Katharine Houghton

Katharine Houghton (born Katharine Houghton Grant; March 10, 1945) is an American actress and playwright. She portrayed Joanna "Joey" Drayton, a white woman who brings home her black fiancé to meet her parents, in the 1967 film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Katharine Hepburn, who played the mother of Houghton's character in the film, was Houghton's aunt.

Katharine Houghton
Houghton as a guest star on Judd, for the Defense, 1968
Born	Katharine Houghton Grant (1945-03-10) March 10, 1945 Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Sarah Lawrence College
Occupation	Actress, playwright
Years active	1966–present
Spouse(s)	Ken Jenkins (m. 1970)[1]
Parent(s)	Ellsworth Grant Marion Hepburn
Relatives	Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn (grandmother) Katharine Hepburn (aunt) Schuyler Grant (niece)

Early life

Houghton was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the second child of Marion Hepburn and Ellsworth Grant. She attended Kingswood-Oxford School and Sarah Lawrence College, where she majored in philosophy and art. Houghton was named after her maternal grandmother, Connecticut suffragist and reformer Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn.

Her aunt, Katharine Hepburn, was instrumental in helping Houghton launch her career. The acting torch was also later carried by actress Schuyler Grant, Houghton's niece.

Career

Acting

Houghton has played leading roles in over 60 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.[2]

Houghton 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 the Metropolitan Museum of Art again in June 2008, presenting "Saucy Gamine, Reluctant Penitent, and Glorious Victor", a review of her aunt's career in Hollywood as reflected in three of her films.

Writing

Houghton is also a playwright. In addition to writing her own plays, she has completed translations of others' works.[3] Eleven of her plays have been produced.

Her play Buddha was published in Best Short Plays of 1988. Her musical Bookends premiered at the New Jersey Repertory Company in summer of 2007, received rave notices, and garnered the theater the highest box office sales in their 11-year history. Since then it has twice been part of The York Theatre's Developmental Reading Series and is being redeveloped.

In 1975, Houghton wrote a children's story, "The Wizard's Daughter", which is collected in the book Two Beastly Tales, illustrated by Joan Patchen. The second story in the book is written by JB Grant, Houghton's elder brother.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1967	Guess Who's Coming to Dinner	Joanna 'Joey' Drayton
1974	The Gardener	Ellen Bennett
1982	The Eyes of the Amaryllis
1988	Mr. North	Mrs. Skeel
1991	Billy Bathgate	Charlotte
1993	Ethan Frome	Mrs. Hale
1993	The Night We Never Met	Less / More Cheese Lady
1995	Let It Be Me	Homeless Woman
2004	Kinsey	Mrs. Spaulding
2010	The Last Airbender	Katara's Grandma

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1966	ABC Stage 67	Bonnie	"The Confession"
1966	Hawk	Ophelia	"How Close Can You Get?"
1968	Judd, for the Defense	Suzy Thurston	"In a Puff of Smoke"
1974	CBS Daytime 90	Gabby	"Legacy of Fear"
1976	The Adams Chronicles	Abigail Adams Smith	TV miniseries
1981	ABC Afterschool Special	Miss James	"The Color of Friendship"
1987	I'll Take Manhattan	Pepper Delafield	TV miniseries
2017	Mr. Mercedes	Elizabeth Wharton	"Cloudy, with a Chance of Mayhem", "The Suicide Hour"

See also

• Houghton family

References

1. https://frostsnow.com/ken-jenkins
2. "Katharine Houghton". playbillvault.com. Retrieved February 23, 2013.
3. Genzlinger, Neil (August 1, 2007). "A Writer Finds the Rare Lives of Two Rare-Book Dealers Worth Singing About". The New York Times. Retrieved May 7, 2010.

External links

• Katharine Houghton on IMDb
• Katharine Houghton at the Internet Broadway Database