# Are Kathrine Hepburn and Kate Mulgrew related? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2005, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249 "2005-03-12T22:25:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/1 "2005-03-12T22:25:47Z")
The resemblance is uncanny. Are they related? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/2 "2005-03-12T22:28:11Z")
I doubt it, but she’s played her onstage. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/3 "2005-03-12T22:31:12Z")
I don’t think so. I don’t think Kate had any children. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/4 "2005-03-13T00:51:19Z")
**ivylass** is correct. Kate Mulgrew comes from a big Irish Catholic family in the Midwest, and I’m pretty sure Hepburn was an only child. They do resemble each other, admittedly. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/5 "2005-03-13T00:54:44Z")
It’s the voices, especially. It’s uncanny. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/6 "2005-03-13T01:04:16Z")
Hepburn had four brothers and sisters and remained very active in the lives of her neices and nephews (and grand neices and nephews) apparently right up to her death. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/7 "2005-03-13T01:14:06Z")
[quote=ivylass ] I don’t think so. I don’t think Kate had any children. [/quote] > [@vivalostwages](#): > > ivylass is correct. Kate Mulgrew comes from a big Irish Catholic family in the Midwest, and I’m pretty sure Hepburn was an only child. Am I being whoosed? Becuase i can’t see how either of these could possibly be relevant to the issue of whether they are related. Katharine is older than kate, so whether kate had children is irrelevant. Even if Katherine is an only child it does not stop her from having children of her own, one of which could easily have been Kate. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/8 "2005-03-13T01:29:42Z")
**ivylass** was calling Hepburn “Kate,” which a lot of people did. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/9 "2005-03-13T01:47:26Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > **ivylass** was calling Hepburn “Kate,” which a lot of people did. I had no idea, what a coincidence! It would have been usefull to know that before my previous post. ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/10 "2005-03-13T02:50:28Z")
Katherine Hepburn had no children. She was not, though, an only child. Her niece, [**Katherine Houghton,**](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0396455/bio) played her daughter in the movie _Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner_. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-kathrine-hepburn-and-kate-mulgrew-related/294249/11 "2005-03-13T04:18:07Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > Am I being whoosed? Becuase i can’t see how either of these could possibly be relevant to the issue of whether they are related. > > Katharine is older than kate, so whether kate had children is irrelevant. > > Even if Katherine is an only child it does not stop her from having children of her own, one of which could easily have been Kate. Katherine Hepburn did not have any children. She was married, once, but unsuccessfully (in her own estimation) and made repeated statements lambasting Hollywood and society at large about having no use for a woman who wasn’t a baby factory. (Although she put it in much more dramatic language than that, I’m certain.) She did have four (five) siblings, with one brother who killed himself as an adolescent. I can’t find from IMDb that she was of any relation to Kate Mulgrew, and the similarity (sharp facial features and a hard-edged voice) are somewhat superficial rather than uncanny. Still, Mulgrew probably provided a much better choice to play her than the caricatured performance offered by Cate Blanchet (in _The Aviator_). Was anyone else a creeped out about that as I was? Kate (Hepburn) was one of a kind…unfortunately. She always managed to bring something extra to her films, a sort of inextinguishable flame. And, as much as her pairings with Tracy were vaunted, I think she played off of Cary Grant much better. Stranger