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Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1907 to a wealthy family of good lineage. She was a very athletic tomboy as a child. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1928, and that same year had a tiny part in a Broadway play. She also married that same year, to a fellow socialite she met at college. She worked in some stock companies, and in 1932 had a substantial Broadway role, in The Warrior's Husband, and that got her a screen test for A Bill of Divorcement. She received rave reviews for that role, and the next year she won an Oscar for Morning Glory, and also played the lead in Little Women, and Alice Adams (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film). But Hepburn, while a magnificent actress, did not have much sex appeal (she often wore men's clothes, onscreen and off), and many of her later 1930s movies did poorly at the box office, and she was dubbed "box office poison". She had a major comeback in 1939 when she starred in The Philadelphia Story on Broadway (it had been written especially for her) and in the movie adaptation (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), opposite Cary Grant and James Stewart. In 1942, she made her first movie with Spencer Tracy, Woman Of The Year (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), and they had an affair (she had been divorced since 1934, and had had a much publicized romance with Howard Hughes). Tracy could not get divorced, but they lived together until he passed away in 1967, and they made many movies together. In the 1950s Hepburn, unlike most actresses, was able to keep playing romantic leads, and she made some of her better movies, including The African Queen (winner of the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Summertime (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Suddenly Last Summer (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), and The Rainmaker (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film). She also had many strong performances in the 1960s and 1970s, including Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (winner of the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Long Day's Journey Into Night (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), Lion In Winter (winner of the Best Actress Academy Award for this film), and in 1981 she won an Oscar for On Golden Pond! Hepburn passed away in 2003 at the age of 96.

Important Added Info: Note that this item has been personally autographed (signed) by Katharine Hepburn! Miss Hepburn was well known for refusing to autograph photos and most other memorabilia. Our consignor was a great fan of hers and told her in his letter with this playbill that he had named his daughter Katharine, and perhaps that swayed her to sign this playbill! Also note that we have provided a picture of the front cover of the magazine, and pictures of interior two-page spreads (including the table of contents page if there is one; but we didn't make much effort to find the best ones!). These images should greatly help you judge the overall condition of the magazine, and the contents page lets you know exactly what articles and stories are contained in this particular issue.

Note that this autographed item is part of a remarkable collection. In each of our last several all-signed auctions, we auctioned hundreds of items from this collection and now we are auctioning 209 signed photos and miscellaneous other signed items (plus 55 signed index cards that have a different note on those)!
     In the 1970s, our consignor was a teacher who taught a film class, and he also part-time ran the local movie theater (and he saved all the presskits from the movies the theater showed).
     Starting in the late 1970s through the late 1980s, he wrote to famous celebrities, and enclosed an 8x10 still or repro (or sometimes another item) from his collection, and he wrote a literate personalized letter, talking about his work as a film teacher, and discussing his favorite movie by that star.
     He received signed photos back from a good percentage of the people he wrote to, and if the people simply sent him a stock photo back, he did not save it, but if he felt the autograph was genuine, and if they added a personalized note, then he did save them.
     In the late 1980s, he pretty much stopped sending letters and photos, simply because he was just too busy. So this item (and the vast majority of the other photos and other items we are auctioning for this consignor) were obtained in the late 1970s or 1980s, through personal correspondence with this star. This is of course excellent, because back at that time celebrities were not selling their signatures nearly as much, and many of the stars were pretty forgotten and were happy to get letters from people like our consignor!
     He of course does not have any "Certificates of Authenticity", but he only kept ones he felt were surely authentic, and those are the ones we are auctioning. However, bidders can certainly compare the signatures to known examples on the internet to judge for themselves.

As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775