Ludlow Ogden Smith

Ludlow Ogden Smith (February 6, 1899 - July 13, 1979) was a Philadelphia businessman.
He married Katharine Hepburn in December 1928, when she was 21 and he was 29. They met while she was in her senior year at Bryn Mawr College, through a mutual friend who lived next to campus. They separated in 1934 and Hepburn traveled to Mexico to gain a divorce.
After the divorce and his purging from the Philadelphia Social Register, he changed his name to Ogden Smith Ludlow to gain back his anonymity. A rumor persists that the change was made at Hepburn's request so that she would not be known as "Kate Smith", a popular singer of the time. This rumor was found to be true after Hepburn admitted to it in her memoirs. Fearing that the Mexican divorce may not have been legal, Ludlow secured a divorce in Connecticut on September 18, 1941 in anticipation of his remarriage.
Despite their divorce, they remained on good terms, with Ludlow even financing the Broadway play The Philadelphia Story in 1939 to help restart Hepburn's then-flagging career. Howard Hughes, in turn, then helped Hepburn to purchase the rights to the play for the MGM film version in 1940. She later wrote about Ludlow and their marriage in her memoir Me.
Ludlow was president of Ogden Ludlow Inc. and the creator of the "Ludlow Formula", a precursor to computerized systems in financial institutions.

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