled at home. She did attend Bryn Mawr College, where she decided to become an actress, appearing in many of their productions.
After graduating, she began getting small roles in plays on Broadway and elsewhere. She always attracted attention, especially for her role in "Art and Mrs. Bottle" She finally broke into stardom when she took the starring role of the Amazon princess Antiope in "A Warrior's Husband" The inevitable film offers followed; after making a few screen tests, she was cast in A Bill of Divorcement , opposite John Barrymore.
The film was a hit, and after agreeing to her salary demands, RKO signed her to a contract. She made five films between and For her third, Morning Glory , she won her first Academy Award. Her fourth, Little Women , was the most successful picture of its day. But stories were beginning to leak out, of her haughty behavior off- screen and her refusal to play the Hollywood Game, always wearing slacks and no makeup, never posing for pictures or giving interviews.
Audiences were shocked at her unconventional behavior instead of applauding it, and so when she returned to Broadway in to star in "The Lake", the critics panned her, and the audiences, who at first bought up tickets, soon deserted her. When she returned to Hollywood, things didn't get much better.
