Audrey hepburn

Audrey Kathleen Ruston was born on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles/Elsene, a small town in Belgium. The girl’s mother was Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch national, while her father, Joseph Hepburn Ruston, was British, although he had just gotten a job in the Netherlands. Throughout her life, she Audrey she held a British passport, a nationality to which she was entitled through her father’s line.

Although at first she was surrounded by luxuries, Audrey’s childhood was marked by the divorce of her parents, and because she witnessed first-hand the cruelties of the Nazis, who killed several of her relatives. During World War II, she lived in the Netherlands, her mother’s native country, which made him adopt her last name, Van Heemstra, and forced him to speak Dutch, so that the Nazis would not associate her with Great Britain. She suffered from hunger and calamities that wreaked havoc on her physical constitution.

Since childhood, Audrey Hepburn was in need of the affection of her father, who barely paid attention to her throughout her life, and of her mother, who, despite the fact that she adored her, behaved with great aristocratic coldness towards her. She studied to be a dancer, her true calling, but eventually found more success as a model in London. She immediately caught the attention of producers who offered her small roles. Her first film appearance was in Nederlands in 7 Lessen , where she played an airline stewardess.

Other roles followed in the hilarious comedyGold in bars , and inAmericans in Monte Carlo . With her secondary role in the romantic comedy Young Wives’ Tale , she caught the attention of executives from the American company Paramount, who negotiated hard for the actress to cross over to American cinema.

His first Hollywood movie was the mythicalRoman Holiday , by William Wyler , where she was a princess determined to spend a day as a normal tourist in the Eternal City, where she receives the willing help of an intrepid journalist, played by Gregory Peck . “In Audrey there was not an ounce of pettiness or selfishness. She was very good-natured and I guess people realized that. She wasn’t gossipy, treacherous, petty, or ambitious, characteristics that are so rife in this business. It’s easy to love Audrey,” Peck said. For this work, the actress became an international celebrity and she won a well-deserved Oscar for best actress.

She went from William Wyler to Billy Wilder , another of the greats, who transformed her from a princess into the daughter of the driver inSabrina . The shooting was complicated because his “partner”, Humphrey Bogart , had a drinking problem. She had a loud affair with her other co-star, William Holden , who was married, but she broke up with him when she found out that she had had a vasectomy, since Audrey wanted children above all else. .

In the end, she ended up marrying Mel Ferrer , who was her co-star in War and Peace (1956) , a worthy adaptation of Tolstoy’s famous novel. Her marriage to the actor was not entirely satisfactory for Audrey, she was very much in love with her but she did not feel reciprocated. She got pregnant but eventually lost the child, which caused her to fall into a terrible depression.

She only managed to get out of the tunnel when she got pregnant again, and gave birth to her son Sean Hepburn Ferrer, who became, how could it be otherwise, the engine of her life. “Since she was little, all she wanted was to have a child, or lots of children,” said the actress.

Hepburn used to pair her early years with mature actors, because after filming with Bogart she went on to star inA Face with an Angel , with Fred Astaire , andAriane , with Gary Cooper . At the acting level, his hardest work is possiblyStory of a nun , based on the real case of a nun sent to the Congo to work as a nurse. Right after she shot a failed western, but interesting at times,Those who do not forgive , a film that even its director, John Huston , denied , who in his autobiography assured that he could not stand it. Another of Hepburn’s big mistakes was starring inGreen mansions , directed by her husband, a rather discreet film.

The character with which Audrey Hepburn is most identified is Holly Golightly, the protagonist ofBreakfast at Tiffany ‘s, who goes to high society parties in search of a solvent boyfriend to hunt down. Loosely based on the Truman Capote novel , it is one of Blake Edwards ‘ best films . To this day, it is striking that a studio executive came to order that “that damn song” be removed, referring to “Moon River”, which has become a classic. To make up for this slight, Audrey was kind enough to write to Henry Mancini , the composer. “Your music has made us fly,” explained the actress. This time they did pair Audrey with an actor her age, George Peppard , who however was not up to her talent. Another big mistake was hiringMickey Rooney to play the Chinese neighbor, which in any case does not ruin a first-class bittersweet film.

She played a teacher accused of being a lesbian by a vengeful girl in the adaptation of Lilian Hellman’s playThe slander , again under the baton of William Wyler, who would recruit her again in the comedyHow to steal a million . For his part,Charade is a great Hitchcock thriller with a lot of humor, directed by Stanley Donen , with unrepeatable sequences of the actress with Cary Grant .

after romantic comedyMeeting in Paris , Hepburn had a bitter experience during the filming ofMy Fair Lady , an excellent musical by George Cukor . The actress was chosen because producer Jack Warner wanted a big star, to the detriment of Julie Andrews , who had starred in the musical on Broadway. She would have done a great job as a singer while Audrey Hepburn had to be dubbed. On Oscar night, Hepburn was nominated, but was competing with Julie Andrews, who ultimately won, forMary Poppins (her first feature film). In the acceptance speech, Andrews was quite vindictive, as she wryly thanked Jack Warner for the statuette.

Audrey Hepburn did a great job as a blind person inAlone in the dark The aforementioned Stanley Donen had a hard time convincing her to work with him again on the especially memorableTwo for the Road , written by Frederic Raphael . She was reluctant to be the lead because it was a film that was grittier and more realistic in tone than the white, elegant comedies she always insisted on playing, to maintain her sophisticated image. An example of how the film is nothing like the rest of her filmography is the profanity in the final sequence, unusual in an Audrey Hepburn film. On the other hand, the rest of her films tend to be chronologically edited, unlike what happens with this excellent dissection of married life.

In the last stage of her career, Hepburn was more focused on her family life than on the movies. She preferred to be with her son than shooting movies. In 1968 she divorced Mel Ferrer, and married Andrea Dotti, a doctor younger than her, with whom she had a second son named Luca. Her relationship with Dotti also failed.

He returned to the cinema on specific occasions, when he was very interested in the project or those responsible insisted ad nauseam. She was the protagonist ofRobin and Marian , a romantic revision of the legend of an already mature Robin Hood, played by Sean Connery . They were followed by the discreetblood ties ,Everyone laughed and the telefilmLove among thieves . She said goodbye to the cinema forever with Always (Forever) , by Steven Spielberg , where she appeared as a secondary playing an angel. The role suited him, because in real life he was an angelic being who dedicated a lot of time to humanitarian work. She was named a special ambassador for UNICEF. Three months before her death, she still traveled to Somalia, despite her failing health. She finally passed away on January 20, 1993, at the age of 63, at her residence in Tolochenaz, Switzerland.