Audrey hepburn

Audrey Kathleen Ruston (Brussels, May 4, 1929-Tolochenaz, January 20, 1993), better known artistically as Audrey Hepburn, was an actress, model, British dancer and activist from the golden age of Hollywood. She is considered by the American Film Institute as the third greatest female legend of American cinema and she is part of the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.

After acting in several British films and starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi, she played the lead in Roman Holiday (1953), which earned her a Oscar for best actress. Later acting in hit movies like Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963), My Fair Lady (1964) and Wait Until Dark (1967), received Academy Award nominations, Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards and won a Tony Award for his stage performance in the 1954 Broadway play Undina. Hepburn is one of the few people to have won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony, as well as the first actress to win an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for a single performance: Roman Holiday in 1954.

Since the late 1960s, he began to act less as he dedicated much of his life to contributing to the UNICEF organization and to his family. She worked with some of the most deeply disadvantaged communities in Africa, South America and Asia between 1988 and 1992. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador at the end of 1992. One month he later died of appendiceal cancer at his home in Switzerland on January 20, 1993, at the age of 63. He received his second Academy Award, in this case the Jean Hersholt Award, for his humanitarian work. posthumously at the 1993 ceremony.

Biography

Childhood and youth

Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston in Ixelles/Elsene, a municipality in Brussels, Belgium. She was the only daughter of the Englishman Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston and his second wife, Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch aristocrat who was the daughter of the former Governor of Dutch Guiana (Suriname), Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra. The future actress's father later added her maternal grandmother's surname, Catherina, to her family; and her last name became Hepburn-Ruston. He had two brothers on his mother's side, the result of his mother's first marriage to jonkheer Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford: jonkheer Arnoud Roberto Alexander “Alex” Quarles van Ufford and jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford. Ella van Heemstra was a descendant of King Edward III of England and Scottish consort James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell.

Hepburn's father worked with an insurance company in Britain, which meant the family had the opportunity to travel often between Brussels, England and the Netherlands. Between 1935 and 1938, Hepburn studied at a private women's academy in Kent, England.

In 1935, her parents divorced, and her father, a Nazi sympathizer, abandoned the family. Both parents were members of the British union of fascists in the mid-1930s, according to Unity Mitford, a friend of Ella van Heemstra and a supporter of Adolf Hitler. Audrey later called this event "the most traumatic moment of her life." Much later she managed to locate her father in Dublin through the Red Cross. From then on she remained in contact with him and supported him financially until his death.

In 1939, he moved with his mother and two maternal half-siblings to his grandfather's house in Arnhem, the Netherlands. They thought the Netherlands was a safe place to avoid the Nazi army. Hepburn attended the Arnhem Conservatory between 1939 and 1945, where she studied piano and classical ballet, which she combined with her school studies.

Life during World War II

During her youth, Audrey lived through World War II, first in Belgium and then in the Netherlands, where her mother was from. To hide her English origins, Audrey's mother called her Ella van Heemstra, after her, and forced her to speak Dutch. Ella Audrey herself spoke perfect English, French, Dutch, Italian, German and Spanish. She studied to be a dancer, but poor nutrition during the war wreaked havoc on her constitution, so despite continuing to study and practice, she was forced to choose a new profession, which was that of an actress.

By 1944 Hepburn was already a good dancer, and during this time she was secretly dancing. The money she collected she donated to the Dutch resistance. About this time she later said: «The best audience I have ever had; I didn't make a single sound at the end of my performance."

With the landing of Allied troops in Normandy on D-Day, things in the Netherlands took a drastic turn for the worse. During the winter of 1944 the Germans confiscated food and fuel from the Dutch population. Without food or heat in their homes, people died of hunger and cold in the streets. Hepburn and many others made flour from tulips with which they could bake cookies and cakes. The Dutch city of Arnhem was devastated during Allied bombing, as part of the failed Operation Market Garden. Her uncle Otto van Limburg and a cousin of her mother's were shot as members of the resistance, her brother Ian was captured and was in a labor camp. The nutritional deficiencies became evident and Hepburn suffered from anemia and respiratory problems. In 1991 Hepburn said: "I have memories. I remember being at the train station watching the Jews being taken away, and I remember in particular a boy with his parents, very pale, very blond, wearing a coat that was too big for him, getting on the train. I was a girl watching a boy.

Hepburn also noted the similarities between her and Anne Frank. She «She was exactly the same age as Anne Frank. We were both ten when the war started and fifteen when it ended. A friend gave me Anne's book in Dutch in 1947. I read it and it destroyed me. The book has that effect on many readers, but I didn't see it that way, not just as printed pages; it was my life. I didn't know what I was going to read. I have not been the same again, it affected me deeply.

“We saw executions. We saw young men get up against the wall and get shot. They closed the street and then they reopened it and you could go through that same place. I have marked a place in the diary, in which Ana (Frank) says that they have shot five hostages. That was the day my uncle was shot. In the words of that girl I read what I still felt inside. That girl who had lived between four walls had made a complete report of everything she had lived and felt ». They also lived in one of the neuralgic points of the war, in Arnhem, the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict:

We stayed with a slice of bread made with any cereal and a plate of soup made with a single potato.

But those terrible years weren't all bad, and Hepburn could experience something of her childhood. Continuing with the parallels with the life of Anne Frank, she says: «The spirit of survival is very strong in the words of Anne Frank. One moment she says "I'm depressed" and the next she tells you that she wants to ride a bike. She is the sample of a childhood in terrible circumstances.

One way Audrey Hepburn spent time was by drawing. Some of her drawings can be seen today.

The country was liberated by allied forces and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration intervened in it. Hepburn said in an interview that she then ate a whole package of condensed milk and she got sick from the excess sugar. These experiences contributed to the fact that Audrey Hepburn was always by Unicef's side for the rest of her life.

Training as a dancer

In 1945, at the end of the war, Hepburn left the Arnhem Conservatory and moved to Amsterdam where she took ballet classes with Sonia Gaskell. In 1948 she went to London and continued studying ballet, this time with the renowned Marie Rambert, teacher of Vaclav Nijinsky, one of the greatest dancers in the history of dance. From time to time Hepburn would ask Rambert about her future, to which she would reply that she could still be there and have a great career, but the fact that she was relatively tall (1.69m), coupled with her thinness due to malnutrition during the German occupation would not allow her to have a good future as a prima ballerina. But Hepburn wanted to stand out, so she trusted her mentor and tried acting. In addition, the Hepburn family's financial situation would not allow her to continue her studies, and Audrey, in need of money, reconsidered starting acting, since this profession was better paid than that of a dancer. Rambert later said of Hepburn: “She was a wonderful student; if she had continued, she could have become an exceptional dancer ». To the hunger of the war and the affective miseries was added the perfectionism of the discipline of dance, which led to an anorexia nervosa that she always tried to hide; in his Memoirs José Luis Vilallonga affirms that their lunches were no more than a chicken wing and a lettuce leaf.^{[citation needed]} His son Sean stated that he even ate dog biscuits to combat hunger.

Early years as an actress

Her first Hollywood film was William Wyler's mythical Roman Holiday, 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.

Holidays in Rome

The producers initially wanted Elizabeth Taylor in the lead role, but director William Wyler was impressed by Audrey's screen test, in which the camera was left still and a series of shots were performed on her. questions to the actress, who did not know the camera was recording. Her responses and her sincerity demonstrated her enormous talent and Wyler did not hesitate to hire her. Wyler said: "She has all the things I look for: charm, innocence and talent. She is also very funny. She is absolutely lovely. We do not hesitate to say that she is our girl ». Her co-star, Gregory Peck, was already an established star and on the movie poster her name carried more weight than "introducing Audrey Hepburn." When filming was over, Peck called his agent and made them give the two names equal weight. Peck predicted that she would win the Oscar. Both Hepburn and Peck connected during filming, there were even rumors that they had a love affair, rumors denied by both. However, Audrey added: “You actually feel some love for your partner in the movie. If you're going to play a romance, you have to feel it. You can't do it any other way. But don't take it beyond the set." Due to the great success of Roman Holiday, Hepburn was on the cover of Time magazine on September 7, 1953.

Her performance received praise from critics. «Although she is not exactly a newcomer to the world of acting, Audrey Hepburn, the Belgian actress who gets into the skin of Princess Anne, is splendid, beautiful, alternating her scenes of royalty and the most childish ones during her search for basic pleasures and love. Although she smiles at the end of the film, she remains a miserably lonely person facing a difficult future." Hepburn would later refer to Roman Holiday as her most beloved film, as it It was what made her a star.

After four months of filming Roman Holiday, she traveled to New York to continue with the duties of Gigi. Before joining the set of Roman Holiday, Audrey performed with the musical in Los Angeles and San Francisco. This was possible since she had a contract with Paramount that allowed her to have twelve months between films to dedicate herself to the theater.

During the following years, he starred in classics such as Two for the Road, How to Steal a Million, A Face with an Angel, My Fair Lady (1964), the famous multi-Oscar-winning musical, and what is considered the role of her career, Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). But for Hepburn, her best role was undoubtedly that of Sister Lucas in Story of a Nun . That role, meeting her real protagonist, the similarities—both were Belgian and had suffered the war—made Audrey reconsider a lot and dedicate herself more to her humanitarian work.

Audrey, with her glamor and beauty, showed in Roman Holidays that she was also worth as an actress and with her "I wanna say thank you to..." she received the Oscar for Best Actress, the only one she would receive in her entire career.

Hollywood Star

Hepburn in Sabrina (1954)

After Roman Holiday, she starred with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden in Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Sabrina. Audrey was sent to designer Hubert de Givenchy to decide on her wardrobe for the film. When Givenchy was told that "Miss Hepburn" was coming to see him, he thought of Katharine Hepburn, not Audrey. At first, he refused to dress her, but in the end he rectified. Audrey and Givenchy maintained a strong friendship for the rest of their lives. During the filming of Sabrina, Audrey and William Holden had a loving relationship. Her role as Sabrina earned her an Oscar nomination, an award that ultimately went to Grace Kelly.

In 1954, Hepburn returned to the stage to star in Jean Giraudoux's Ondine, opposite her later husband, Mel Ferrer. She continued to star in the play for the remainder of the year. That same year she would receive the Golden Globe for best actress and the Oscar for her role in Roman Holiday . Six weeks after receiving the Oscar, Hepburn received the Tony Award for her play Ondine, making her one of only three actresses to win both an Oscar and a Tony in the same year—the other two being Shirley Booth and Ellen Burstyn.

Already one of the highest-grossing actresses in Hollywood, Audrey Hepburn had co-stars such as Humphrey Bogart (Sabrina), Fred Astaire (Funny Face), Maurice Chevalier and Gary Cooper (Love in the Afternoon), William Holden (Meeting in Paris), George Peppard (Breakfast at Tiffany's), Cary Grant (Charade), Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady), Peter O'Toole (How to Steal a Million and....) and Sean Connery (Robin and Marian). Many of these actors became people very close to the actress. Rex Harrison called her the "principal lady of hers" of hers—Hepburn became close friends with British dancer Kay Kendall, who was Harrison's wife; Cary Grant loved Hepburn's sense of humor. "All I ask for Christmas is another movie with Audrey Hepburn," he once said; and Gregory Peck became one of her closest friends. After the actress' death, Peck went to the camera and recited her favorite poem, Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore. Some believe that Audrey and Humphrey did not maintain their friendship, but it was false. As she would later say, "Sometimes the toughest guys are the most sensitive, like Bogey is to me."

In 1957, she acted in A Face with an Angel, one of her favorite movies because she got to dance with Fred Astaire. She was followed by Story of a Nun , one of her most dramatic and daring roles. About this role Films in Review she said: “Her role of her will silence all those who said that she is just a symbol of sophisticated woman. Her portrayal of Sister Luke is one of the best performances in cinema ». Audrey received an Oscar nomination for this role. Simone Signoret was the winner of the award on this occasion.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Her portrayal of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) made her an icon of American cinema. She defined her role as "the most jazz of my career." When she was questioned about her new role, she said: "I'm an introvert. Acting to be an outgoing girl is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life." The elegant wardrobe that she wore in the film was designed by Givenchy. Additionally, she added blonde streaks to her hair, a look that she also retained off-screen. This role, without a doubt the most popular of her career, was originally intended for Marilyn Monroe. Truman Capote, the author of the novel on which the film is based, as well as a screenwriter, was a great friend of the controversial actress. When Marylin turned down the role because she wanted to stop playing "naive girls" and it came to Audrey, Holly's character underwent several changes; between them, the character stopped being bisexual to be heterosexual. In addition, her work as a luxury prostitute remains much more diffused and at no time is the slightest reference made to this fact. Her magnificent performance would receive another Oscar nomination, but the award went to Italian Sophia Loren for Two Women.

Hepburn had established herself as one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood. In 1963 she sang "Happy Birthday" to President Kennedy as Marilyn Monroe had done a year earlier. Despite all this, Audrey lived a much more reserved and humble life than most Hollywood stars, as evidenced by the fact that she lived in houses, not mansions, and that she cultivated her own garden, in addition to her vocation for Unicef. and his many humanitarian trips to Africa.

My Fair Lady

With Cary Grant in Charada (1963)

With Walter Matthau in Charada

She starred with Shirley MacLaine in 1961 in Slander, directed by William Wyler, one of her most complicated and controversial works dealing with the subject of lesbianism. William Wyler, in order to be approved by the Motion Picture Production Code, cut much of the material that implicitly or explicitly referred to the homosexuality of Martha, the character played by McLaine. Perhaps due to the censorship of the time, the film and Hepburn's performance went virtually unnoticed by critics and audiences alike.

In 1963 he would star alongside Cary Grant in Charade, an excellent parody of Alfred Hitchcock's suspense films.

This role was followed by George Cukor's My Fair Lady, said to be the most anticipated film since Gone with the Wind. They chose Audrey as the lead over the then-unknown Julie Andrews, who had starred in the same role in the Broadway musical. The decision not to cast Andrews was made before casting Hepburn, who initially turned down the role and asked that it be given to Julie Andrews, but when she learned it was going to Elizabeth Taylor, who was also competing Because she is the protagonist of the film, she accepted it. The producers agreed that Hepburn was the perfect choice. Hepburn's controversial choice over Andrews also drew the ire of actor Rex Harrison, who had starred opposite Andrews in the original musical. Harrison was upset with the decision for Eliza's role, saying, "Eliza Doolittle was supposed to be uncomfortable at European balls. Damned Audrey has never spent her life outside of European balls." Harrison, in an interview later, regretted what he had said and when asked who was his best companion during his career, without thinking, he said: "Audrey Hepburn." Julie Andrews had to film Mary Poppins, which was released the same year as My Fair Lady. At first, it was decided that Audrey Hepburn would shoot the musical scenes for the film, but she would not sing them. That was taken care of by Marni Nixon, who dubbed all her songs. But still, Hepburn recorded the songs. In the final cut of the film, those of Marni Nixon were chosen, which are also included on the CDs, and not those of Hepburn, who are present in documentaries and extra material on the DVDs. only several numbers belong to the actress, such as Just You Wait and I Could Have Danced All Night. When asked about the voice changes in the movie's musical numbers, she simply replied: It was noticeable, right? And there was Rex, recording all of his songs while he performed... next time and he said no more. Dubbing aside, Audrey's performance was excellent, “Audrey Hepburn is magnificent, she is the “Eliza” she will remember,” said Gene Ringgold, film critic.

Controversy over the film's casting reached its zenith in the 1964-1965 Oscar season, when Audrey was not nominated for her role as Eliza, but Julie Andrews was for Mary Poppins. The media made reference to the rivalry between the two actresses, when even they themselves denied it. The Oscar finally went to Julie Andrews.

Audrey Hepburn is the actress who has presented the Oscar for Best Picture the most times during the delivery ceremony, four in total.^{[citation needed]}

Marriages, family and last papers

Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer in War and peace

Hepburn was married twice, the first to actor Mel Ferrer, with whom she had a son, Sean, who currently manages the Audrey Hepburn Childhood Foundation, and the second to Andrea Dotti, an Italian doctor with whom she had her second son, Luke. Sean's godfather is the Scottish author, A. J. Cronin. Hepburn confessed that the failure of these two marriages made her suffer a lot. In recent years, she had a relationship with Robert Wolders, widower of Merle Oberon, a Dutchman with whom she shared humanitarian work and her taste for simple things.

Starting in 1967, after fifteen years of outstanding film success, he began appearing in films only occasionally. We must highlight the thriller Wait Until Dark (1967), where she played a blind woman harassed by criminals, and Robin and Marian (1976) with Sean Connery. Her last role was played in 1988, in Steven Spielberg's film Always , where she gave life to an angel, shortly before being named UNICEF special ambassador.

Her last film appearance was in 1989. From then until her death in 1993, Hepburn actively collaborated with UNICEF, becoming a goodwill ambassador.

I work for Unicef

One of the things that stood out the most in his last years was his dedication, above his health, to the causes of AIDS or malnutrition of children around the world. In 1992, three months before her death and already evicted from her, Hepburn made her last trip to Somalia, an act that UNICEF was always very grateful for and that further magnified the already simple and human way of understanding life. life of her Through this organization, Hepburn dedicated the rest of her life to helping children in need in the poorest countries. Unicef still remembers her dedication and dedication to the cause, which dates back to 1955 and which, little by little,, was gaining weight in his life. It is worth noting the statue of her at the Unicef headquarters in New York, inaugurated in the year 2000.

Death

Hepburn tomb in Tolochenaz (Switzerland)

He died of colon cancer at his home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland, on January 20, 1993 at the age of 63. That same day, Elizabeth Taylor said that "God will be glad to have an angel like Audrey with Him."

Although she never flaunted jewelry and refused to be the brand's image, the Tiffany jewelry store, which she had popularized in Breakfast at Tiffany's, dedicated a window display to her with the phrase "My Huckleberry friend", from the song "Moon River".

Legacy

The American Film Institute named Hepburn the third greatest female actress of all time. Even in her later years, Hepburn maintained a visible presence in the film world. She received a tribute from the Lincoln Center Motion Picture Society in 1991 and was a frequent presenter at the Academy Awards. In addition, Hepburn was awarded four posthumous awards, including the 1993 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, as well as several Grammys and Emmys. She has also been the subject of many biographies after her death, and a dramatization of her life titled The Life of Audrey Hepburn was released in 2000, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Emmy Rossum in the roles of Hepburn. adult and girl respectively. The film concludes with real images of Audrey Hepburn during one of her last public appearances as a Unicef collaborator.

Audrey Hepburn Today

In War and peace

In 2007, a suit worn by the actress in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's was auctioned for a price of 467,200 pounds (700,500 euros), allocating the money to a project promoted by the Dominique Lapierre writer for two schools in Bengal.

Many wanted to see Audrey Hepburn as a fashion icon, but she herself always shunned labels and false awards, so she always remained faithful to Givenchy, the couturier who created her perfume L& #39;Interdit.

Filmography

• Dutch in Seven Lessons (1948; documentary)
• Monte Carlo Baby (1951)
• One Wild Oat (1951)
• Young Wives' Tale (1951)
• Rise in paradise (1951)
• Gold in bars (1951)
• The Secret People (1952)
• Roman Holiday (1953)
• Sabrina (1954)
• War and peace (1956)
• Love in the Afternoon (1957)
• Funny Face (1957)
• Mayerling (1957)
• History of a nun (1959)
• Green mansions (1959)
• Those who do not forgive (1960)
• The Children's Hour (1961)
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
• Charada (1963)
• My Fair Lady (1964)
• Paris When It Sizzles (1964)
• How to Steal a Million (1966)
• Wait Until Dark (1967)
• Two for the Road (1967)
• Robin and Marian (1976)
• Blood ties (1979)
• They All Laughed (1981)
• Always (1989)

Awards

Oscar Awards

Gold Globes Awards

San Sebastian International Film Festival

Star on Hollywood Fame Walk

• Star on the promenade of fame in 1650 Vine Street.

BAFTA Awards

Golden Laurel Award

David di Donatello Awards

Acknowledgments