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