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50 free Katharine Hepburn trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Katharine Hepburn trivia quiz follows the actress from a progressive Hartford childhood of cold baths and golf lessons through Bryn Mawr, a Broadway break and the RKO contract that made her a star with her third film. It covers the comedown too: the flops, the box office poison label, and the comeback she engineered by owning the rights to The Philadelphia Story. The second half is the long partnership with Spencer Tracy, from Woman of the Year to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the leech-covered shoot of The African Queen with Humphrey Bogart, Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, the record fourth Oscar for On Golden Pond, the only Academy Awards ceremony she ever attended, and the trousers, the tremor and the Fenwick home where she died at 96. Awards questions test the record gap between her first and last nominations and the studios, directors and co-stars who kept coming back. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Audrey Hepburn and Classic Hollywood quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many Academy Awards for Best Actress did Katharine Hepburn win, a record that still stands?
Four
She won for Morning Glory, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter and On Golden Pond.
Q 02In which Connecticut city was Katharine Hepburn born in 1907?
Hartford
Her father was a urologist at the city hospital and her mother a feminist campaigner; she was buried there in Cedar Hill Cemetery.
Q 03At which college did Hepburn begin acting?
Bryn Mawr
She went mainly to satisfy her mother, who had studied there, and found the experience unfulfilling.
Q 04What daily habit did young Hepburn keep, believing "the bitterer the medicine, the better"?
Ice-cold baths
Her father taught the children to swim, dive, ride, wrestle and play golf and tennis.
Q 05In which sport did the teenage Hepburn reach the semi-final of a Connecticut young women's championship?
Golf
She took daily lessons, and her athleticism later inspired Garson Kanin to write Pat and Mike.
Q 06What tragedy did the 13-year-old Hepburn discover in New York in March 1921?
Her older brother Tom's body after an apparent suicide
The family always denied it was suicide, and for years she used his birthday as her own.
Q 07In which book did Hepburn finally reveal her true birth date?
Me: Stories of My Life
Her 1991 autobiography also settled decades of confusion caused by her using her late brother's birthday.
Q 08Whom did Hepburn marry in December 1928 after quitting a play only two weeks in?
Ludlow Ogden Smith
They divorced in Mérida, Yucatán, in 1934, and she never married again.
Q 09For which studio did Hepburn make her first film, A Bill of Divorcement, in 1932?
RKO
She demanded $1,500 a week as an unknown, and director George Cukor persuaded the studio to pay it.
Q 10Which star played opposite Hepburn in her screen debut, A Bill of Divorcement?
John Barrymore
She showed no sign of intimidation, and RKO signed her to a long-term contract on the strength of the film.
Q 11For which 1933 film, only her third, did Hepburn win her first Academy Award?
Morning Glory
She played aspiring actress Eva Lovelace, a role originally intended for Constance Bennett.
Q 12Which of the March sisters did Hepburn play in Little Women (1933)?
Jo
She later said, "I defy anyone to be as good [as Jo] as I was."
Q 13How many films did Hepburn make with director George Cukor?
Ten
The last was the 1979 television movie The Corn Is Green, filmed in Wales.
Q 14Which 1935 film paired Hepburn with Cary Grant for the first time?
Q 21How many films did Hepburn and Spencer Tracy make together?
Nine
Their relationship on and off screen lasted until his death in 1967.
Q 22Which writing couple created Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike specifically for Tracy and Hepburn?
Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon
Kanin got the idea for Pat and Mike watching Hepburn play tennis one day.
Q 23Which was Hepburn's own favourite of her nine films with Tracy?
Pat and Mike
The 1952 sports comedy was also the last film she completed on her MGM contract.
Sylvia Scarlett
Critics disliked it and the public stayed away, one of four flops in a row.
Q 15What animal does Hepburn's flighty heiress lose in Bringing Up Baby (1938)?
A leopard
Howard Hawks's screwball comedy was acclaimed by critics but flopped at the box office.
Q 16What label did the Independent Theatre Owners of America attach to Hepburn in 1938?
Box office poison
RKO then offered her a B movie called Mother Carey's Chickens, and she left Hollywood for the stage.
Q 17Which partner bought Hepburn the film rights to The Philadelphia Story before the play had even opened?
Howard Hughes
She sold them to MGM on condition that she starred, and chose Cukor, James Stewart and Cary Grant.
Q 18Which playwright wrote The Philadelphia Story, Holiday and Without Love, all associated with Hepburn?
Philip Barry
He had once bluntly told her she "weren't very good" after firing her from The Animal Kingdom.
Q 19Which co-star won his only Academy Award for Best Actor for The Philadelphia Story?
James Stewart
Hepburn ceded top billing to Grant and won the New York Film Critics Circle Award herself.
Q 20Which 1942 film was the first of nine that Hepburn made with Spencer Tracy?
Woman of the Year
On their first day she said she was too tall for him; he promised to cut her down to his size.
Q 24Whom did Hepburn replace at the last minute in Frank Capra's State of the Union (1948)?
Claudette Colbert
She agreed only days before shooting began, and appeared with Tracy for a third consecutive year the following year in Adam's Rib.
Q 25The African Queen (1951) was Hepburn's first film in what?
Technicolor
It was shot mostly on location in the Belgian Congo, and Bogart won his only Oscar for it.
Q 26Where was The African Queen mostly filmed?
The Belgian Congo
Co-star Humphrey Bogart won his only Best Actor Oscar for the film.
Q 27Which David Lean romantic drama, set in Venice, earned Hepburn an Oscar nomination in 1955?
Summertime
She said her Jane Hudson, like Rosie Sayer and Lizzie Curry, was really herself.
Q 28In which Tennessee Williams adaptation did Hepburn play Violet Venable opposite Elizabeth Taylor?
Suddenly, Last Summer
Williams later wrote The Night of the Iguana with her in mind, but she turned it down.
Q 29For which Eugene O'Neill adaptation did Hepburn win the Best Actress award at Cannes?
Long Day's Journey Into Night
She called morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone the most challenging female role in American drama and her own best screen work.
Q 30How many days after filming his last scene in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner did Spencer Tracy die?
17
Hepburn had taken years off to care for him, and the film brought her second Oscar, 34 years after her first.