Kathy Howlett, professor of film, literature at NU; 54

Stepping from stage to screen, actors who portray Shakespeare's characters do more than simply speak their lines in a different venue, Kathy Howlett realized as she watched films of the bard's plays.

"She would talk about how it wasn't just a translation," said Inez Hedges, who codirected the cinema studies program at Northeastern University with Dr. Howlett. "She would use the word 'transformation.' "

Dr. Howlett first encountered this metamorphosis as a girl, watching movies of Shakespearean dramas with her mother and siblings. At Northeastern, she taught students how cinematic techniques became part of the meaning of these adaptations, and she became a founder of a burgeoning academic discipline eight years ago when she turned her insights into the book "Framing Shakespeare on Film."

On New Year's Day, Kathy Howlett DePree was on her way home with her husband and young son from North Syracuse, N.Y., where she had helped care for her ailing father. The family paused at a rest stop in Lee, Mass., and while having lunch, she died of complications from mitral valve prolapse, a heart disorder that can go undetected.

Dr. Howlett, who used her maiden name professionally as an associate professor of English, was 54 and lived in Sharon.

A scholar of 17th and 18th century literature in addition to her study of films, she was a vibrant presence in the classroom or the living room.

"I team-taught with her, and she had such a great sense of dramatic timing that some of her students would come up to her afterward and say, 'You should be on stage,' " Hedges said.

"She was always so exciting and gorgeous," said Dr. Howlett's sister, April of Weston, Conn. "When she walked into a room, everyone lit up."

Known for her devotion to caring for family and friends, Dr. Howlett also nurtured the stray cats of Sharon, going often to places where they congregated. She fed the cats, got them medical attention, and found them homes. "She had all these mothering instincts," said her husband, David DePree. "At one time, we had six stray cats in our house."

Dr. Howlett lavished as much attention on her students, graduate and undergraduate, and on the Arts and Crafts style house she and her husband purchased in Sharon a decade ago, restoring a structure he said was all but in ruins when they moved in.

"My mother was Hungarian and had been a model and a singer and an artist," April said. "She had this particular style that I think Kathy picked up on - beauty for a higher purpose, uplifting everybody."

The eldest of four children, Kathy Howlett grew up in North Syracuse and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She went to Brandeis University, where she received a master's in English and a doctorate, studying Shakespeare and works from the 17th and 18th centuries.

"She was a very ambitious young person," said Claudia Thomas Kairoff, a roommate during the Brandeis years who now chairs the English department at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Kathy was very studious, loved literature, and was very serious about literature, but she was never an introverted sort of person."

"I think what I remember most about Kathy is her unfailing optimism, and she had one of the most memorable laughs - this mirthful, cheerful laugh that just brightened any situation," said Desmond McCarthy, a professor of English at Framingham State College who was a graduate student with Dr. Howlett. "There are people like Kathy who bring so much light and humor and humanity to the world."

Dr. Howlett began teaching at Northeastern as a visiting instructor and then landed a tenure-track position.

En route to seeking tenure, Dr. Howlett took a year off to care for her mother, Marie, who died in 1992. Denied tenure at first, Dr. Howlett taught for a while at Fitchburg State College, Hedges said, and returned to Northeastern when the decision was reversed. "She really had a drive to excel in every sphere: professionally, as a mother, and socially," Hedges said.

When Dr. Howlett's sister Jennifer, who lived in Seattle, was diagnosed with cancer, "Kathy was there almost every month, and she was there with Jennifer on her deathbed," April said. Jennifer Howlett died in 2006.

A few years ago, Dr. Howlett and DePree, whom she met on a blind date and married in 1987, welcomed their son, Zachary, into their family.

"He was the love of her life," DePree said. "We had worked to build a home and build a foundation to allow for Zachary to flourish. That became our mission and our goal for the last four and a half years. On the way home from seeing her father, we were talking about maybe another child."

Dr. Howlett was also at work on another book, and "we had spoken two days before her death about plans for the future," Hedges said of Northeastern's cinema studies program. "We will certainly try to carry those out, but it is her vision that keeps us going."

Hedges added, "She had this gift of turning even routine things into something special."

In addition to her husband, son, and sister, Dr. Howlett leaves her father, George, and her brother, George of Lafayette, Ind.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. today in First Congregational Church of Sharon.