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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 Mervyn LeRoy, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) begins in early 1942, when Lt. Col. James Doolittle (Spencer Tracy) calls for volunteers for a top-secret Army Air Force mission, following the surprise Japanese attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. One of the many men to offer his services is pilot Lt. Ted Lawson (Van Johnson), who is sent for training at Eglin Field in Florida, along with his B-25 Mitchell crew, including gunner Cpl. David Thatcher (Robert Walker) and navigator Lt. Charles McClure (Don DeFore). Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson as James Doolittle and Ted Lawson in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo .   During the first of many briefings, Doolittle informs the men that the mission they are about to undertake will be tough and dangerous, and encourages anyone with doubts to drop out. Ted's friend and fellow pilot, Lt. Bob Gray (Robert Mitchum), suggests that he withdraw from the mission, since he recently got married, but Ted remains determined to go thro...

In the two years after the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, over 60,000 American servicemen had died in combat overseas. The country was right in the middle of a costly war and thousands of families were mourning the loss of their loved ones. Taking advantage of this scenario, MGM became interested in making a film that would somehow console grieving families by fueling «hope in a connection between at risk or deceased loved ones and the folks they leave behind.» (from left to right) Photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the attack on Pearl Harbor; the entrance to the MGM studios in Culver City (1947).   Looking to match the success of the afterlife comedy Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), MGM chief Louis B. Mayer commissioned that film's producer, Everett Riskin, to find a story with a similar premise. He came up with «Fliers Never Die», in which a couple of brothers tutored their youngest sibling from the great beyond. The studio, however, was not impr...