Hollywood icon Hepburn passes on
The screen world was today mourning the death at 96 of Katharine Hepburn, one of the great Hollywood icons and winner of four Oscars.
Cynthia McFadden, the executor of Hepburn’s estate, said the actress died yesterday at 2.50pm local time (7.50pm Irish time) at her home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, USA.
Hepburn had suffered various health problems in recent years and had tremors similar to Parkinson’s disease, but her robust and matter-of-fact attitude to life meant she soldiered on regardless.
In a 1990 interview, she told The Associated Press: “I’m what is known as gradually disintegrating. I don’t fear the next world, or anything. I don’t fear hell, and I don’t look forward to heaven.”
During her 60-year career, during which she starred alongside other Hollywood greats including Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart, Hepburn was nominated for Academy Awards a record 12 times – an achievement equalled only by Meryl Streep.
She won Best Actress Oscars for Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), A Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981).
And in a survey by the American Film Institute in 1999, Hepburn and her African Queen co-star Humphrey Bogart came top of a list of the 50 greatest screen legends.
She appeared in more than 50 films, but it was her role in The African Queen which gave her iconic status.
But alongside the highs, there were lows in her career. She was once dubbed “box office poison” and Dorothy Parker famously made the scathing remark that Hepburn ”ran the gamut of emotions from A to B”.
Hepburn was also known for being outspoken and unconventional at a time when actresses were supposed to be faultlessly glamorous and charming.
She almost never posed for pictures or gave interviews and shocked many by walking around in trousers and without make-up.
But the strong-willed actress’s philosophy was, “If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased”.
She made her stage debut in New York in 1928 in These Days, and married socialite Ludlow Ogden in the same year, but the couple divorced six years later.
Hepburn was later romantically linked to millionaire Howard Hughes, but the love of her life was actor Spencer Tracy.
He would never divorce his first wife, but Hepburn and Tracy were together for 27 years and jointly appeared in 10 films.
Then in 1967 they teamed up for a last time in Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner - but just after the film was completed, Tracy died in her arms. Nonetheless, the film earned Hepburn her second Oscar.
