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Today is Katharine Hepburn 's 119th birthday. From her motion picture debut in A Bill of Divorcement (1932) to iconic performances in such films as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), The African Queen (1951), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and On Golden Pond (1981), she had a career like no other. She won four Academy Awards, the most out of any other performer, and got nominated for eight more. She was intelligent, headstrong, independent and outspoken, at a time when women were generally regarded as being the opposite. She was always unapologetically herself; there were no airs about her, no pretense, no façade. She was always just Kate. This is her life in photos. At the age of four, in 1911.   With fellow Bryn Mawr students Margaret Barker (left) and Elizabeth Stewart (middle) in a production of A. A. Milne's The Truth About Blayds , in April 1927.    In costume for the Broadway play The Lake , in November 1934.    With Ginge...

Directed by George Cukor, Dinner at Eight (1933) revolves around the eminent dinner part hosted by Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke), the snobbish socialite wife of shipping magnate Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore). Millicent is so aggravated about everything going wrong that she is oblivious to Oliver's impending bankruptcy and serious heart condition, as well as her daughter Paula's (Madge Evans) preoccupation about the return of her fiancé, Ernest DeGraff (Phillips Holmes), from Europe. One of the guests is Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), a former stage star and Oliver's one-time flame. Also invited are corrupt mining tycoon Dan Packard (Wallace Beery), who is secretly consuming Oliver's business, and his brassy young wife Kitty (Jean Harlow).   LEFT: Madge Evans and John Barrymore. MIDDLE: Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler. RIGHT: Lionel Barrymore, Billie Burke and Edmund Lowe. On the eve of the dinner, Millicent, short of an extra man for Carlotta, invites washed-up s...

In honour of Norma Shearer's 114th birthday, which was on Wednesday, this week on «Film Friday» I bring you what is arguably one of her most iconic pictures. Directed by George Cukor, The Women (1939) begins when Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell) learns from her manicurist, Olga (Dennie Moore), that Stephen Haines, the husband of her cousin Mary (Norma Shearer), is having an affair with a predatory perfume clerk named Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford). A notorious gossip, Sylvia shares the news with her Park Avenue friends and then sends Mary for a manicure with Olga so that she hears the rumour herself. Mary's mother, Mrs. Morehead (Lucile Watson) urges her to ignore the gossip, but she cannot control herself when she encounters Crystal at a fashion show. To Sylvia's delight, the meeting between the two rivals makes the front page of the society columns, which leads Mary to ask for a divorce.   Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Joan Fontaine, Mary Boland and Pau...