Woman of the Year (1942) was the first film Katharine Hepburn made with Spencer Tracy, and it set the pattern for one of Hollywood’s great screen partnerships.
Hepburn played Tess Harding, a celebrated political journalist, opposite Tracy as a sportswriter. Their characters clash over work, independence and marriage, and the comedy comes from two strong personalities learning to meet as equals.
The film earned Hepburn an Academy Award nomination and introduced a pairing that audiences loved. Tess Harding remains a landmark role: a professional woman, played without apology, at a time when such characters were still rare.
Image: Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year, Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Katharine_hepburn_woman_of_the_year_cropped.jpg