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. Houghton was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance. She is also known for her role as Kanna, the grandmother of Katara and Sokka in the film The Last Airbender.

Early and personal life Houghton was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the second child of Marion Hepburn and Ellsworth Grant. Houghton was named after her maternal grandmother, Connecticut suffragist and reformer Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn.

Houghton attended Kingswood-Oxford School and Sarah Lawrence College, where she majored in philosophy. Partially influenced by her aunt, actress Katharine Hepburn, she pursued acting as a way to help alleviate her osteoarthritis.

Career Acting quote="Working with my aunt on that film was difficult and complex. It was an exceedingly hard time for her. Spencer was dying, and she was like a tinderbox. It was a fascinating experience for me but not easy. Spencer was darling, supportive, and protective. He had flaws, but he was wonderful to me. So was Sidney, who was kind, sweet, and available. He was like a big brother." — —Houghton reflecting on her experience filming Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Houghton made her film debut in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) as the daughter Joanna Drayton opposite Sidney Poitier. She auditioned for the role and believed that her aunt, who was also appearing in the film, was influential in her casting. Because of the interracial kiss depicted in the film, Houghton and Kramer received hate mail and death threats.

Following Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Houghton became typecast as the woman in interracial relationships. However, Houghton decided to leave behind her Hollywood career due to lackluster scripts. "I turned down these projects and returned to the theater," she explained. "It was fate. I went on to play Hedda and Nora and Nina and Kate." She returned to film acting in the 1988 comedy-drama Mr. North.

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 in New York. 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 has also worked as a playwright, and by 1990, she had written nine Off-Broadway and regional productions. 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 John Grant, Houghton's elder brother. During the early 1980s, she wrote and starred in a one-woman show To Heaven in a Swing, detailing Louisa May Alcott's life with her Transcendentalist father, Amos Bronson Alcott. It 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.

Filmography Film Year Title Role 1967 Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Joanna 'Joey' Drayton 1974 Ellen Bennett 1982 1988 Mr. North Mrs. Skeel 1991 Billy Bathgate Charlotte 1993 Ethan Frome Mrs. Hale 1993 Less / More Cheese Lady 1995 Let It Be Me Homeless Woman 2004 Kinsey Mrs. Spaulding 2010 The Last Airbender Kanna, Katara and Sokka's Grandmother

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 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"