#393 USA...Thanks Charlie!

This issuance in the Legends of Hollywood series honors Katharine Hepburn, one of America’s most fascinating and enduring film stars. This stamp was issued May 12,2010. Over the course of her career, Hepburn made more than 40 motion pictures, including the comedy classic Bringing up Baby (1938)—with Hepburn as a leopard-owning heiress and Cary Grant as a stuffy paleontologist—and The African Queen (1951), in which she played a prim missionary spinster to Humphrey Bogart’s scruffy riverboat captain. Hepburn’s long, illustrious career—and perhaps even more, her independent personality—inspired three generations of Americans. She was, in particular, a role model for women who chose to live life on their own terms. In the words of her niece Katharine Houghton, she “provided hope and inspiration and courage for a whole new generation of women.” The stamp portrait is a publicity still from the film Woman of the Year (MGM, 1942). The photographer was Clarence S. Bull. The selvage image shows Hepburn as she appeared in the play West Side Waltz.

The 17c stamp is from 1986-94 Great Americans series honoring Belva Ann Lockwood.

Belva Ann Lockwood (1830–1917) was an American attorney, politician, educator and author. She was active in working for women's rights, although the term feminist was not in use. The press of her day referred to her as a "suffragist," someone who believed in women's suffrage or voting rights. Lockwood overcame many social and personal obstacles related to gender restrictions. After college, she became a teacher and principal, working to equalize pay for women in education. She supported the movement for world peace, and was a proponent of temperance.

Lockwood graduated from law school in Washington, D.C. and became one of the first female lawyers in the United States. In 1879, she successfully petitioned Congress to be allowed to practice before the United States Supreme Court, becoming the first woman attorney given this privilege. Lockwood ran for president in 1884 and 1888 on the ticket of the National Equal Rights Party and was the first woman to appear on official ballots.