June 30, 2003
With the quiet passing yesterday of Katharine Hepburn, Hollywood lost one of its few genuine movie queens.

Hepburn, who was 96 and had been in declining health for more than a decade, died at approximately 2:50 p.m. in Old Sybrook, Conn.

For six decades she was Hollywood royalty, not just because she won four Oscars and was nominated for eight more, but because she was very much her own woman, both on and off camera.

She wore slacks and sweaters -- when fellow actresses were dolled up in jewels and gowns -- and started a worldwide fashion trend. Women wanted to be like Katharine the Great, as they dubbed her, because she was strong, independent and still very sexy.

She romanced such men as billionaire Howard Hughes, director John Huston and actor Spencer Tracy, who became her most beloved leading man on and off screen.

Their 25-year romance was never a secret, but it was never exploited by the press because it was conducted with such dignity and discretion. Tracy, a devout Catholic, never divorced his wife Louise Treadwell who, with Hepburn, was at the actor's side when he died in 1967.

"I don't believe in marriage. It's bloody impractical to love, honour and obey," said Hepburn once, after marrying socialite Ludlow Ogden Smith in 1928 and divorcing him six years later. "I was a beast to that man. I behaved like a pig."

Hepburn's finest screen characters were as candid as she was.

She won her first Oscar in 1933 for Morning Glory, playing something she never was: a scatterbrained chatterbox.

It took 34 years before Hollywood gave its finest actress her second Oscar for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, the film Tracy and she completed just months before his death.

The following year, Hepburn won her third Oscar for The Lion in Winter. In 1981 she won for On Golden Pond, with Henry Fonda, who also won an Oscar for his role.

These were memorable, staggering performances, but her legacy also includes such unforgettable, unsurpassed comedies as The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, Stage Door and Adam's Rib.

I never interviewed Hepburn but I had a close call back in 1994. Warren Beatty was able to coax her into playing his aunt in Love Affair, but he wasn't able to coax her into doing the press junket.

In 1976's A Matter of Gravity, she had broken her ankle. Instead of letting her understudy take over the role, she played it convincingly from a wheelchair.

We waited at the stage door and though her handlers tried to keep us away, she waved us in and signed our playbills.

In 1982, I saw her in West Side Waltz -- the play was trivial, but Hepburn rose above the material. She looked so much more frail at the stage door that night, but she was regal and polite.

In one of her wonderful acerbic moments, Hepburn said she welcomed death "because in death there are no interviews."

Hepburn will be immortalized through her films, which will continue to delight and move those wise enough to seek them out.

HUMBLE BEGINNING

Born May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Conn., Katharine Houghton Hepburn was the daughter of a doctor and a suffragette, both of whom always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential.

An athletic tomboy as a child, she was also very close to her brother, Tom, and was devastated at age 14 to find him dead, the apparent result of an accidental hanging.

She was largely schooled at home until she attended Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, where she decided to become an actress, appearing in many of their productions.

After graduating, she began getting small roles in plays on Broadway and elsewhere. She always attracted attention in these parts, but she made her break into stardom in the starring role of the Amazon princess Antiope in 1932's A Warrior's Husband.

Hepburn was nominated for 12 Oscars and won four -- a record for all actors.

IN HER OWN WORDS ...

"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get -- only with what you are expecting to give -- which is everything."

On her failed marriage: "My aim was ME ME ME."

On her parents: "What luck to be born out of love and to live in an atmosphere of warmth and interest."

"If you give an audience a chance they will do half your acting for you."

"Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four."

"Live it, do it, or shut up. There are no laurels in life ... just new challenges."

"Without discipline, there's no life at all."

"If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun."

"Life is hard. After all, it kills you."