Audrey Hepburn : Biography
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| Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn :
Biography
Actress, fashion icon, and
philanthropist Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929, in Brussels, Belgium. At
age 22, she starred in the Broadway production of Gigi. Two years later, she
starred in the film Roman Holiday (1953) with Gregory Peck.
In 1961, she set new fashion standards as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at
Tiffany's. Hepburn is one of the few actresses to win an Emmy, Tony,
Grammy, and Academy Award. In her later years, acting took a back seat to her
work on behalf of children.
Background
Born on May 4, 1929, in Brussels,
Belgium, Audrey Hepburn was a talented performer known for her beauty, elegance
and grace. Often imitated, she remains one of Hollywood's greatest style icons.
A native of Brussels, Hepburn spent part of her youth in England at a boarding
school there. During much of World War II, she studied at the Arnhem
Conservatory in The Netherlands. After the Nazis invaded the country, Hepburn
and her mother struggled to survive. She reportedly helped the resistance
movement by delivering messages, according to an article in The New York
Times.
After the war, Hepburn continued to
pursue an interest in dance. She studied ballet in Amsterdam and later in
London. In 1948, Hepburn made her stage debut as a chorus girl in the musical High
Button Shoes in London. More small parts on the British stage followed. She
was a chorus girl in Sauce Tartare (1949), but was moved to a featured
player in Sauce Piquante (1950).
That same year, Hepburn made her
feature film debut in 1951's One Wild Oat, in an uncredited role. She
went on to parts in such films as Young Wives' Tales (1951) and The
Lavender Hill Mob (1951), starring Alec Guiness. Her next project on the
New York stage introduced her to American audiences.
On Broadway
At the age of 22, Audrey Hepburn went
to New York to star in the Broadway production of Gigi, based on the
book by the French writer Colette. Set in Paris around 1900, the comedy focuses
on the title character, a young teenage girl on the brink of adulthood. Her
relatives try to teach her ways of being a courtesan, to enjoy the benefits of
being with a wealthy man without having to marry. They try to get a friend of
the family, Gaston, to become her patron, but the young couple has other ideas.
Only a few weeks after the play
premiered, news reports indicated that Hepburn was being wooed by Hollywood.
Only two years later, she took the world by storm in the film Roman Holiday
(1953) with Gregory
Peck. Audiences and critics alike were wowed by her portrayal of Princess
Ann, the royal who escapes the constrictions of her title for a short time. She
won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this performance.
The next year Hepburn returned to the
Broadway stage to star in Ondine with Mel Ferrer. A fantasy, the play
told the story of a water nymph who falls in love with a human played by
Ferrer. With her lithe and lean frame, Hepburn made a convincing sprite in this
sad story about love found and lost.
She won the 1954 Tony Award for Best
Actress in a Play for her performance. While the leading characters in the play
grew apart, the actors found themselves becoming closer. The two also made a
dynamic pair off stage and Hepburn and Ferrer got married on September 25,
1954, in Switzerland.
Film Star
Back on the big screen, Hepburn made
another award worthy performance in Sabrina (1954) as the title
character, the daughter of a wealthy family's driver. Sabrina returned home
after spending time in Paris as a beautiful and sophisticated woman. The
family's two sons, Linus and David, played by Humphrey Bogart
and William
Holden, never paid her much mind until her transformation. Pursuing her
onetime crush David, Sabrina unexpectedly found happiness with his older
brother Linus. Hepburn earned her an Academy Award nomination for her work on
this bittersweet romantic comedy.
Showcasing her dancing abilities,
Hepburn starred opposite Fred Astaire in
the musical Funny Face (1957). This film featured Hepburn undergoing
another transformation. This time, she played a beatnik bookstore clerk who
gets discovered by a fashion photographer played by Astaire. Lured by a free
trip to Paris, the clerk becomes a beautiful model. Hepburn’s clothes for the
film were designed by Hubert de
Givenchy, one of her close friends.
Stepping away from lighthearted fare,
Hepburn co-starred in the film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War
and Peace with her husband, Mel Ferrer, and Henry Fonda in
1956. Three years later, she played Sister Luke in The Nun's Story
(1959), which earned her an Academy Award nomination. The film focused on her
character's struggle to succeed as a nun. A review in Variety said "Audrey
Hepburn has her most demanding film role, and she gives her finest
performance." Following that stellar performance, she went on to star in
the John Huston-directed
western The Unforgiven (1960) with Burt Lancaster.
That same year, her first child, a son named Sean, was born.
Returning to her glamorous roots,
Hepburn set new fashion standards as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at
Tiffany's (1961), which was based on a novella by Truman Capote.
She played a seemingly lighthearted, but ultimately troubled New York City
party girl who gets involved with a struggling writer played by George Peppard.
Hepburn received her fourth Academy Award nomination for her work on the film.
Later Work
For the rest of the 1960s, Hepburn
took on a variety of roles. She starred with Cary Grant in the
romantic thriller Charade (1963). Playing the lead in the film version
of the popular musical My Fair Lady (1964), she went through one of the
most famous metamorphoses of all time. As Eliza Doolittle, she played an
English flower girl who becomes a high society lady. Taking on more dramatic
fare, she starred a blind woman in the suspenseful tale Wait Until Dark
(1967) opposite Alan
Arkin. Her character used her wits to overcome the criminals that were
harassing her.
This film brought her a fifth Academy
Award nomination. That same year, Hepburn and her husband separated and later
divorced. She married Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969, and the couple
had a son, Luca, in 1970.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Hepburn worked
sporadically. She starred opposite Sean Connery in
Robin and Marian (1976), a look at the central figures of the Robin Hood
saga in their later years. In 1979, Hepburn co-starred with Ben Gazzara in the
crime thriller Bloodline. Hepburn and Gazzara teamed up again for the
1981 comedy They All Laughed, directed by Peter
Bogdanovich. Her last screen role was in Always (1989) directed by Steven
Spielberg.
Legacy
In her later years, acting took a back
seat to her work on behalf of children. She became a goodwill ambassador for
UNICEF in the late 1980s. Traveling the world, Hepburn tried to raise awareness
about children in need. She understood too well what it was like to go hungry
from her days in The Netherlands during the German Occupation. Making more than
50 trips, Hepburn visited UNICEF projects in Asia, Africa, and Central and
South America. She won a special Academy Award for her humanitarian work in
1993, but she did not live long enough to receive it. Hepburn died on January
20, 1993, at her home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland after a battle with colon
cancer.
Her work to help children around the
world continues. Her sons, Sean Ferrer and Luca Dotti, along with her companion
Robert Wolders, established the Audrey Hepburn Memorial Fund to continue
Hepburn's humanitarian work in 1994. It is now known as the Audrey Hepburn
Children's Fund.
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