Audrey Hepburn - a beautiful talented actress of the classic cinema and a fashion icon
"What is needed to become a real star is an extra element that God can give you or not. You're already born with it. You can't learn. God kissed the face of Audrey Hepburn, and there she was", said the director Billy Wilder. Audrey Hepburn said to a friend once, that if one day she would write her biography, she would start this way: "I was born on the fourth of May of 1929 and I died three weeks later". She said that because three weeks after her birth, her heart has stopped for a moment and her mother saved her life with a little slap.
Graceful former dancer and model, in films from 1951. After small parts in European productions, Audrey scored a key break when she was chosen by no less than Colette herself to star onstage in the author's Gigi (1951). Shortly thereafter, the radiant young actress gained immediate prominence in Hollywood with the leading role in the feature romantic comedy Roman Holiday (1953), which was followed by similarly enchanting performances in films such as Funny Face (1957) and Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).
A spirited, incredibly chic gamine type famous for her waiflike yet slightly tomboyish manner, thick eyebrows, bouncy bangs and Givenchy fashion flair, Audrey proved a beautiful, elegant foil to fatherly older men Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda and Fred Astaire, as well as young leads George Peppard and Albert Finney. One of the most lovely and photographed of stars, she helped define one type of feminine beauty in her era (as opposed to the full-figured Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russel look at the opposite end of the spectrum) and helped set the style for the slender, reedlike fashion model whose offshoots are still popular today.
Hepburn has an extremely impressive string of fine films and roles through the late 1950s, including Billy Wilder's romantic comedies Love in the Afternoon (1957) and Sabrina (1954); and the absorbing drama The Nun's Story (1959). The 1960s proved a thinner period, but besides Tiffany's, Audrey enjoyed notable success opposite Cary Grant in the romantic mystery Charade (1963). She had less success in the title role of the ugly duckling turned beautiful swan in My Fair Lady (1964). Her radiance was evident in the latter half of the film, but Hepburn, the daughter of a Dutch baroness and an English banker, rebound as the blind heroine of the suspenseful thriller Wait Until Dark (1967), which netted Hepburn her fifth and final Oscar nomination.
After nine-year absence from the screen Hepburn turned in a luminous "middle-aged" performance in Robin and Marian (1976) and continued to make occasional feature film appearances, such as her last, in Steven Spielberg's Always (1989).
On the personal side, Audrey married Mel Ferrer in 1954 and with him acheived one of her lifelong goals, to have a child. Sean was born on July 17, 1960. Audrey took time off from film making to raise her son. But in 1968, she and Mel divorced. A year later Audrey married Italian psycholigist Dr. Andrea Mario Dotti and the couple also gave birth to another son, Luca. However, two years later Audrey and the doctor separated and finally divorced in 1980.
In 1987, Audrey was officially appointed to succeed Danny Kaye (who died that year) as the Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. Accompanied by her companion until her death, Robert Wolders, she visited such places as Ethiopia, the Sudan, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. After returning from Somalia in 1991, Audrey was diagnosed with colon cancer. On January 20, 1993, Audrey Hepburn died at the age of 63 in Tolchenaz, Switzerland.