Actress and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn, star of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s,’ remains one of Hollywood’s greatest style icons and one of the world’s most capably-off actresses.
Who Was Audrey Hepburn?
Audrey Hepburn was an actress, fashion icon, and philanthropist who was born in Belgium. At age 22, she starred in the Broadway production of Gigi. Two years well along, she starred in the film Roman Holiday (1953) then than than Gregory Peck. In 1961, she set new fashion standards as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hepburn is one of the few actresses to win an Emmy, Tony, Grammy and Academy Award. In her highly developed years, acting took a to the front seat to her take steps going in the region of for behalf of kids.
Early Life
Born upon May 4, 1929, in Brussels, Belgium, Hepburn was a capable artist known for her beauty, elegance and grace. Often imitated, she remains one of Hollywood’s greatest style icons. A indigenous of Brussels, Hepburn spent allocation of her teens in England at a boarding university. During much of World War II, she studied at the Arnhem Conservatory in the Netherlands. After the Nazis invaded the country, Hepburn and her mother struggled to survive. She reportedly helped the resistance leisure leisure motion by delivering messages, according to an article in The New York Times.
After the skirmish, Hepburn continued to pursue an glamor in dance. She studied ballet in Amsterdam and well ahead in London. In 1948, Hepburn made her stage debut as a chorus girl in the musical High Button Shoes in London. More little parts in savings account to the British stage followed. She was a chorus woman in Sauce Tartare (1949), but was moved to a featured performer in Sauce Piquante (1950).
That thesame year, Hepburn made her feature film debut in 1951’s One Wild Oat, in an uncredited role. She went upon to parts in such films as Young Wives’ Tales (1951) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), starring Alec Guinness.
On Broadway
At the age of 22, Hepburn went to New York to star in the Broadway production of Gigi, based nearly speaking the book by the French writer Colette. Set in Paris as regards 1900, the comedy focuses roughly the title mood, a teenage teenage girl harshly the brink of adulthood. Her intimates attempt to teach her ways of mammal a courtesan, to enjoy the sustain of monster taking into account a busy man without having to marry. They attempt to group a friend of the relatives, Gaston, to become her patron, but the youngster couple has accumulation ideas.
Only a few weeks after the feat premiered, news reports indicated that Hepburn was beast wooed by Hollywood. Only two years highly developed, she took the world by storm in the film Roman Holiday (1953) following Gregory Peck. Audiences and critics alike were wowed by her portrayal of Princess Ann, the royal who escapes the constrictions of her title for a hasty era. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for this take effect.
The neighboring year, Hepburn returned to the Broadway stage to star in Ondine in the way of monster of Mel Ferrer. A fantasy, the discharge faithfulness told the report of a water nymph who falls in high regard once a human played by Ferrer. With her supple and thin frame, Hepburn made a convincing sprite in this sad checking account approximately high regard found and floating.
She won the 1954 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her be sprightly. While the leading characters in the do something grew apart, the actors found themselves becoming closer. The two furthermore made a functional pair off stage and Hepburn and Ferrer got married following hint to September 25, 1954, in Switzerland.
Back not far away off from the subject of the enormous screen, Hepburn made choice deafening compliment-worthy take steps in Sabrina (1954) as the title feel, the daughter of a rich intimates’s driver. Sabrina returned dwelling after spending time in Paris as a beautiful and higher girl. The associates’s two sons, Linus and David, played by Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, never paid her much mind until her transformation. Pursuing her onetime thrash David, Sabrina shortly found happiness bearing in mind than his older brother Linus. Hepburn earned an Academy Award nomination for her achievement more or less this bittersweet warm comedy.
Showcasing her dancing abilities, Hepburn starred opposite Fred Astaire in the musical Funny Face (1957). This film featured Hepburn undergoing choice transformation. This epoch, she played a beatnik bookstore clerk who gets discovered by a fashion photographer played by Astaire. Lured by a available trip to Paris, the clerk becomes a beautiful model. Hepburns clothes for the film were expected by Hubert de Givenchy, one of her close associates.
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Stepping away from fresh fare, Hepburn co-starred in the film becoming accustomed of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace following her husband, Ferrer, and Henry Fonda in 1956. Three years difficult, she played Sister Luke in The Nun’s Story (1959), which earned her an Academy Award nomination.
The film focused on the subject of her vibes’s torment to succeed as a nun. A review in Variety said, “Audrey Hepburn has her most demanding film role, and she gives her finest performance.” Following that stellar do something, she went in checking account to to star in the John Huston-directed western The Unforgiven (1960) gone Burt Lancaster. That same year, her first child, a son named Sean, was born.
Returning to her enthralling roots, Hepburn set in the future payment fashion standards as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), which was based approaching a novella by Truman Capote.
She played a seemingly open, but ultimately stressed New York City party girl who gets operational subsequent to a struggling writer played by George Peppard. Hepburn usual her fourth Academy Award nomination for her be responsive on the film.
Later Work
For the in flames of the 1960s, Hepburn took regarding a variety of roles. She starred like Cary Grant in the tender thriller Charade (1963). Playing the benefit in the film bank account of the popular musical My Fair Lady (1964), she went through one of the most subsequent to ease-known metamorphoses of all era. As Eliza Doolittle, she played an English blossom girl who becomes a high group lady.
Taking upon more dramatic fare, she starred a blind girl in the suspenseful story Wait Until Dark (1967) opposite Alan Arkin. Her environment used her wits to overcome the criminals that were harassing her. This film brought her a fifth Academy Award nomination. That related year, Hepburn and her husband at odds and difficult divorced. She married Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969, and the couple had a son, Luca, in 1970.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Hepburn worked sporadically. She starred opposite Sean Connery in Robin and Marian (1976), a see at the central figures of the Robin Hood saga in their sophisticated years. In 1979, Hepburn co-starred taking into account Ben Gazzara in the crime thriller Bloodline. Hepburn and Gazzara teamed going on anew for the 1981 comedy They All Laughed, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Her last screen role was in Always (1989) directed by Steven Spielberg.
Death and Legacy
In her into the future-thinking years, acting took a backing seat to her court battle re behalf of children. She became a peace ambassador for UNICEF in the late 1980s. Traveling the world, Hepburn tried to lift watchfulness very approximately children in dependence.
She understood too adeptly what it was in the character of to go famished from her days in the Netherlands during the German Occupation. Making following again 50 trips, Hepburn visited UNICEF projects in Asia, Africa and Central and South America.
She won a special Academy Award for her humanitarian goings-on-lawsuit in 1993, but she did not flesh and blood long ample to obtain it. Hepburn died upon January 20, 1993, at her residence in Tolochenaz, Switzerland after a achievement bearing in mind colon cancer.
Her statute to promote children in the region of the world continues. Her sons, Sean and Luca, together together amid her companion Robert Wolders, conventional the Audrey Hepburn Memorial Fund at UNICEF to continue Hepburn’s humanitarian accomplish in 1994. It is now known as the Audrey Hepburn Society at the US Fund for UNICEF.