page_title: Katharine Hepburn
section_title: Film, television, and theatre (1971–1983)
hierarchical_section_title: Katharine Hepburn / Career / Film, television, and theatre (1971–1983)
caption_attribution_description: Cropped screenshot of Katharine Hepburn in the trailer for the 1975 film Rooster Cogburn Public domain explanation Trailers created prior to 1976 were copyrighted under the Copyright Act of 1909, which determined that in the 28th year, the owner of the copyright had to renew the copyright. If he did not, his work went into the public domain (see here). The copyright for this trailer would therefore have to be renewed in 2003. Searching for "Rooster Cogburn" with the United States Copyright Office reveals that the movie has its copyright renewed, but there is no evidence that this was secured for the trailer. It is possible that copyright was never properly secured for the trailer in the first place. Under the 1909 Copyright Act, which was law until 1978, copyright required 1) publishing the item with a copyright notice; 2) depositing two copies of the item with the Unites States Copyright Office (see here). Creative Clearance notes that most trailers were not registered with the Copyright Office in this way. The lack of a copyright renewal for this trailer, despite the fact that the movie secured it, suggests this may have been the case.
context_page_description: Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress and leading lady in Hollywood for more than 60 years. She appeared in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and she received a record four Academy Awards for Lead Acting Performances, plus eight further nominations. In 1999, Hepburn was named by the American Film Institute the greatest female star of Classic Hollywood Cinema. She was known for her fierce independence, spirited personality and the pushing of boundaries for women.
  Raised in Connecticut by wealthy, progressive parents, Hepburn began to act while studying at Bryn Mawr College. Favorable reviews of her work on Broadway brought her to the attention of Hollywood. Her early years in film were marked with success, including an Academy Award for Best Actress for her third picture, Morning Glory, but this was followed by a series of commercial failures culminating in the critically lauded but commercially unsuccessful comedy Bringing Up Baby, a pairing with Cary Grant.
context_section_description: Hepburn stayed active throughout the 1970s, focusing on roles described by Andrew Britton as "either a devouring mother or a batty old lady living [alone]". First she traveled to Spain to film a version of Euripides' The Trojan Women (1971) alongside Vanessa Redgrave. When asked why she had taken the role, she responded that she wanted to broaden her range and try everything while she still had time. The movie was poorly received, but the Kansas City Film Critics Circle named Hepburn's performance the best from an actress that year. In 1971, she signed on to star in an adaptation of Graham Greene's Travels with My Aunt, but was unhappy with early versions of the script and took to rewriting it herself. The studio disliked her changes; so, Hepburn abandoned the project and was replaced with Maggie Smith. Her next film, an adaptation of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1973) directed by Tony Richardson, had a small release and received generally unfavorable reviews.
  In 1973, Hepburn ventured into television for the first time, starring in a production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. She had been wary of the medium, but it proved to be one of the main television events of the year, scoring high in the Nielsen ratings. Hepburn received an Emmy Award nomination for playing wistful Southern mother Amanda Wingfield, which opened her mind to future work on the small screen. Her next project was the television movie Love Among the Ruins (1975), a London-based Edwardian drama with her friend Laurence Olivier. It received positive reviews and high ratings, and earned Hepburn her only Emmy Award.
  Hepburn made her only appearance at the Academy Awards in 1974, to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to Lawrence Weingarten. She received a standing ovation, and joked with the audience, "I'm very happy I didn't hear anyone call out, 'It's about time'." The following year, she was paired with John Wayne in the western Rooster Cogburn, a sequel to his Oscar-winning film True Grit. Echoing her African Queen character, Hepburn again played a deeply religious spinster who teams up with a masculine loner to avenge a family member's death. The movie received mediocre reviews. Its casting was enough to draw some people to the box office, but it did not meet studio expectations and was only moderately successful.
  In 1976, Hepburn returned to Broadway for a three-month run of Enid Bagnold's play A Matter of Gravity. The role of eccentric Mrs. Basil was deemed a perfect showcase for the actress, and the play was popular despite poor reviews. It later went on a successful nationwide tour. During its Los Angeles run, Hepburn fractured her hip, but she chose to continue the tour performing in a wheelchair. That year, she was voted "Favorite Motion Picture Actress" by the People's Choice Awards. After three years away from the screen, Hepburn starred in the 1978 film Olly Olly Oxen Free. The adventure comedy was one of the biggest failures of her career—the screenwriter James Prideaux, who worked with Hepburn, later wrote that it "died at the moment of release" and referred to it as her "lost film". Hepburn claimed the main reason she had done it was the opportunity to ride in a hot-air balloon. The television movie The Corn Is Green (1979), which was filmed in Wales, followed. It was the last of ten films Hepburn made with George Cukor, and gained her a third Emmy nomination.
  By the 1980s, Hepburn had developed a noticeable tremor, giving her a permanently shaking head. She did not work for two years, saying in a television interview, "I've had my day—let the kids scramble and sweat it out." During this period she saw the Broadway production On Golden Pond, and was impressed by its depiction of an elderly married couple coping with the difficulties of old age. Jane Fonda had purchased the screen rights for her father, actor Henry Fonda, and Hepburn sought to play opposite him in the role of quirky Ethel Thayer. On Golden Pond was a success, the second-highest-grossing film of 1981. It demonstrated how energetic the 74-year-old 
caption: In the western Rooster Cogburn (1975), which Hepburn costarred with John Wayne
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