Audrey Hepburn

by Barry Paris

  After she won her Academy Award for Roman Holiday, “she was not highfalutin,” says Billy Wilder. “She did not play ‘The Oscar Winner.’ She was humble. She listened intelligently. She made what she said and felt so true that her partner—whether it was Holden or Bogart or Cooper—had to react the proper way. She drew them in. She could say something risque, but the way she did it had a kind of elegance that you could not, under any circumstance, mistake for Madonna reading the line.

  “Audrey was known for something which has disappeared, and that is elegance, grace and manners—things you cannot take a course in. You’re born with it or not. What is needed to really become a star is an extra element that God gives or doesn’t give you. You cannot learn it. She just was blessed. God kissed her on her cheek, and there she was.”69

  In the characters she played on film, most of Hepburn’s leading men didn’t realize her allure until the end, says Wendy Keys—“but we knew all along.”70 No actress ever pleaded more earnestly with her screen suitors not to admire her, or to so little effect.71 “Everything about her,” wrote Marjorie Rosen in Popcorn Venus, “worked toward a female dignity.”

  But oddly enough, there were few other females in her films. “She always had fathers or uncles—no mothers, children or girlfriends,” says Keys. “Audrey was always bouncing off a variety of men.”72 Accepting her 1990 Golden Globe Award, she said there were always “too many names in thank-you speeches, so I’ll only mention a few.” As a joke she then reeled off, fast as she could, the names of thirty-four people crucial to her film career—of whom Shirley MacLaine and Lillian Gish were the only women.

  In her “other” career with UNICEF, however, it was women with whom Audrey identified most profoundly. While men fought and children starved, women grieved and did all the work. In Somalia, she said, “women are respected—it’s a matriarchy. I spoke to a wonderful Somalian woman lawyer who said, ‘Women can bring peace to this country because we’re strong.’ Their status is unusual for a Muslim country. They have the vote and the ‘say’ at home. They can stop their husbands and children from carrying guns and shooting each other.”73

  Only a woman and a mother could have felt Somalia so viscerally—and communicated it so directly to the world.

  WILLIAM HOLDEN—in one of his rare, non-self-referential remarks—came up with an insight into Audrey: “I think people love her off the screen for the same reason they love her performances—a kind of orderliness and formality.” 74

  It is the film star’s grim duty to age in front of the public. Hepburn did so with characteristic dignity and order, without resorting to the usual extremes—over—the—hill “guest” shots and commercials, or pathological withdrawal.

  “I never expected to be a star, never counted on it, never even wanted it,” she once said. “Not that I didn’t enjoy it all when it happened. [But] it’s not as if I were a great actress. I’m not [Ingrid] Bergman. I don’t regret for a minute making the decision to quit movies for my children.”75

  But millions of others regretted it. “I think she retired much too early,” says Leslie Caron. “It’s a pity she didn’t move on to more mature parts. She would have given something so heavenly. There’s grace and beauty to be shared at every age, and she had that above everyone else. It’s a loss.”76

  Audrey herself had twinges. “I’d have loved to have done a movie with Jimmy Stewart because we’ve known each other for so many years [and] I’ve always had an enormous rapport with him,” she said in 1991. “I’d have loved to have made a picture with Philippe Noiret [and] I’d have liked to have done a picture with de Sica.... He wanted to do Camille, but I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t dare follow Garbo’s footsteps.”77

  Kurt Frings had wanted to reteam her and Gregory Peck for a Roman Holiday sequel in which the princess (now a queen) and the reporter (now a successful novelist) have a daughter and son who fall in love. Just fifteen months before her death, she wanted to do a picture with Peck “the way we are now,” she said.78 “And I’d love to do a picture with Michael Caine or Michael Douglas—actors who have style but aren’t pompous about it.” As late as December 1992, unaware of how ill Audrey was, Julia Roberts was still looking for a project she and Hepburn could do together.

  “There’s a luxury in being able to retire before it’s time to retire,” said Audrey, while admitting in the next breath: “It would be fun to do another part before I roll over.”79

  She held out. In the end, she played her greatest part not on a movie set but on the vast and more dramatic stage of Africa.

  “AUDREY AND Cary Grant are the only people I ever knew who had no age,” says Ralph Lauren.80 Nothing is more quickly dated than high fashion, yet for all her importance in that realm over the decades, Hepburn seemed to have no time. At the last of her life, instead of trying to simulate youth, she was unashamed to look like the sixty-three-year-old woman she was, “which is to say, better than any sixty-three-year-old woman who’s pretending that she isn’t,” said The New York Times. “Would that she were going to be around longer, to teach us all how to grow old.”81

  One of those celebrated Two Women is among many in Italy with deep emotional attachments to her. “Audrey was meek, gentle and ethereal,” says Sophia Loren, “understated both in her life and in her work. She walked among us with a light pace, as if she didn’t want to be noticed. [I regret losing her] as a friend, as a role model and as a companion of my youthful dreams.”82

  From Rome, Valentina Cortesa, the star of Hepburn’s first important film, Secret People, laments, “I miss her. Well, we all miss her.... Carina, carina, deliziosa. La piccola cerbiatta. ”83 Audrey meant so many different things to so many different people. “We shared our lives for 15 years,” says Rob Wolders, “but I’m only now becoming fully aware of how important a figure she was in her generation and for future generations.”

  Her reality was shaped by the horrors of World War II, when people needed and tried to help one another. But once it was over, she said, “they were just the same—gossipy and mean.”84 If that was the rule, she wanted to be the exception. She had learned something and didn’t want to be the same. Her sorrows were the desertion of her father and an inability to please her mother. After the war, the roles were switched: Audrey would became the “nurturer” —for her parents, then for her own children and, finally, for the children of the whole world.

  She wanted only to be a dancer. By the standards of the day, she couldn’t manage it—but her dancer’s discipline turned her into a superb technician for life. Later as a film star, some inner voice told her she was unworthy of such great acclaim. She could never quite reconcile the public adulation with her private self-image or her mother’s impossibly high standards.

  The case history was not unusual, but the way she resolved it was: No Garboesque reclusion for Hepburn. No booze or pills. She had a secure place, early on, as a major cultural icon in film and fashion. She could have comfortably remained there with no additional effort. But in her centeredness, she figured out that the one thing she could do and should do was give back.

  She lived her last thirty years in an age when cynicism largely displaced idealism. “She was too good for Hollywood,” says her gentle friend Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., “but somehow she graced it, her life shone on it, and it became a different place while she was around.”85 People called her “Saint Audrey”—fondly, sarcastically or both. She told Rob Wolders she did not want to be remembered that way. She was no saint—just a human being with the heart and the will to rise above her frailties.

  Once when she was asked to pick a single word to describe herself, Audrey Hepburn smiled and replied, “Lucky.”86 So, too, was the world.

  AUDREY HEPBURN 1929-1993

  Our huckleberry friend

  TIFFANY & CO.

  EPILOGUE

  AUDREY HEPBURN’S epilogue is contained in the continuation of her work on behalf of the world’s children. To obtain more information or make contribut
ions, please contact the Audrey Hepburn Hollywood for Children Fund, 4 East 12th Street, New York, N.Y., 10003 (212-243-5264) or the Audrey Hepburn Memorial Fund for UNICEF, 3 UNICEF United Nations Plaza (#H6F), New York, N.Y., 10017.

  FILMOGRAPHY

  1. NEDERLANDS IN ZEVEN LESSEN [DUTCH IN SEVEN LESSONS, or DUTCH AT THE DOUBLE] (1948). Netherlands, G-B Instructional Production. Produced by H. M. Josephson. Directed by Charles Huguenot Van der Linden. With Koes Koen [Warn Heskes] (George), A. Viruly (KLM pilot), AUDREY HEPBURN (KLM stewardess).A girl-crazy English cameraman has just one week in which to film a rather dull travelogue of Holland. Running time: 79 min.

  2. ONE WILD OAT (1951). Great Britain, Eros-Coronet. Produced by John Croydon. Directed by Charles Saunders. Written by Vernon Sylvaine and Lawrence Huntington from the play by Sylvaine. With Robertson Hare (Humphrey Proudfoot), Stanley Holloway (Alfred Gilbey), Constance Lorne (Mrs. Proudfoot), Vera Pearce (Mrs. Gilbey), June Sylvaine (Cherrie Proudfoot), Andrew Crawford (Fred Gilbey), Irene Handl (Audrey Cuttle), Sam Costa (Mr. Pepys), Robert Moreton (Throstle), Charles Grove (Charles), Joan Rice (Annie), AUDREY HEPBURN (unbilled extra).A barrister tries to discourage his daughter’s love for a scoundrel but is blackmailed instead. Running time: 78 min.

  3. YOUNG WIVES’ TALE (1951). Great Britain. Associated British Pictures. Produced by Victor Skutetzky. Directed by Henry Cass. Written by Ann Burnaby, from the play by Ronald Jeans. Photographed by Erwin Hillier. Music by Philip Green. Edited by E. Jarvis. Music Direction by Louis Levy. Art Direction by Terence Verity. With Joan Greenwood (Sabina Pennant), Nigel Patrick (Rodney Pennant), Derek Farr (Bruce Banning), Guy Middleton (Victor Manifold), Athene Seyler (Nanny Gallop), Helen Cherry (Mary Banning), AUDREY HEPBURN (Eve Lester), Fabia Drake (Nurse Blott), Irene Handl and Joan Sanderson (Nurses), Jack McNaughton (Taxi Driver), Brian Oulton (Man in Pub), Carol James (Elizabeth).A timid boarder becomes infatuated with one of the married men living in the same house. Running time: 79 min.

  4. LAUGHTER IN PARADISE (1951). Great Britain. Associated British Pictures. Produced and directed by Mario Zampi. Written by Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies. Photographed by William McLeod. Music by Stanley Black. Edited by Giulio Zampi. Art Direction by Ivan King. With Alastair Sim (Deniston Russell), Fay Compton (Agnes Russell), Beatrice Campbell (Lucille Grayson), Veronica Hurst (Joan Webb), Guy Middleton (Simon Russell), A.E. Matthews (Sir Charles Robson), Joyce Grenfell (Elizabeth Robson), Hugh Griffith (Henry Russell), Anthony Steel (Roger Godfrey), John Laurie (Gordon Webb), Eleanor Summerfield (Sheila Wilcott), Ronald Adam (Mr. Wagstaffe), AUDREY HEPBURN (Cigarette Girl).An eccentric millionaire bequeaths his money to four selfish relatives, on the condition that they first carry out his humiliating requests. Running time: 93 min.

  5. THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951). Great Britain. Ealing Studios. Produced by Michael Balcon. Directed by Charles Crichton. Written by T.E.B. Clarke. Photographed by Douglas Slocombe. Music by Georges Auric. Edited by Seth Holt. Musical Direction by Ernest Irving. Art Direction by William Kellner. With Alec Guinness (Holland), Stanley Holloway (Pendlebury), Sidney James (Lackery), Alfie Bass (Shorty), Marjorie Fielding (Mrs. Chalk), John Gregson (Farrow), Edie Martin (Miss Evesham), Clive Morton (Sergeant), Ronald Adam (Turner), Sydney Tafler (Clayton), AUDREY HEPBURN (Chiquita), Robert Shaw (in his bit-part screen debut).A mousy shipping clerk, aided by his boarding-house crony, concocts and executes a brilliant scheme to steal a fortune in gold from his employers. Running time: 82 min.

  6. SECRET PEOPLE (1952). Great Britain. Ealing Studios. Produced by Sidney Cole. Directed by Thorold Dickinson. Written by Dickinson, Wolfgang Wilhelm and Christianna Brand, from a story by Dickinson and Joyce Carey. Photographed by Gordon Dines. Music by Roberto Gerhard. Edited by Peter Tanner. Art Direction by William Kellner. Costumes by Anthony Mendleson. Choreography by Andrée Howard. With Valentina Cortesa (Maria), Serge Reggiani (Louis), Charles Goldner (Anselmo), AUDREY HEPBURN (Nora), Meg Jenkins (Penny), Irene Worth (Miss Jackson), Reginald Tate (Inspector Eliot), Norman Williams (Sergeant Newcome), Michael Shepley (Manager), Athene Seyler (Mrs. Kellick), Sydney Tafler (Syd Burnett), Geoffrey Hibbert (Steenie), John Ruddock (Daly), Michael Allan (Rodd), John Field (Fedor Luki), Bob Monkhouse (Barber). After the assassination of their father, a Central European refugee and her innocent ballet-dancer sister in London are caught up in a violent political conspiracy. Running time: 96 min.

  7. MONTE CARLO BABY [NOUS IRONS À MONTE CARLO] (1952). France. GFD/Favorite Pictures. Produced by Ray Ventura. Directed by Jean Boyer and Lester Fuller. Written by Boyer, Fuller, and Alex Joffe. Dialogue by Serge Veber. Photographed by Charles Suin. Music by Paul Misraki. Edited by Franchette Mazin. Art Direction by Robert Giordani. Music and lyrics by Misraki and Geoffrey Parsons. Sound by A. Archimbault. With AUDREY HEPBURN (Linda Farrell; Melissa Walter in French version), Jules Munshin (Antoine), Michele Farmer (Jacqueline), Cara Williams (Marinette), Philippe Lemaire (Philippe), Russell Collins (Max), John Van Dreelan (Pianist), Ray Ventura and his orchestra.A touring musician is mistakenly given custody of a movie star’s child. Running time: 89 min.

  8. ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953). Paramount. Produced and directed by William Wyler. Written by Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton, from a story by Hunter. Photographed by Frank F. Planer and Henri Alekan. Music by Georges Auric. Edited by Robert Swink. Art Direction by Hal Pereira and Walter Tyler. Costumes by Edith Head. With Gregory Peck (Joe Bradley), AUDREY HEPBURN (Princess Anne), Eddie Albert (Irving Radovich), Hartley Power (Mr. Hennessy), Laura Solari (Hennessey’s Secretary), Harcourt Williams (Ambassador), Margaret Rawlings (Countess Vereberg), Tullio Carminati (General Provno), Paolo Carlini (Mario Delani), Claudio Ermelli (Giovanni), Paolo Borboni (Charwoman), Heinz Hindrich (Dr. Bonachoven), Gorella Gori (Shoe Seller), Alfredo Rizzo (Taxi Driver), John Horne (Master of Ceremonies), Giacomo Penza (Papal Nuncio), Eric Oulton (Sir Hugo Macy de Farmington).A bored and sheltered princess escapes her guardians and falls in love with an American newsman in Rome. Running time: 119 min.

  9. SABRINA (1954). Paramount. Produced and directed by Billy Wilder. Written by Wilder, Samuel Taylor, and Ernest Lehman, from the play Sabrina Fair by Taylor. Photographed by Charles Lang, Jr. Music by Frederick Hollander. Edited by Arthur Schmidt. Art Direction by Hal Pereira and Walter Tyler. Costumes by Edith Head. Music and lyrics by Wilson Stone, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Harold Lewis, Louiguy, Edith Piaf, Frank Silver, Irving Cohen and John Cope. With Humphrey Bogart (Linus Larrabee), AUDREY HEPBURN (Sabrina Fairchild), William Holden (David Larrabee), Walter Hampden (Oliver Larrabee), John Williams (Thomas Fairchild), Martha Hyer (Elizabeth Tyson), Joan Vohs (Gretchen Van Horn), Marcel Dalio (Baron), Marcel Hillaire (The Professor), Nella Walker (Maude Larrabee), Francis X. Bushman (Mr. Tyson), Ellen Corby (Miss McCardle), Marjorie Bennett (Margaret, the Cook), Emory Parnell (Charles, the Butler), Kay Riehl (Mrs. Tyson), Nancy Kulp (Jenny, the Maid), Emmett Vogan, Colin Campbell (Board Members).A chauffeur’s daughter falls in love with one of two rich brothers, is packed off to cooking school in Paris, returns a sophisticate, and becomes the object of both brothers’ affections. Running time: 114 min.

  10. WAR AND PEACE (1956). Italy/U.S.A. Ponti-De Laurentiis Productions/Paramount. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis. Directed by King Vidor. Written by Bridget Boland, Robert Westerby, Vidor, Mario Camerini, Ennio de Concini, Ivo Perilli and Irwin Shaw, from the novel by Leo Tolstoy. Photographed by Jack Cardiff and Aldo Tonti. Music by Nino Rota. Edited by Stuart Gilmore and Leo Cattozzo. Music Direction by Franco Ferrara. Art Direction by Mario Chiari, Franz Bachelin and Giani Polidori. Costumes by Maria de Matteis. With AUDREY HEPBURN (Natasha Rostov), Henry Fonda (Pierre), Mel Ferrer (Andrei), Vittorio Gassman (Anatole), John Mills (Platon), Herbert Lom (Napoleon), Oscar Homolka (General Kutuzov), Anita Ekberg (Helene), Helmut Dantine (Dolokhov), Barry Jones (Count Rostov), Anna Maria Ferrero (Mary Bolkonsky), Milly Vitale (Lise), Jeremy Brett (Nicholas Rostov), Lea Seidl (Countess Rostov), Wilfrid Lawson (Prince Bolkonsky), Sean Barrett (Petya Rostov), Tullio Carminati (K
uragin), May Britt (Sonya), Patrick Crean (Denisov), Gertrude Flynn (Peronskaya), Gualtiero Tumiati (Pierre’s Father), Mauro Lanciani (Young Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky).The great love story of young Natasha for Prince Andrei—and the unrequited love of bastard Pierre for Natasha—set in the panorama of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Running time: 208 min.

  11. FUNNY FACE (1957). Paramount. Produced by Roger Edens. Directed by Stanley Donen. Written by Leonard Gershe, from his musical libretto, Wedding Day. Photographed by Ray June. Music by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Edens and Gershe. Edited by Frank Bracht. Musical Direction by Adolph Deutsch. Art Direction by George W. Davis and Hal Pereira. Costumes by Edith Head and Hubert de Givenchy. Choreography by Fred Astaire and Eugene Loring. With AUDREY HEPBURN (Jo Stockton), Fred Astaire (Dick Avery), Kay Thompson (Maggie Prescott), Michel Auclair (Professor Emile Flostre), Robert Fleming (Paul Duval), Dovima (Marion), Virginia Gibson (Babs), Suzy Parker, Sunny Harnett (Specialty Dancers in “Think Pink”), Don Powell, Carole Eastman (Specialty Dancers), Sue England (Laura), Ruta Lee (Lettie), Iphigenie Castiglioni (Armande), Elizabeth Slifer (Madame La Farge), Nesdon Booth (Southern Man), Jerry Chiat (Man on Head).A Greenwich Village bookworm is turned into the fashion sensation of the decade by the editor and star photographer of a glitzy, Vogue-like magazine. Running time: 103 min.

  12. LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON (1957). Allied Artists. Produced and directed by Billy Wilder. Written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, from the novel Ariane by Claude Anet. Photographed by William Mellor. Music by Franz Waxman. Edited by Leonid Azar. Art Direction by Alexander Trauner. Costumes by Hubert de Givenchy. With Gary Cooper (Frank Flannagan), AUDREY HEPBURN (Ariane Chavasse), Maurice Chevalier (Claude Chevasse), Van Doude (Michel), John McGiver (Monsieur X), Lise Bourdin (Madame X), Bonifas (Commissioner of Police), Audrey Wilder (Brunette), Gyula Kokas, Michel Kokas, George Cocos, Victor Gazzoli (Gypsies), Olga Valery (Lady with Dog), Leila Croft and Valerie Croft (Swedish Twins), Charles Bouillard (Valet at the Ritz), Minerva Pious (Maid at the Ritz), Gregory Gromoff (Ritz Doorman), Janine Dard, Claude Ariel (Existentialists), Guy Delorme (Gigolo).The cellist-daughter of a detective falls for the playboy-lothario whom her father is investigating. Running time: 125 min.