Katherine Hepburn Autobiography

Me: Stories of My Life

by Katherine Hepburn

Katherine Hepburn is one of old Hollywood’s most unique and memorable stars. Her acting career lasted almost seventy years, earning her numerous awards including four Academy Awards, the most for any female actor. She has written two books, The Making of the African

Queen in 1987 and Me: Stories of My Life in 1991.

Katherine Hepburn was an independent, forward thinking individual, whose ideas were nurtured by her very large family. She was born on May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her parents were liberal and activists. Her mother, Katherine Houghton was college educated and studying medicine when she met Dr. Thomas Hepburn. They were soon engaged and she gave up the study of medicine. After awhile of being just a wife and mother to Katherine and her older brother, Tom, Mrs. Hepburn soon grew restless and decided she needed a cause. She found her cause in the women’s suffrage movement and soon became the head of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association. Dr. Hepburn was also active in the advancement of knowledge of venereal disease. He founded the New England Social Hygiene Association. The children of the Hepburns were not hidden from these issues. In fact, they participated in various rallies along side their parents. Katherine remembers attending a women’s suffrage rally around the age of eight.

Katherine had five siblings. Tom was the oldest, then Katherine, Dick, Bob, Marion and Peg. Because of the eleven and thirteen year age difference between Katherine and her younger sisters, she felt that they were more like her children than her siblings and didn’t relate to them the way she did to her brothers. In fact, you could say that Tom and Katherine were two peas in a pod. The Hepburns always encourage physical activity in their children, be it swimming, biking, or golf. Katherine was just one of the boys growing up. She even sported a boy’s haircut and would go by the name “Jimmie.” Most of her summers, growing up and throughout her life, were spent at the summerhouse in Fenwick, Connecticut. There was one major devastating event that occurred when Katherine was in high school. When she was fourteen, she and her Brother Tom were visiting relatives. One morning, Katherine went to wake him and found him hanging from the rafters by a sheet, an alleged suicide or a trick gone wrong, according to the family.