The screen diva who would have turned 100 on May 12, continues being celebrated, even as hidden elements of her personality continue to surface.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born (1907) in Hartford, Connecticut, to Dr. Thomas Norval Hepburn, a successful urologist from Virginia, and Katharine Martha Houghton. The Hepburns demanded frequent familiar discussions on every possible topic under the sun, and as a result the Hepburn children were well versed in social and political issues.

In 1928 Hepburn got married to businessman Ludlow ("Luddy") Ogden Smith. Hepburn and Smith's marriage was rocky from the start. They were divorced in Mexico in 1934.

Hepburn's first movie role was in RKO's A Bill of Divorcement, which also starred John Barrymore and Billie Burke. RKO was delighted by audience reaction to the film and signed Hepburn to a new contract after it wrapped. The following year (1933), Hepburn won her first Oscar for best actress in Morning Glory. That same year, Hepburn played Jo in the screen adaptation of Little Women, which broke box-office records.

By 1938, Hepburn was a bona fide star, and her foray into comedy with the films Bringing Up Baby and Stage Door was well received critically. But audience response to the two films was tepid, and the good reviews from critics were not enough to rescue her from an earlier string of flops (The Little Minister, Spitfire, Break of Hearts, Sylvia Scarlett, A Woman Rebels, Mary of Scotland, Quality Street). With these box office flops, Hepburn's movie career began to decline.

Outspoken and intellectual with an acerbic tongue, she defied the era's "blonde bombshell" stereotypes, preferring to wear pantsuits and disdaining makeup. She also had a famously difficult relationship with the press, turning down most interviews, which did not help her exposure to the public.

Hepburn was already reeling from a devastating series of flops when, in 1938, she (along with Fred Astaire, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and others) was voted "box office poison" in a poll taken by motion picture exhibitors.

With the help of ex-lover Howard Hughes, she purchased the film rights to the play Holiday and sold the rights to MGM, which adapted the play into one of the biggest hits of 1940. As part of her deal with MGM, Hepburn got to choose the director -- George Cukor -- and her co-stars -- Cary Grant and James Stewart. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her work. Her career was revived almost overnight.

Hepburn made her first appearance opposite Spencer Tracy in Woman of the Year (1942), directed by George Stevens. Behind the scenes the pair fell in love, beginning what would become one of the silver screen's most famous romances, despite Tracy's marriage to another woman.

Hepburn is perhaps best remembered for her role in The African Queen (1951), for which she received her fifth Best Actress nomination, losing to Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire. She played a prim spinster missionary in Africa who convinces Humphrey Bogart's character, a hard-drinking riverboat captain, to use his boat to attack a German ship.

Hepburn continued to do filmed stage dramas, including The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), The Trojan Women (1971) by Euripides, and Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1973).

In 1994, Hepburn gave her final three movie performances -- One Christmas, based on a short story by Truman Capote, as Ginny in the remake of Love Affair and This Can't Be Love.

On June 29, 2003, Hepburn died of natural causes at Fenwick, the Hepburn family home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

Compiled by Cultural Correspondent