Katharine Hepburn

Beatrice Houghton "Beatie" Marty, a conservationist who worked to save Assateague Island from development and was a cousin of actress Katharine Hepburn, died of heart failure Monday at her Belfast Road farm in northern Baltimore County. She was 88. Beatrice Houghton Hooker was born and raised in Baltimore. She was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, who founded Hartford, Conn., in 1636, and the daughter of Dr. Donald Russell Hooker, a Johns Hopkins physiologist whose pioneering research led to the development of the defibrillator.

You figure this would be old hat for Meryl Streep by now, given that she's been nominated for about a gazillion Oscars. But a clearly delighted Streep said hearing her name announced from the Oscars' stage was a near-surreal experience. "They call your name, and you go into like this white light," said a smiling, joking Streep. "I felt like a kid. " Noting that 29 years have passed since she won her last Oscar (for "Sophie's Choice"), Streep put the passing years into perspective.

Twenty years ago, actress Kate Mulgrew was no fan of being likened to Katharine Hepburn. Aching to be an actress in her own right, Mulgrew despised the Hepburn comparisons critics drew in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Back then, the vocal and physical resemblance irritated her. Today, she thrives on them. Mulgrew portrays two versions of Hepburn in the one-woman play Tea at Five at the Hippodrome Tuesday through Jan. 23. The first is a 31-year-old Hepburn, whose series of duds led critics to declare her "box office poison."

I recently submitted a proposal to the Baltimore Development Corp. in reference to The Sun's front page article, "Reinvigorating Baltimore's waterfront," published in early May. No response, not even a thank you for the suggestion, was received. Jean Marbella , in the Sunday Sun, was somewhat critical of many of the grandiose and expensive recommendations proposed by the BDC. My idea would come with minimal start-up costs and would instill pride in our city and state and enrich the minds of Marylanders and visitors alike.

Katharine Hepburn, who died yesterday at age 96 in her Old Saybrook, Conn., home, won four Academy Awards and held the record for Oscar nominations with 12 until Meryl Streep reached 13 last year. No other movie star, male or female, made so many different roles her own - and made them seem not just her own, but ours, as part of American culture. Her achievement is even more astonishing because she was a natural aristocrat in the rough and tumble of the movies. With her slashing figure, bone structure and voice, Ms. Hepburn could have become a caricature of "class."

They ought to quit calling Nancy Kerrigan a Katharine Hepburn look-alike. Nancy Kerrigan looks much better than Katharine Hepburn. The Senate deserves Ollie North, but the good people of Virginia don't. Japan's political parties achieved compromise! All they sacrificed was principle.

Pandro S. Berman, 91, who during a career that spanned four decades produced such acclaimed films as "Top Hat," "Morning Glory" and "The Blackboard Jungle," died Saturday.Mr. Berman died of congestive heart failure at his home in Beverly Hills, said grandson Cory Schaffel.The casts of Mr. Berman's films were a who's who of Hollywood from the 1930s through the '60s: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Kelly and Sidney Poitier. Mr. Berman began his studio career at age 18.His many films ranged from the 1930s Astaire-Rogers dance favorites "The Gay Divorcee," "Swing Time" and "Shall We Dance," to Katharine Hepburn's Oscar-winning performance in "Morning Glory," and "Of Human Bondage," the 1934 drama that made Bette Davis a star.

"Katharine Hepburn," by Barbara Leaming. 560 pages. New York: Crown Publishers. $27.50Tracy and Hepburn: They were the ideal couple, on screen and off. She was strong-willed, fiercely intelligent, tough-minded yet feminine. He was gruff, masculine, a man's man yet appreciative of her. In "Adam's Rib," he buys her a frilly little hat. "Best hat for the best head," he says matter-of-factly.Barbara Leaming's deeply moving, astonishing new biography "Katharine Hepburn" shatters that myth decisively.

A WONDERFUL ASPECT of modern life is that a group of people sitting around, say, a lunchroom table yesterday could energetically and argumentatively hash over the films of Katharine Hepburn. It doesn't matter that The African Queen was made 52 years ago, or The Philadelphia Story 11 years before that. Thanks to cable TV and the VCR, she was as much a part of our world as she was that of our parents or grandparents - perhaps even more so. When the news came Sunday that Miss Hepburn had died, at the age of 96, it summoned up a montage of movie images that have worked their way into national memory.

Wearing a work uniform often seems to me like it would be a great gift. At the very least it would eliminate 20 or 30 minutes of closet-scouring every morning. And at best, it would save you money to buy the clothes you really want to wear in the rest of your life. It's especially cool to see how Emily Vollherbst - who is required to wear all black at her job as a cashier at Eddie's grocery in Charles Village - jazzes up the dress code. Even in a uniform, her personal style shows through, and you know exactly who she is. Age: 20 Residence: Bolton Hill School: General Fine Arts major at Maryland Institute College of Art. Self-described style: "I've always been inspired by a mixture of Katharine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn.

After critics flayed him for the swoony lyricism of "Ryan's Daughter," David Lean said he could have justified that film's picture-postcard love imagery by having a priest tell the heroine that she was "seeing the world through rose-colored glasses." And why not? A similar strategy had worked niftily for Lean before, in the elegant 1955 romance "Summertime," playing this weekend in a restored print at the Charles. In the opening scene, Lean depicts a single, 40ish woman, Jane Hudson ( Katharine Hepburn)

Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" ends this weekend with two days dedicated to that most storied of Hollywood couples who never made it to the altar, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Tracy gets his turn tomorrow (don't miss Captains Courageous at 8 p.m.), but today it's the Great Kate's turn. For a look at what made Hepburn such an endlessly intriguing personality (as well as a role model to a whole generation of women), check out a 1973 appearance she made on The Dick Cavett Show (11:15 a.m.)

Wearing a work uniform often seems to me like it would be a great gift. At the very least it would eliminate 20 or 30 minutes of closet-scouring every morning. And at best, it would save you money to buy the clothes you really want to wear in the rest of your life. It's especially cool to see how Emily Vollherbst - who is required to wear all black at her job as a cashier at Eddie's grocery in Charles Village - jazzes up the dress code. Even in a uniform, her personal style shows through, and you know exactly who she is. Age: 20 Residence: Bolton Hill School: General Fine Arts major at Maryland Institute College of Art. Self-described style: "I've always been inspired by a mixture of Katharine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn.

KATHARINE HEPBURN 100TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION -- Warner Home Video / $59.92 Every time I watch a movie starring the wondrous Katharine Hepburn, I'm reminded of all the ways in which she was a feminist symbol, and all the ways in which she failed to be. Ample evidence for both sides of the argument runs through The Katharine Hepburn 100th Anniversary Collection, which is being released Tuesday. The six-disc box set is a compendium of early films, cult classics and prestige items, and includes The Corn is Green, Morning Glory, Dragon Seed, Sylvia Scarlett, Undercurrent and Without Love.

Beatrice Houghton "Beatie" Marty, a conservationist who worked to save Assateague Island from development and was a cousin of actress Katharine Hepburn, died of heart failure Monday at her Belfast Road farm in northern Baltimore County. She was 88. Beatrice Houghton Hooker was born and raised in Baltimore. She was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, who founded Hartford, Conn., in 1636, and the daughter of Dr. Donald Russell Hooker, a Johns Hopkins physiologist whose pioneering research led to the development of the defibrillator.

If seeing Kate Mulgrew do Katharine Hepburn in Tea at Five rouses a thirst for the real thing, the Charles Theatre offers an ideal way to slake it with a seven-week tribute to this unlikely Hollywood luminary, screening Saturdays at noon and Thursdays at 9 p.m. As Martin Scorsese and Cate Blanchett make comically and poignantly clear in The Aviator, Hepburn was the rare female star who was neither a glamour girl nor an Everywoman. But her roles were so diverse that every woman could identify with her. With her piercing voice, knife-like posture and switchblade limbs, she was as easy for nightclub comics to imitate as James Cagney.

You figure this would be old hat for Meryl Streep by now, given that she's been nominated for about a gazillion Oscars. But a clearly delighted Streep said hearing her name announced from the Oscars' stage was a near-surreal experience. "They call your name, and you go into like this white light," said a smiling, joking Streep. "I felt like a kid. " Noting that 29 years have passed since she won her last Oscar (for "Sophie's Choice"), Streep put the passing years into perspective.

KATHARINE HEPBURN 100TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION -- Warner Home Video / $59.92 Every time I watch a movie starring the wondrous Katharine Hepburn, I'm reminded of all the ways in which she was a feminist symbol, and all the ways in which she failed to be. Ample evidence for both sides of the argument runs through The Katharine Hepburn 100th Anniversary Collection, which is being released Tuesday. The six-disc box set is a compendium of early films, cult classics and prestige items, and includes The Corn is Green, Morning Glory, Dragon Seed, Sylvia Scarlett, Undercurrent and Without Love.

Twenty years ago, actress Kate Mulgrew was no fan of being likened to Katharine Hepburn. Aching to be an actress in her own right, Mulgrew despised the Hepburn comparisons critics drew in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Back then, the vocal and physical resemblance irritated her. Today, she thrives on them. Mulgrew portrays two versions of Hepburn in the one-woman play Tea at Five at the Hippodrome Tuesday through Jan. 23. The first is a 31-year-old Hepburn, whose series of duds led critics to declare her "box office poison."

Not since Robert Downey Jr. in Chaplin has a star grown as an actor and grown up within a role as excitingly as Leonardo DiCaprio does as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. And The Aviator zooms light years beyond Chaplin as a movie. DiCaprio leaps onto the screen as a 21-year- -old moviemaking tyro and airplane nut mounting an unprecedented spectacle, Hell's Angels (1930), with the largest private fleet of biplanes in the world and a number of cameras that provokes disbelief even from Louis B. Mayer.