Katharine Hepburn, who won four Oscars during her acting career, is the most successful figure in the history of the Academy Awards. The Academy Awards were established in 1929 to honor brilliance in cinema, and winning an Oscar has long been seen as a high honor among Hollywood performers.
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress who appeared in films, on stage and on television. She was born on May 12, 1907. Hepburn has a 60-year career as a Hollywood leading lady. She was recognized for her headstrong independence, energetic nature, and outspokenness, building a movie character to match her public image, and playing strong-willed, intelligent women frequently.
Her work ranged from screwball humor to literary drama, and she won four Academy Awards for Best Actress, a record for any actor. The American Film Institute voted Hepburn the finest female star of classic Hollywood cinema in 1999.
Her early film career brought her international acclaim, including an Academy Award for Best Actress for her third film, Morning Glory (1933), but she was soon followed by a string of box office flops, culminating in the critically acclaimed box office flop Bringing Up Baby (1938), co-starring Cary Grant. Hepburn orchestrated her return by terminating her contract with RKO Radio Pictures and purchasing the film rights to The Philadelphia Story, which she sold on the condition that she stars in it.
Three more Oscars went to Hepburn for her roles in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1969). (1981). With Hepburn in On Golden Pond, Henry Fonda earned his only Academy Award for Best Actor, as did Stewart in The Philadelphia Story and Bogart in The African Queen.
Her health continued to deteriorate not long after her final film appearance, and she was hospitalized for exhaustion in March 1993. A malignant tumor was discovered in Hepburn’s neck in May 2003. She died of heart arrest on June 29, 2003, a month after her 96th birthday, at the Hepburn family home in Fenwick, Connecticut, when the choice was made not to intervene medically.
