Katharine Hepburn

KATHARINE HEPBURN d2003. American actress of film, stage and television. Raised in Conneticut by wealthy parents, she turned to acting after graduation. Favorable reviews of her work on stage in 1932 brought her to the notice of Hollywood. After a few early film successes, including her first Academy Award for Morning Glory, she endured a string of flops which led to her being voted "box office poison". Her career was revived with the help of Howard Hughes with the play and later film of The Philadelphia Story. Throughout her six-decade career, she co-starred with screen legends including ; Cary Grant / Humphrey Bogart / John Wayne / Henry Fonda and Spencer Tracy in film classics including ; Holiday / The African Queen / Rooster Cogburn / On Golden Pond and Guess Whose Coming To Dinner. She holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins with four out of 12 nominations. She won an Emmy in 1976 for her lead role in Love Among the Ruins and was nominated for four other Emmys / two Tonys and eight Golden Globes. In 1999, she was ranked by the AFI as the greatest female star in the history of American cinema. She died of natural causes aged 96 in 2003. In 2004, she willed the proceeds to her close family of an auction of her own film career Memorabilia. This raised several million dollars at Sotherbys in New York