Katharine Houghton - Life and Career

Life and Career

Houghton was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the second child of Marion Hepburn and Ellsworth Grant. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and majored in philosophy and art. Houghton was named after her maternal grandmother, Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn. Her aunt, Katharine Hepburn, was instrumental in helping Houghton launch her career. The acting torch was further passed along in the family to actress Schuyler Grant, Houghton's niece.

Houghton has played leading roles in over sixty productions on Broadway, off-Broadway and in Regional Theatres across America. She won the Theatre World award for her performance in A Scent of Flowers off Broadway in 1969.

She has appeared in ten films, most recently The Last Airbender, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, in 2010.

Eleven of her plays have been produced. Her play Buddha was published in Best Short Plays of 1988. Her musical, "Bookends," premiered at NJ Rep Co. summer of 2007, received rave notices and garnered the theatre the highest box office sales in their eleven year history. Since then it has twice been part of The York Theatre’s Developmental Reading Series.

She has presented lectures at venues across the country including the 2001 Fall Concert & Lectures Series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at The Cosmopolitan Club. She lectured at MOMA again in June, 2008, presenting "Saucy Gamine, Reluctant Penitent, and Glorious Victor," a review of her aunt's roller coaster ride in Hollywood as reflected in three of her films.