Katharine Hepburn was born Katharine Houghton Hepburn on the 12th of May 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her mother was the co-founder of Planned Parenthood and her father was an advocate of the dangers of venereal disease. As a young child, Katharine, with her parents’ encouragement, won the medal for figure skating, shot golf in low eighties and became one of the semifinalists in the Connecticut Young Women’s Golf Championship.

Katharine Hepburn attended Kingswood Oxford School and then went to Bryn Mawr Colleger where she earned her history and philosophy degrees in 1928. That year, she also debuted onstage in the Broadway production of Night Hostess. She also married Ludlow Ogden Smith that year but divorced him in 1934 in Mexico and again in 1942 in the US. She and Smith remained good friends despite the divorce.

Katharine’s first major stage appearance was in The Big Pond at Great Neck, New York. When she was suddenly asked by the producer to play the leading role, Katharine tripped onstage and missed and delivered her lines rapidly that the producer fired her immediately. However, she continued to act on stage and was seen on Art and Mrs. Bottle, The Warrior’s Husband. Leland Hayward, an RKO scout saw her on stage and offered her a screen test for the studio’s A Bill of Divorcement. She got the part and the film loved her performance.

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