Beauty Icon: Audrey Hepburn

The following article is about beauty icon Audrey Hepburn. All of the information was researched through the following websites: History, Wikipedia, Audrey1, YourTango, DailyMail UK,  and Biography. Enjoy!

 On May 4, 1929 another great icon was born under the name Audrey Kathleen Ruston. She was the daughter of Ella Van Heemstra and John Victor Ruston. During her early childhood, her father came across the name “Herpburn” while looking into his family tree, and added it as a surname. Due to the laws in this period of history, it was also added to Audrey’s- hence how she became Audrey Hepburn. Ella and John soon divorced in 1935, six years after her birth. John  was arrested not long after, due to support towards the Nazis, and Audrey would actually not see her father again until the 1960s. (In which she found him through The Red Cross) (See pictures of young Audrey below)

      Audrey was raised during the Nazi Regime in Europe and World War II. At one point during the war her name was temporarily changed to Edda Van Heemstra, because her actual name sounded too English. Some people get this fact confused and think her stage name is Audrey Hepburn, but that is in fact her real name. She and her mother also moved around to a couple of different countries to avoid invasions and battles, but eventually it caught up to them. As previously mentioned, Ella and John were Nazi sympathizers, and members of the British Union of Fascists. Audrey, however, had an opposing perspective and was one of the children who delivered messages for the resistance movement.  The Nazis cut off all their food supplies, and during her adolescence she was very under-nourished, which is what is thought to have caused her extremely slender figure.  There were many rumors concerning her having an eating disorder, but most believe she did not actually have one and that instead it was caused by her lack of access to food throughout these years.  It is said she had to eat tulips because she was so hungry. Recently in Holland, a white hybrid tulip was created and named in her honor. Many years later, Audrey was offered a role to play Anne Frank. However she turned down the role because she felt emotionally incapable of completing it.

     Audrey’s education consisted of a boarding school in England and The Arnhem Conservatory in the Netherlands. Hepburn also loved dance, and originally intended to be a professional ballerina. Once the war was over, Ella and Audrey moved to London where Ella ran a flower shop and Audrey continued to study ballet. She also went on to model and act in a few small theater roles. Her first big performance was The Secret People, in which she played a ballerina and performed her own sequences. (See picture above) The performance received excellent reviews; however her teachers told her she was too tall to be a ballerina. Audrey was 5’ 7” and was taller than most of the male dancers.

      Since her dreams of becoming a dancer became unattainable, she decided to focus on acting. Her next career move was playing the lead for the Broadway show Gigi. The show opened November 24, 1951 and received amazing reviews; it also went on to have a successful 6 month run in the big apple. Audrey received a Theater World Award for her role. Shortly after this Audrey experienced her first love with a British businessman- James Hanson. The two engaged and planned a wedding in 1952- she even had a dress custom made for her, but she came to the realization that their careers would never allow them to have a successful marriage, and the two split. Audrey gave her wedding dress to a poor Italian couple- who still has the dress today. After her success with Gigi, she was cast in Roman Holiday. This was known to be her favorite film for making her a star. Hepburn won an Academy award for best actress. Her costar/male lead in the movie was Gregory Peck. The two became friends on set, and stayed friends up until she passed away. When Audrey passed away, Peck dedicated and read the poem Unending Love by, Rabindranath Tagore. See the emotional video here. (See pictures of her and James, the Gigi poster and Roman Holiday with Peck above)

      Her next major film was Sabrina, in which she starred in with William Holden. The two had a short but intense affair. It is said that Holden described her as “The love of his life”. They shared strong chemistry, but Holden was married. He considered leaving his wife for her, but the relationship did not last. Audrey desperately wanted children, and Holden had already gone through a vasectomy, so Audrey broke off the affair.  Soon after this, in 1954 she returned to the stage for Ondine. Hepburn won a Tony Award for this role. This is also where she met her first husband Mel Ferrer. Not long after her affair broke off with Holden, Mel proposed and she accepted. To make matters worse, to put any rumors to bed about her and Holden, Paramount, the studio to which she was signed, decided to stage an evening at Holden's house where Hepburn would announce her engagement to Ferrer. Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn married on September 25, 1954. In their early attempts to have children, she unfortunately experienced two miscarriages- one in 1955 and the other in 1959. Finally on July 17, 1960 she gave birth to their son Sean Hepburn Ferrer. However, eight years later on December 5, 1968 the two divorced. There was rumored to be infidelity on both sides, including Ferrer having a secret girlfriend and Audrey having an affair with costar Albert Finney. Mel was also known to bully and belittle Hepburn due to jealously of her fame compared to his own. (See pictures of Hepburn and Holden from Sabrina, Hepburn and Ferrer, and Sean above) 

     Audrey’s acting career in the later 1950’s also included roles in Funny Face, Love in the Afternoon, A Nun’s Story and many more. In 1961 she went on to star as Holly in the well-known and highly referenced film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Audrey Hepburn beat out Marilyn Monroe for this role. A few years later in 1954, she also beat out Julie Andrews and Elizabeth Taylor for the role of Eliza Doolittle in the musical My Fair Lady. In 1957 she became known for another film, Wait until Dark, which was produced by Mel Ferrer. Shortly after this, she left full-time acting and just starred in a few other films every few years. Her final movie was in 1989. She starred as an angel in Always, directed by Steven Spielberg. (See pictures of Audrey in Funny Face, A Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Wait until Dark above) During Hepburn's acting career she won 1 Screen Actors Guild, Emmy, and Grammy award, 2 Academy and Tony awards, and 3 BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards. (See pictures of her with some awards below)

     Not long after her divorce to Mel, Audrey met Andrea Dotti. Dotti was an Italian psychiatrist. The two met and fell in love in Greece, and wed by January 18, 1969. Audrey went on to have another son and one miscarriage with Andrea. Luca Dotti was born February 8, 1970.   The expression “history repeats itself” applied to Hepburn’s second marriage, as the two eventually separated because of infidelity. Andrea had numerous affairs with younger woman, and Hepburn was said to have an affair with costar Ben Gazzara. The couple officially divorced in 1982. While married to the doctor, she met actor Robert Wolders. The two began dating in 1982 and stayed together for the rest of her life until 1992. She told Barbara Walters in an interview, that though they never married legally they were still married and that their years together were the happiest of her life. (See pictures of Audrey and Dotti, Luca Dotti, and Audrey and Robert below)

     During her on and off retirement from acting, she went on to participate in more charitable causes. Hepburn is most known for her work with UNICEF. UNICEF is the United Nations Children’s Fund. Audrey had worked with them a little in her past, but worked with them the most in her later years. In 1988 she was named a UNICEF ambassador. She traveled all around the world, donated, and spoke publicly for the organization to help raise money and awareness for it. She went on to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, The Academy Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award in 1992. After returning from a UNICEF trip in 1992, she was diagnosed with colon cancer and passed away soon after on January 20 in the same year. (See pictures of Audrey working with UNICEF below)

      A majority of people know Audrey for her life as a beauty icon and actress, but many people don’t know about her difficult childhood, or about her older years in which she did a lot of good in the world. I found it especially important to mention all of that in this blog post, because I think it makes her even more beautiful than I realized before- not only was she physically stunning, but she was also strong, ambitious, generous, humble and talented. Thank you for taking the time for this long read, but I hope you were able to learn something new! –xoxo Regg

Happy Birthday Marilyn Monroe!

Happy birthday to Marilyn Monroe- she would have been 90 years old today! Don't forget to check out my previous blog posts for her biography and makeup routine! Thanks for visiting, there's more makeup post coming soon- xoxo Regg

How to: Marilyn Monroe Makeup

Marilyn Monroe is known for her famous “look,” which is still widely popular today. This “look” is thanks to the beauty techniques and makeup by Allan “Whitey” Snyder. Whitey and Monroe created the perfect routine to give her a youthful and sexy complexion. From her voluminous lashes to her voluptuous red lip, she was most certainly pleasing to the eye! However, what most don’t realize is that most of these cosmetic tricks were just illusions. Now don’t get me wrong, Marilyn was most certainly naturally beautiful too, even in her brunette days as Norma Jeane. Whitey however definitely knew what he was doing to shape her eyes, lips and face into the perfect image she desired. I learned this look from information off of the following websites- Beauty and Tips, Marie Claire and Lisa Eldridge!

To start, let’s explain the makeup whitey applied to her face…

1. Whitey would apply Vaseline to her face as a moisturizer and primer.
2. He would then apply her foundation.  Marilyn’s foundation was always perfect; she never appeared to have a blemish or wrinkle of any kind!
3. Next he shaped/contoured her face. He would shape most of her face with a powder slightly darker than her natural skin tone, and would apply this beneath her cheekbones, on her temples and a little beneath her jaw line.
4. Then he would use blush on her cheeks and a little on her nose. Marilyn had gotten a nose job, but still preferred her nose to be contoured to slim/shorten it down further. She also only used pink and coral blushes because she believed it looked more “fresh.”
5. Whitey would then apply Vaseline as a highlighter to her forehead and cheekbones. Marilyn loved moisturize, because she understood that dewy skin equaled youth.
6. Next he blended a powder lighter than her natural skin tone, he applied this beneath her eyes and above her cheekbones to really brighten her face. Her also applied a little of this powder above her lip and on her chin.
7. Once her eyes and lips were complete, he would finish the face off by applying a small birth mark to her cheek…yes, this was fake.

Next let’s discuss the routine for her eyes. Marilyn’s eyes involved a lot of white.  They would start by…

1. Blending white matte shadow from the lid all the way to the brow bone.  
2. Then they would go in with a matte, medium brown shadow, and contour the crease of her eye. They did to define her crease, but not so much that it would overpower and look smoky.
3. Next to enter is more white shadow, except this time- shimmery! This was applied to the lid, brow bone and tear duct of the eye. Again, she loved a bright face, because she t believed it was youthful.
4. After this Whitey would use a pencil (not gel) for some brown liner (not black!) on her upper eye. He would give her a slight wing too.
5. Then they curled her lashes and applied the falsies. To create a more natural and sexy look, they only applied fake lashes to the end of her lash line. To do this they simply cut a lash strip in half. Then they applied mascara.
6. To help make her lashes look even longer and fuller, Whitey would take brown shadow or liner, and smudge a light line beneath her eye, and wing it out. He would fill the space from the wing to her eye with white liner, to create an illusion of a shadow from her lashes.  Most people see this shadow in pictures, but don’t realize it’s actually fake!
7. Next he would extend the white liner into her actual water line, and draw a red dot with lip liner inside her tear duct to help make her eyes look brighter.
8. Lastly, to fill in her brows, he would use shadow or a pencil, and shape them to be full and pointed. Her brows were always sharply pointed upward because Marilyn felt she had a large forehead, and that this helped diminish its size.

Now let’s discuss her lips- those infamous plump red lips!

1. Whitey sometimes used up to 5 different shades of lipstick to achieve this look! Also, during this time period, the color from real life to the screen was not yet very great. Most colors appeared much lighter and brighter than in everyday life. Sometimes to create a very realistic red look, Whitey used deep shades of pink instead of red, because red often looked orange on camera/film. (See examples in image below: left is dark pinks, which appears red and right is red, which appears orange)
2. They would start by lining Marilyn’s lips with a dark red/pink liner. They would define her cupids bow, and extend her upper lip a little further out than natural to make her lips look larger.
3. Next he would fill in the corners of her lips, lower lip and upper lip with another dark red or pink lipstick.
4. He would leave space in the middle for a lighter red/pink lipstick to help create the illusion of plumper lips.
5. After applying all of this, they would use a tissue to blot her lips, and then go back in and add more lipstick again. The layers of lipstick also helped her lips look fuller.
6. Whitey would then apply a light powder to the center of her bottom lip, to highlight it, which made her bottom lip look extra plump.
7. To finish off the look, they would use lots of lip gloss to make her lips look extra highlighted, full and shiny. 

And there is it- the makeup tricks to look just like Ms. Monroe!

Here is a look at some Marilyn Monroe makeup I did myself, on my friend Kelly! (See below)

Beauty Icon: Marilyn Monroe

        Another very famous beauty icon I decided to take some time to research more about, is Marilyn Monroe. Monroe lived a very interesting life. It was full of many ups and downs. I found all of the following information on the websites Biography, Marie Claire, Notable Biographies, Metro UK, History 1900s, and History Today. To learn more about her journey, read below!

           Norma Jeane Mortenson was born on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, California. When she was baptized, she was given the name Norma Jeane Baker instead. She never knew her father, but her mother was a woman named Gladys. Gladys was diagnosed with schizophrenia and placed into a mental institution. One of Norma Jeane’s earliest memories included her mother attempting to suffocate her with a pillow. After her mother was put under psychiatric care, she was placed into orphanages and foster care. A married couple and family friends, Grace and Doc, took Norma in as a foster child for $25 per week. They were a religious and strict couple- she wasn’t even allowed to watch movies or television. However, when the couple moved to the East coast, they could not afford to take Norma along with them, so she was placed back into foster care. It is said that around the age of 11 she was sexually assaulted. To escape the harsh world of foster system abuse, she decided to drop out of school and marry her neighbor and boyfriend Jimmy Dougherty. The two married on April 19, 1942. Jimmy was a marine merchant who was deployed to the south pacific, and in the meantime Norma Jeane worked at a Radio Plane Company in Van Nuys, California. While working here, she was discovered by photographer David Conover, who introduced her to the modeling industry.

           Once entering this industry, she eventually signed a contract with The Blue Book Model Agency. She was then convinced to get a nose job, to go blonde (because she was naturally brunette) and to change her name. This is how she became Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn was happy with these changes, because she looked to Lana Turner and Jean Harlow as inspirations.  During her modeling years, she posed for numerous photographers. There was one, Tom Kelley, who wanted to photograph her nude. At first she disagreed, but when she was in desperate need for money she decided to go through with it. She signed her name on the contract as Mona Monroe. When the photographs came to surface, she took honest responsibility for it, which gained her both sympathy and respect. These photographs, famously known as the red velvet session (due to the velvet backdrop) became the cover page and cover spread of the first Playboy magazine. This was just the start to the career of this famous beauty and sex icon.

           When Marilyn’s husband returned home in 1946, he was not thrilled with her modeling, and forced her to choose between their marriage and her career. Marilyn chose her career, and so the two divorced. It was around this time she was also discovered by Ben Lyon, and signed to 20^th Century Fox.  She had always dreamed of becoming an actress, so this was an exciting step forward. Her acting career took off in the 1950’s when she starred in The Asphalt Jungle and It’s All About Eve. Here she met her makeup artist, Allan Whitey Snyder, who applied her makeup from her first movie all the way until her funeral. The two developed a specific and extensive look together; a look that is still iconic today. (To learn how to do Marilyn Monroe Makeup CLICK HERE)

After her first couple of films, she then went on to star in Niagara, and then worked alongside Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Other well-known Monroe movies, which were mostly comedies, included How to Marry a Millionaire, There’s No Business like Show Business, and The Seven Year Itch. The Seven Year Itch was the film that included her famous scene of standing above a subway vent with her white dress in the air. Around the time of these films, she also married her second husband- Joe DiMaggio. The two married on January 14, 1954 and became a famous couple- for a short time that is. On October 27, 1954 the two divorced…yes, only after nine months of marriage! It was believed that Monroe being a sex symbol highly bothered DiMaggio, and that it eventually separated the two.

Marilyn grew tired of being a stereotypical “dumb blonde” and moved to New York City to study acting with Lee Strasberg. She was said to lack confidence in her acting abilities both before and during her training. In fact, she suffered from performance anxiety that made her feel ill. Because of this, she was often late to film sets or did not show at all. This obviously created tension with her casts and crews and she was constantly signed and release with various movie studios.  After she trained in NYC, she tried to start her own film production company along with starring in the production Bus Stop. This was when she met playwright Arthur Miller- her third husband. Miller actually wrote the script The Misfits for her. The two married (on my birthday) June 29, 1956 and divorced January 24, 1961. It was said that Marilyn discovered that Arthur found her too dependable and regretted their marriage; after this their relationship was never the same and eventually it led to their separation.

            Later, in 1959, she went on to star in Some Like it Hot, and won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in Comedy (pictured above). The previous year, 1958, she also won an Italian David di Donatello award for Best Foreign Actress. However, between the years of 1960-1962 her career started to go downhill. Her last few films were box office disappointments. In fact, her last completed film ended up being The Misfits, and even that received poor reviews. In 1962, she was dismissed from the movie set for Something’s Got to Give for her continuous tardiness and absence. Dean Martin was also a part of the movie and refused to film without her so it never completed production.  On July 19, 1962, she sang her famous Happy Birthday to President John F. Kennedy. It’s believed that the two were involved in an affair. Apparently Monroe called Jackie Kennedy and came clean about it all.

              On August 5, 1962, at the age of 36 years old, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home, near a bottle of empty sleeping pills. Some believe she committed suicide, some believe it was an accident, and some believe she was murdered. It was declared as an overdose, so the truth forever remains a mystery. At her funeral, she was buried in her favorite Emilio Pucci dress inside a Cadillac Casket . Lee Strasberg delivered a eulogy and Hugh Hefner bought the plot next to Monroe’s. Her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio famously delivered roses to her grave every year, for the next 20 years, until his own passing. Over half a century later, while numerous beauty and sex icons have come and gone, none have been as memorable and loved as Monroe. Multiple merchandise products, movies and books have been published and sold about her life, her makeup look is style highly popular, her quotes and pictures still constantly seen and quoted all around us; and there is now even a facial piercing named “The Monroe” after her famous (but actually fake) beauty mark! Overall, Marilyn Monroe will forever be a major beauty icon to the world. 

Beauty Icon: Grace Kelly

I decided to continue to research more beauty icons, especially because I have always shared a love for both the beauty industry and history! The information I'm about to share is about actress and princess Grace Kelly. I researched and learned all this information off of the websites Biography, Bustle and Wikipedia. Enjoy!

It was on November 12, 1929, in the state of Pennsylvania, that the beauty icon and film industry legend Grace Patricia Kelly was born. Gracie-bird or Gracie, was the daughter to three time Olympic Gold Medalist John (Jack) Kelly and Margaret Mayer. Jack was a self-made millionaire from his East coast Brick business, and Margaret was the first coach for the woman’s athletics team at The University of Pennsylvania. She was also a model and beauty queen. Grace was their third child out of four. Considering her father was so prosperous and her mother so beautiful, it came as no surprise that success was in her genetics. 

While attending a private school, the Stevens School, she always held a love for theater. She also occasionally modeled with her mother and sister. She had two other influential family members in her life- her uncles Walter and George. Walter was a performer, and George a playwright. While Uncle George was technically estranged from the family for his homosexuality, he still encouraged and mentored Kelly in her early acting career.  Her father disapproved of her love for acting, because he viewed performers as a close class to prostitutes.

While Kelly’s family did not completely approve of her acting career, after graduation, she still went on to attend The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. During her schooling, she continued to model for companies including Old Gold Cigarettes, Cosmopolitan, and Red-book. Grace graduated at age 19 and first decided to pursue Broadway. This did not go as well as planned, and she received the harsh criticism that while she had “beauty and style,” she had no “vocal horsepower.” This encouraged Grace to try out the film industry, which her talents more easily blossomed.  Luckily she entered the industry shortly after WWII, when it was really growing! She eventually moved to Hollywood and starred in 11 films and over 60 television productions!

Actor Gary Cooper discovered her, and at the age of 22, she starred in her first film- Fourteen Hours. She was later featured in High Noon and Mogambo. Mogambo also featured Clark Gable and Ava Gardner. It was rumored Kelly had an affair with Gable during filming. It was with this film that she was nominated for her first Academy award and won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress! After winning a Golden Globe, MGM offered her a seven year contract- which she agreed to on specific terms. Her terms included living in Manhattan every other year so that she could pursue some stage work.

She also went on to make three films with Alfred Hitchcock. These films include Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, and To Catch a Thief. Both Alfred Hitchcock and a former costar, Jimmy Stewart, thought highly of Grace for her sophistication, beauty, style and “sexual elegance.” Later on, in 1954, she starred in The Country Girl with Bing Crosby and William Holden. Kelly played a neglected and alcoholic wife. Her performance was so raw that she beat out Judy Garland by winning an Oscar! By the year 1955, she was one of the highest paid and respected actresses in Hollywood.  Because of this, she was invited to join the United States Delegation Committee at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

While doing a photo-shoot in France, she met Prince Rainier III of Monaco. The prince was in search of a wife. They met, fell in love, and were married on April 19, 1956. After becoming Princess Consort of Monaco, she retired her acting career and was also required to give up her American Citizenship. Before this officially happened, it is said that Alfred Hitchcock tried to offer her a role in Marnie. The Prince eventually ended up preventing her from acting, and also banned her films in Monaco. So she obviously did not complete this production. The couple later went on to have three children- Princess Caroline, Prince Albert and Princess Stephanie. The Princess Consort of Monaco spent the rest of her days highly involved in both charitable and cultural organizations. Some say the marriage ended up strained due to politics in France. On September 14, 1982, Grace was driving through the cliffs of Southern France with Princess Stephanie, when she had a stroke, lost control of the vehicle and got into a car crash. Luckily Stephanie only suffered minor injuries; however her mother passed away at the age of 52. Thirty two years later (2014) a biographical film was created, Grace of Monaco which starred Nicole Kidman as Grace.  

Overall, Grace Kelly was a beauty icon, because she was not only known for her acting, but also for her self-confidence, serenity, and elegant composure. She was a beautiful model too, with striking blue eyes and gorgeous blonde hair that took to a photograph so well. Grace was a timeless beauty indeed.

Thanks for viewing this post! Check back soon for more information on other timeless beauty icons!

-Reg xoxo