Acting legend Katharine Hepburn dies at 96

NEW YORK - Actress Katharine Hepburn, who won an unequalled four best actress Oscars in a career that spanned five decades, has died at her home in Connecticut at the age of 96, police in her hometown said today.

Hepburn won her first Oscar in 1933 for "Morning Glory" and won again for "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," "The Lion in Winter" and "On Golden Pond." She was nominated for the award eight other times.

Irreverent and feisty, Hepburn always spoke her mind. Her independent spirit made her a role model to many women, and she was voted America's most admired woman in a 1985 Ladies Home Journal survey.

Hepburn also starred in film classics including "Little Women" and "The African Queen."

Her last film was "Love Affair" with Warren Beatty, released in the early 1990s.

She played opposite such leading men as James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda. But it is with Spencer Tracy that her name will be forever linked.

- REUTERS