English>News Center>lifestyle
         
 

Multiple Oscar-winner Katharine Hepburn dies at 96
(Agencies)
Updated: 2003-06-30 09:08

Actress Katharine Hepburn, who won a record four best actress Oscars during a career that spanned much of the last century, died on Sunday at her home in Connecticut at the age of 96, police and a family member said.

Hepburn, whose health had been in decline for some time and had not spoken for several days, passed away peacefully, said her brother-in-law Ellsworth Grant.

"She's the greatest actress of her age and with her passing that whole galaxy of great movie stars has ended," Grant, who saw the screen legend shortly before she died, told Reuters.

He said the cause of death was "simply complications from old age."

Seven years ago Hepburn moved back to the family mansion in Fenwick, an upper-class borough of Old Saybrook on Long Island Sound.

She lived a quiet, reclusive life there and was rarely seen in public. Friends and relatives said she suffered from short-term memory loss.

Hepburn won her first Academy Award in 1933 for "Morning Glory" and won again for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", "The Lion in Winter" and "On Golden Pond." She was nominated for the award eight other times.

She played opposite such leading men as James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda. But it is with Spencer Tracy that her name will be forever linked.

Not only did she make nine films with Tracy, but for 27 years she was the "other woman" in his life. Tracy, a Roman Catholic, would not divorce his wife. Hepburn, in a 1991 interview with ABC television, said she loved Tracy but did not remember if he had ever told her he loved her.

"We lived openly enough together," she said. "I certainly had no intention of breaking up his relationship with his wife."

Irreverent and feisty, Hepburn always spoke her mind. Her independent spirit made her a role model to many women, and she was voted America's most admired woman in a 1985 Ladies Home Journal survey.

Hepburn also starred in film classics like "Little Women" and "The African Queen". Her last film was "Love Affair" with Warren Beatty, released in the early 1990s.

The actress did not escape criticism, however. Her performances were sometimes called cold, and Dorothy Parker famously said of Hepburn that she displayed "the gamut of emotions from A to B."



Anita Mui biopic begins shooting
Ziyi poses for Playboy
Madonna says daughter asked if she was gay
  Today's Top News     Top Life News
 

Australia, US, Japan praise China for Asia engagement

 

   
 

Banker: China doing its best on flexible yuan

 

   
 

Hopes high for oil pipeline deal

 

   
 

Possibilities of bird flu outbreaks reduced

 

   
 

Milosevic buried after emotional farewell

 

   
 

China considers trade contracts in India

 

   
  Pitt-Jolie wedding so far just rumors
   
  Hunan praises Russian quitted stunt flying
   
  1/17 of Beijing students applies for village jobs
   
  Stolen Van Gogh returned after 7 years
   
  Two women die after using abortion pill
   
  Which do you prefer? TV or sex?
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Feature  
  Could China's richest be the tax cheaters?  
Advertisement