When Katharine Hepburn died in 2003, the film world was plunged into mourning and Broadway dimmed its light in the mark of respect for Hollywood’s greatest actress.

In a career that spans six decades, Hepburn bought an unconventional beauty and fierce intelligence to her roles.

She was born in 1907 into a forward thinking New England family and a daughter of parents in five siblings.

Her first theater roles were not memorable and she was fired from her first major play after just one performance. It was not until she was 25 that she attracted the attention of Hollywood agent Leland Hayward later her lover. She then added George Cukor to her list of fans when screened tested for his film A Bill of Divorcement which became her debut movie role.

Solid performances and films such as Morning Glory for which she won her first Academy Award and Cukor classic, Little Women followed.

Hepburn appeared to be destined for a glittering career, earning an Oscar nomination for Alice Adams and giving one of the greatest screwball comic performances of all time in Bringing Up Baby, opposite Cary Grant. Hepburn later record laughing from mornings and night while making the film and Director Howard Hawks definitely transferred the acceleration onto the screen. The story of a madcap socialite with the added complications of pet leopard did not do well at the box office but is now seen as one of Hollywood’s classic comedies.

Hepburn and Grant then teamed up in Philip Barry the comedy Holiday.

Years later, Martin screen icon take Blanchette at the tough task of recreating the unKatharine Hepburn bizarre. Blanchette took her an Oscar for her efforts.

Cate Blanchette: Much off was to scrutinize her performances in a way that one doesn’t as an audience member and it was incredibly daunting you know, because I’m representing her in color when people receive her in black and white and in the same medium that she is so iconically known so there is a lot of technical preparation to do and then at the end of the day, you just have to work wit the actor and be directed by Scorsese which was an absolute pleasure.

By the end of the 1930s, a stream of flops saw Hepburn labeled Box Office Poison by Motion Picture Distributors and her career took a dive. In typical Hepburn fashion, she worked out to solution, securing the rights to the Philip Barry hit play The Philadelphia Story and using them as a negotiating tool to ensure MGM allowed her to play the lead.

The film was a massive box office success segmenting her as one of Hollywood’s great actresses. Two years later, she followed it up with Woman of the Year which introduced her to the man who was to become the love of her life Spencer Tracy.

After a brief first marriage, Hepburn had resolved not to marry again and instead have long term affairs with Leland Hayward and billionaire Howard Hughes. The Picture was a hit as was their follow up pairing, the asserting Battle of the Sexes, Adam’s Rib.

Tracy remained married to his wife but spent much of his life with Hepburn until his death in 1967, only days after completing the last of their nine films together, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

In 1951, Hepburn filmed the African Queen with director John Huston and co star Humphrey Bogart on an African shoot that was almost as epic as the film itself. The experience made such an impact that years later, she wrote the best selling book entitled The Making of the African Queen or How I Went To Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Houston and Almost Lost My Mind.

Like her character, Rose Sayer, Hepburn disapproved of Houston and Bogart’s boozy ways and made a point of drinking gallons of water with the result that she came with dysentery and was ill for several months. Until well into her 80s, Hepburn continued to appear in films and two more Academy awards.

She died in 2003, a month shy of her 96th birthday.