
Katharine Hepburn profile (google.com)
Katharine Hepburn – was American Actress who won four Best Actress Oscar and earned twelve Award nominations. Her best known works are The African Queen (1951), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) and On Golden Pond (1981). In Bringing Up Baby (1938), she acted with a big cat
and she was never afraid of Baby
the leopard.
Katharine Hepburn
Born on May 12, 1907, in Hartford, Connecticut to suffrage activist mother and a urologist father. Raised by wealthy and progressive parents, young Katharine was encouraged to speak out and debate on any topic she wished, sharpen her mind and engage with the world as fully as possible. Her parents were criticized by the community for their progressive views, which stimulated Hepburn to fight against barriers she encountered.
Katharine Hepburn > Quotes (goodreads)
The young Hepburn was a tomboy who liked to call herself Jimmy, and cut her hair short. Thomas Hepburn, her father, was eager for his children to use their minds and bodies to the limit, and taught them to swim, run, dive, ride, wrestle, and play golf and tennis.

Katharine Hepburn FROM COLLECTION CHRISTIOPHEL/ALAMY. (VANITY FAIR)
In 1924, while she was attending the all-women’s Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Hepburn began to act. With the positive response, she decided to pursue theatrical acting career.
She got a degree in history and philosophy, but throughout the school, she was self-conscious and felt uncomfortable with her classmates. She spent next several years acting in and around New York, appearing in productions both on and off Broadway. She began screen acting career with A Bill of Divorcement in 1932.
Bringing Up Baby

Katharine Hepburn with a leopard (This Is Glamorous)
Directed by Howard Hawks, this screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby was originally published as a short story in Collier’s magazine. Baby is Leopard’s name in the film.

Bringing Up Baby in Collier’s magazine (Margaret Perry)
The leopard whom Hepburn and co-star Cary Grant chase all through in the film was an eight-year-old female named Nissa.
The trainer Olga Celeste had perfume rubbed onto Miss Hepburn’s leg that would make Nissa more playful. They also put resin on the bottom of Hepburn’s shoes so that she wouldn’t slip and startle the leopard.
Nissa got on splendidly with Hepburn, but less well with other cast members. Only Hepburn enjoyed working with the big cat without fear.

Katherine Hepburn with a leopard lounging (almost famous cats)
Trainer Olga Celeste said of Hepburn: If Miss Hepburn should ever decide to leave the screen she could make a very good animal trainer. She has control of her nerves and, best of all, no fear of animals.
(A Remarkable Woman: A Biography of Katharine Hepburn By Anne Edwards 162)
Co-star Cary Grant said: Now, Kate was never worried by Baby. She liked to pull her tail, fearless girl that she was, and Baby seemed to enjoy it. Kate didn’t pull very hard.
(I Know Where I’m Going: Katharine Hepburn, A Personal Biography By Charlotte Chandler 116)
Style: Maverick On and Off Screen
On screen, she brought a new breed of strong-willed females. Hepburn’s performances fostered a “decisiveness toward a new vision of women.”
Katharine Hepburn quotes (goodreads)
Off screen, Hepburn lived in a manner ahead of her time; she thus came to symbolize the modern woman
and played a part in changing attitudes towards the gender.

Katharine Hepburn looking up (Cinemaholics)
Katharine Hepburn quotes (goodreads)
Style: Meaning in the Pants in the early 1930’s
While her inexhaustible, aggressive energy defined her screen presence, her fashion, which no doubt was an expression of her androgynous sensibility, raised more than a few eyebrows.
Katharine Hepburn Quotes (goodreads)
In the early 1930s, women’s fashion had not yet been liberated by the practicalities of World War II, when women en masse took positions in businesses and industries while the men were at war. Women could be, and were, arrested if they wore pants in public, detained for “masquerading as men.”

Katharine Hepburn (LIVEJOURNAL)
Hepburn didn’t fall for the category of glamorous beauty
, yet she cultivated her own. Her androgynous attraction with intelligence and strength were nothing like Hollywood ever seen before, filled with the new free ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ spirit.
Katharine Hepburn Quotes (goodreads)

KATHARINE HEPBURN (SMOKE SCREEN)
What she brought not just to Hollywood but to all women was a new kind of heroine who is modern and totally independent. She was beautiful, but she did not rely on that. Confident, intelligent and witty, Hepburn’s unconventional attitude and strong personality throughout her professional and personal life stand out even in the 21st century.
Katharine Hepburn Quotes (goodreads)

Katharine Hepburn (GAY.tv)
Katharine Hepburn quotes (goodreads)
Reference
Nissa aka Baby (Saluting our Animal Actors)
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Also published on Medium.
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