Katharine Hepburn

From college stage to Hollywood

Katharine Hepburn caught the acting bug at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she performed in student plays. After graduating she pushed her way into theater work in New York, and her Broadway debut came in 1928, in a show that closed after only a week.

Her break came from a stage role in The Warrior's Husband. A scout for the agent Leland Hayward saw her and arranged a screen test for RKO's A Bill of Divorcement (1932), opposite John Barrymore. The film did well, and RKO signed her to a long-term contract.

An Oscar on her third film

Things moved fast. For only her third film, Morning Glory (1933), Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress, playing a young woman desperate to become an actress. Her clipped voice, athletic style and independent attitude made her unlike any other star of the time.

Then came a slump. Several films flopped, and in 1938 a group of independent theater owners placed an advertisement that named her among stars they called box office poison. For many actors that label would have ended a career.

The comeback she planned herself

Hepburn fought back with a clever business move. She bought out her RKO contract, went back to the stage in The Philadelphia Story, a new play by Philip Barry, and the film rights were secured for her before it even opened. When MGM wanted the story, the deal included her as the star.

The 1940 film was one of the biggest hits of the year and earned her another Oscar nomination. It is still taught as a lesson in how a star can take charge of her own career instead of waiting for the studio to decide.

A record that still stands

Hepburn kept working for decades and won three more Best Actress Oscars: for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), in a rare tie with Barbra Streisand, and On Golden Pond (1981). Four wins in the leading category is a record no other performer has matched.

She received 12 Oscar nominations in total across almost 50 years. In 1999 the American Film Institute named her the greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema.

What stars can learn from her

Hepburn's career shows three lessons that still apply. Train hard on stage, because theater skills last a lifetime. Do not let one bad stretch define you. And when the studio stops calling, find the project that suits you and bring it to them yourself.

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