They made your hands clammy, your knees quiver, and sent your hormones spinning when you were a dyke-in-training. It’s time to pay homage at the altar of dyke icons. This week a screen goddess who was born 100 years on 12 May 2007! She's gone but not forgotten…

Name:
Katharine Hepburn

Also known as:
Kate

Not to be confused with:
Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, Lana Turner or anyone else mentioned in `Vogue` by Madonna.

Last seen:
Um, she just died actually - 100 years ago on 12 May 2007!

Best feature:
Take no shit attitude, starchy demeanour, big glamorous face and trouser-wearing before it was okay for women to have `em.

Candy Bar or Kenric?
In the olden days, Candy Bar; more recently, probably Kenric.

Most likely to say:
Proto-feminist stuff such as: "Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then," or: "I was totally unaware that we were the second-rate sex."

Least likely to say:
"Jeez, I look wrinkly today."

Is she a sista?
Nope, but we love her dykely style and her independent ways.

Do mention:
One of the last true Hollywood stars, Katharine Hepburn worked until she was in her 80s. She won an unprecedented four Oscars and starred in films such as The African Queen, and The Philadelphia Story and On Golden Pond. Always free-spirited and outspoken she was greatly admired as an actress and as a woman.

Everybody`s favourite prima donna, Elizabeth Taylor, who worked with Hepburn, said: "I think every actress in the world looked up to her with a kind of reverence and a sense of, `Oh boy, if only I could be like her`."

Don`t mention:
I know she just died, and I hate to be mean, but did you notice that she kept the same hairdo for fifty years?


Want more? Then buy the Katharine Hepburn - Screen Goddess DVD box set online and save yourself some money to put towards her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life.