Katharine Houghton (born Katharine Houghton Grant) 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 (2010).
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.