![]() ![]() Hepburn was part of the post-suffrage generation of women, and her screen persona resonated with that generation’s modern spirit of independence. Instead, Hepburn conveyed the essence of modernism-a woman who looked life straight in the eye. But Hepburn was cut from a different template, and from the moment she stepped onscreen in the 1932 film A Bill of Divorcement, her unique image made her a “movie star.” Her highly-stylized personality and lanky physique signaled a radical departure from such screen sirens as Jean Harlow and Carole Lombard. ![]() She signed with RKO and went to Hollywood in the early 1930s when the Dream Factory was fixated on platinum blondes draped in sequins and feathers. ![]() ![]() Katharine Hepburn, who was born on and whom the American Film Institute ranks as the “Number One Female Star of All Time,” was unparalleled in her ability to invent and maintain her own star image. In the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, each studio created “larger-than-life” stars that projected that studio’s particular brand: Humphrey Bogart did his due diligence as a gangster housed along Warner Bros.’ “Murderers Row” before he finally became a leading man Greta Garbo was only a Swedish starlet before MGM, home to “more stars than are in heaven,” transformed her into the face of luminous glamour. For much of the 20th century, movie stars were the most popular purveyors of public imagery. ![]()
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