There were letters, telegrams, scrapbooks, movie scripts, scores of photographs and other memorabilia - all meticulously collected by Katharine Hepburn during her classic 65-year career.

Truckloads of the material had been arriving in recent days at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - a gift from the estate of the four-time Oscar-winner, who died last year at age 96. And more mementos were on the way from Hepburn's New York and Connecticut homes.

"She seemed to have saved everything," library director Linda Mehr said. "We think it's an extraordinary treasure."

During her Hollywood era, interviewers quickly learned that questions about Hepburn's personal life evoked a reproving stare. Astonishingly, though, she directed that all of her papers be made available to the public after her death.

This included correspondence with close friends Cary Grant, Tennessee Williams, Laurence Olivier, John Wayne, Henry Fonda and of course Spencer Tracy, as well as numerous exchanges with directors such as George Cukor, John Huston and David Lean.

"I talked to her about this many, many times," says Cynthia McCormick, a 30-year friend of the actress and co-executor of the estate.

"Were there things that she wanted to destroy or wanted me to destroy? Her answer was no," McCormick said. "She thought that what she had saved was the truth of her own experience, and it was OK after she was gone to let people know the truth."

Hepburn's four acting Oscars remain a record, and her 12 acting nominations were topped only last year by Meryl Streep.

The academy library also houses the collections of Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Mae West and many other stars, but none matches the size and scope of Hepburn's.

"This is a record collection ... and the most comprehensive," Mehr said. "She was such an articulate person and one with whom people loved to correspond."

A sampling:

• A handwritten letter from Jane Fonda after the Oscars for On Golden Pond had been awarded to Hepburn and Henry Fonda, who was dying: "Your notes to him have lifted his spirit and moved him deeply at a time when spirit is about all he's got going. That is the nicest gift one can give him."

• A note to Hepburn when she was in a New York play: "I just wanted to tell you I enjoyed you last night. Eleanor Roosevelt."

• A missive from Hepburn's father urging her not to break her movie contract so she could do a Broadway play. She followed his advice.

• A long letter to her father telling him of a meeting with MGM bigwigs about whether to make a film version of Without Love, a play she had done in New York and to which she owned the film rights and which became one of the better Hepburn-Tracy films.