Post by dreamer on Nov 30, 2007 16:31:18 GMT -5
Bursting into Hollywood’s dream factory, Katharine Hepburn was an ironic misfit, sporting a highly stylized personality and headstrong independence that boldly announced a new kind of female presence on the silver screen.
Beginnings
Born into an eccentric New England family, Katharine Hepburn was brought up to be free-thinking and unconventional. Her physician father did pioneering work against venereal disease, and her mother campaigned for women’s suffrage and birth control. Shattered by her brother’s apparent suicide in her teens, Hepburn remained aloof and withdrawn until she ventured into theater at Bryn Mawr. Acting offered a release, and an audience that applauded. Her father was right: she liked to show off.
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/beginnings.html
Early Hollywood
After a striking appearance in The Warrior’s Husband on Broadway, Katharine Hepburn landed in Hollywood in 1932 and became a star in her first film, A Bill of Divorcement. She won an Academy Award for her third picture, Morning Glory (1933), and soon gave classic performances in Little Women (1933), Holiday (1938), and Bringing Up Baby (1938). But she also appeared in a series of oddball movies—including Christopher Strong (1933) and Sylvia Scarlett (1935)—that turned audiences against her: by 1938, she was labeled “box office poison.”
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/earlyhollywood.html
Stardom
Katharine Hepburn catapulted from the defeat of her early Hollywood career by coming back to the East Coast and transforming herself. Playwright Philip Barry wrote The Philadelphia Story for her, and in the wake of its huge Broadway success in 1939, Hepburn’s then-beau Howard Hughes—at the time a rich and dashing aviator—gave her the money to buy the film rights. And from this moment on, Kate would be in charge of her own destiny.
Her return to Hollywood was triumphant, and the glamorous, self-possessed image she projected on screen in The Philadelphia Story (1940) reflected the emergence of Kate’s full-blown stardom. Two years later, her image as the prototypic modern woman—career-oriented and financially in control—blossomed in the first of nine movies she would make with Spencer Tracy. In Woman of the Year (1942), the ingredients of the Hepburn star personality had all come together: she had carved her own mold, and her stylish independent spirit had become her crowning achievement.
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/stardom.html
Later Career
Katharine Hepburn's image would evolve again in the 1950s and 1960s, when the now-middle-aged Kate focused on diversifying her acting. She starred with the leading actors of the day, including Humphrey Bogart, Montgomery Clift, and Elizabeth Taylor, and appeared in roles that stretched from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams. Her last film with Spencer Tracy, the Oscar-winning Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), brought closure to that phase of her career.
From 1968 on, Kate embarked on a professional tour-de-force, teaming with John Wayne (in Rooster Cogburn in 1975) and winning her third and unprecedented fourth Best Actress Oscars for The Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981). She also starred in her first and only Broadway musical, Coco (1969), and did such made-for-television plays as Love Among the Ruins (1975), with Sir Laurence Olivier.
In her long and legendary life, Katharine Hepburn was a role model who resonated beyond the screen and across generations—feisty, fearless, and unapologetically self-centered. As she exclaimed to Dick Cavett in a 1973 interview: “I am absolutely fascinating!” And she was right.
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/latecareer.html
Visit
This Web site, One Life: Kate, A Centennial Celebration was created in conjunction with a temporary gallery exhibition, installed at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition opened on November 2, 2007 and will close on June 1, 2008.
Born on May 12, 1907, Katharine Hepburn was a twentieth-century icon who carefully constructed and maintained her own myth, from her earliest days in the studio system through more than fifty years on stage, screen, and television. The exhibition includes her four Oscar statuettes—the most won by anyone for best actress; images from her life and career; and a video kiosk that will play clips from a selection of her films.
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/visit.html
Credits
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/credits.html
Wanna read the entire thing - click www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/index.html
Beginnings
Born into an eccentric New England family, Katharine Hepburn was brought up to be free-thinking and unconventional. Her physician father did pioneering work against venereal disease, and her mother campaigned for women’s suffrage and birth control. Shattered by her brother’s apparent suicide in her teens, Hepburn remained aloof and withdrawn until she ventured into theater at Bryn Mawr. Acting offered a release, and an audience that applauded. Her father was right: she liked to show off.
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/beginnings.html
Early Hollywood
After a striking appearance in The Warrior’s Husband on Broadway, Katharine Hepburn landed in Hollywood in 1932 and became a star in her first film, A Bill of Divorcement. She won an Academy Award for her third picture, Morning Glory (1933), and soon gave classic performances in Little Women (1933), Holiday (1938), and Bringing Up Baby (1938). But she also appeared in a series of oddball movies—including Christopher Strong (1933) and Sylvia Scarlett (1935)—that turned audiences against her: by 1938, she was labeled “box office poison.”
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/earlyhollywood.html
Stardom
Katharine Hepburn catapulted from the defeat of her early Hollywood career by coming back to the East Coast and transforming herself. Playwright Philip Barry wrote The Philadelphia Story for her, and in the wake of its huge Broadway success in 1939, Hepburn’s then-beau Howard Hughes—at the time a rich and dashing aviator—gave her the money to buy the film rights. And from this moment on, Kate would be in charge of her own destiny.
Her return to Hollywood was triumphant, and the glamorous, self-possessed image she projected on screen in The Philadelphia Story (1940) reflected the emergence of Kate’s full-blown stardom. Two years later, her image as the prototypic modern woman—career-oriented and financially in control—blossomed in the first of nine movies she would make with Spencer Tracy. In Woman of the Year (1942), the ingredients of the Hepburn star personality had all come together: she had carved her own mold, and her stylish independent spirit had become her crowning achievement.
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/stardom.html
Later Career
Katharine Hepburn's image would evolve again in the 1950s and 1960s, when the now-middle-aged Kate focused on diversifying her acting. She starred with the leading actors of the day, including Humphrey Bogart, Montgomery Clift, and Elizabeth Taylor, and appeared in roles that stretched from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams. Her last film with Spencer Tracy, the Oscar-winning Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), brought closure to that phase of her career.
From 1968 on, Kate embarked on a professional tour-de-force, teaming with John Wayne (in Rooster Cogburn in 1975) and winning her third and unprecedented fourth Best Actress Oscars for The Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981). She also starred in her first and only Broadway musical, Coco (1969), and did such made-for-television plays as Love Among the Ruins (1975), with Sir Laurence Olivier.
In her long and legendary life, Katharine Hepburn was a role model who resonated beyond the screen and across generations—feisty, fearless, and unapologetically self-centered. As she exclaimed to Dick Cavett in a 1973 interview: “I am absolutely fascinating!” And she was right.
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/latecareer.html
Visit
This Web site, One Life: Kate, A Centennial Celebration was created in conjunction with a temporary gallery exhibition, installed at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition opened on November 2, 2007 and will close on June 1, 2008.
Born on May 12, 1907, Katharine Hepburn was a twentieth-century icon who carefully constructed and maintained her own myth, from her earliest days in the studio system through more than fifty years on stage, screen, and television. The exhibition includes her four Oscar statuettes—the most won by anyone for best actress; images from her life and career; and a video kiosk that will play clips from a selection of her films.
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/visit.html
Credits
www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/credits.html
Wanna read the entire thing - click www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/hepburn/index.html