Katharine Hepburn catapulted from the defeat of her early Hollywood career by coming back to the East Coast and transforming herself. Playwright Philip Barry wrote The Philadelphia Story for her, and in the wake of its huge Broadway success in 1939, Hepburn’s then-beau Howard Hughes—at the time a rich and dashing aviator—gave her the money to buy the film rights. And from this moment on, Kate would be in charge of her own destiny.

Her return to Hollywood was triumphant, and the glamorous, self-possessed image she projected on screen in The Philadelphia Story (1940) reflected the emergence of Kate’s full-blown stardom. Two years later, her image as the prototypic modern woman—career-oriented and financially in control—blossomed in the first of nine movies she would make with Spencer Tracy. In Woman of the Year (1942), the ingredients of the Hepburn star personality had all come together: she had carved her own mold, and her stylish independent spirit had become her crowning achievement.