A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book of the Year “In her book about her life, Miss Hepburn insists that that woman in the movies was not her at all. ‘I’m not going to hide behind you anymore,’ she says. ‘Who are you anyway? You're not me.’ Sure she is. The woman in the book is cocky, fearless, smart, capable, and human, on screen and off.”—Anna Quindlen, The New York Times Admired and beloved by movie audiences for more than sixty years, four-time Academy Award winner Katharine Hepburn is an American classic and an extraordinary, enduring presence on the international cultural scene. Yet her private life has been obscured by mystery. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence in this absorbing and provocative memoir. With characteristic gusto and candor, Katharine Hepburn reflects on the events, people, and places that have shaped her life—her childhood and family, her early days in New York, and her experiences with political activism. She talks about the ups and downs of her career, her long friendship with Spencer Tracy, and of course, her close collaborations with several of the leading actors, directors, and producers of the past half century. Illustrated with 165 photographs from family archives, many of which have never been published, it is an unforgettable portrait of Katharine Hepburn as we have not seen her before. “It is the understanding heart revealed just before the final curtain that makes us fall in love with Katharine Hepburn. ”— The New York Times Book Review Admired and beloved by movie audiences for over sixty years, four-time Academy Award-winner Katharine Hepburn is an American classic. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence about her private life in this absorbing and provocative memoir. A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book of the Year A Book-of-the-Month-Club Main Selection From the Paperback edition. Admired and beloved by movie audiences for over sixty years, four-time Academy Award-winner Katharine Hepburn is an American classic. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence about her private life in this absorbing and provocative memoir. A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book of the Year A Book-of-the-Month-Club Main Selection "From the Paperback edition. Katharine Hepburn  (1907–2003) is considered to be one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history. Over the course of her six-decade career, she won a total of four Academy Awards for Best Actress. Parents   Before I tell you anything about myself, I would like to tell you, or at least identify for you, the world into which I was born. My background. I mean of course my mother—my father. My two parents.   Mother died when I was forty-odd.   Dad died when I was fifty-odd. Thus I had them as my … Well, they were always for over forty years—there. They were mine.   From where I stood:   Dad at the left of the fireplace.   Mother at the right of the fireplace.   Tea every day at five.   They were the world into which I was born.   My background.   My mother:   Katharine Martha Houghton was born February 2, 1878. She was the daughter of Caroline Garlinghouse and Alfred Augustus Houghton.   Alfred Houghton was the younger brother of Amory Houghton, who was the head of the Corning Glass Company. It started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, moved to Brooklyn and ended in Corning, New York. Alfred’s first wife had died leaving him a daughter, Mary. He then married Caroline Garlinghouse. They had three daughters—Katharine, Edith, Marion.   Alfred and his wife were happy. They were financially comfortable. Not rich. Not poor. He played the violin—she played the piano. They were interested in Robert Ingersoll, “the great agnostic,” and went to all his lectures. They had abandoned the recognized church. Alfred was about twenty years older than Caroline. Apparently his relationship with his older brother Amory was complicated. Amory had fired him from the glassworks because he was always late. Then Alfred became the head of the Buffalo Scale Works. He was a moody fellow by nature and a victim of severe depressions. During one of these episodes, he was visiting Amory in Corning and he disappeared. He was found, dead of a self-inflicted gun wound in the head, on the railway tracks. No note—nothing.   So Caroline was left with her three daughters to bring up. Then it was discovered that Caroline had cancer of the stomach. She knew that she was doomed to die in fairly short order. Caroline dreaded leaving her girls to be brought up by any of their available relatives, whom she considered hopelessly reactionary. She wanted her daughters to go to college. She visited Bryn Mawr College with my mother. She made arrangements for Mother to go there and made arrangements for Edith and Marion to go to Miss Baldwin’s boarding school, almost next door to the college.   By the time her mother died, Katharine was sixteen, Edith fourteen and Marion twelve. Katharine was filled with her mother’s feeling about the future. She