Audrey Hepburn Biography all about Audrey

Audrey Hepburn Biography

Fast Facts

Audrey's birth name was Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston

She was born on May 4th, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium

She died January 20th, 1993 in Tolochenaz, Switzerland

Audrey Hepburn Biography

"I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I'd invented it, because it is very true." Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn was not only loved for her grace and charm on stage, but also for her humanitarian spirit and contribution she made to lighten some of the world's suffering.

She also suffered from malnutrition and oppression as a young girl in Nazi-occupied Holland and saw two relatives shot as a result of their activities in the Resistance...yet she was not too afraid to carry messages in her shoes for members of the Resistance!

Audrey was passionate about dance and after the war she moved to London, England in order to study dance there. Because of lack of training due to her forced sabbatical from school during the occupation she quit her study and pursued modeling and some chorus and acting work.

She got her big break in show business when she was noticed by Colette, the famous French writer who authored Gigi...she was casting for the production of Gigi at the time and knew that it must be Audrey who played the primary role...against all logic since Audrey's reading when auditioning for the part was not that great. Colette actually had to talk Audrey into taking the part, so it is all due to her insistence that a movie star was born!

After she completed Gigi, she immediately went to Rome to start work in the film Roman Holiday alongside Gregory Peck...this show opens up in August 1953 in the U.S. and everyone falls in love with her 'look', critics included. Then comes Sabrina, during which time she begins her lasting friendship with Givenchy...he designs her French couture look for this movie. Audrey becomes an international star and the representation of elegant chic.

Ondine is her next project with Mel Ferrer, her future husband. She wins a Tony award for Best Actress in a Drama...in 1954, she marries Mel Ferrer, and together they have a son, Sean, in 1960, before divorcing in1968. In 1969, she married psychiatrist Andrea Dotti, with whom she had a son, Luca, in 1970. Hepburn and Dotti were also divorced, and she later met her lasting and satisfying match in Dutch actor Robert Wolders.

In 1957, she appeared in the musical Funny Face (1957) with Fred Astaire, and in Wilder's romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon with Gary Cooper. In 1959, she received an Oscar nomination, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, and the British Film Academy Award for Best Actress for her leading role in the critically acclaimed drama The Nun’s Story.

Hepburn earned another Oscar nomination for her now-iconic performance as Holly Golightly in Blake Edward’s romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), costarring George Peppard. That year she starred with Shirley MacLaine in The Children’s Hour, a controversial drama that became one of Hollywood’s earliest treatments on the subject of lesbianism. She received a British Academy Award for Best Actress for the romantic mystery Charade (1963), costarring Cary Grant and Walter Matthau.

Also in 1963, she reteamed with her Sabrina costar William Holden for Paris—When It Sizzles. But it was her performance as Eliza Doolittle in 1964’s My Fair Lady that Hepburn hit on the most lucrative film of her career, as well as earning yet again Oscar and Golden Globe Award nominations. She played a blind woman in Terence Young’s thriller Wait Until Dark (1967), earning a fifth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

After a nine-year absence, she returned to film in the romantic adventure Robin and Marian (1976) with Sean Connery, Richard Harris, and Ian Holm. She appeared in several more film productions, including her final role playing the angel Hap in Steven Spielberg's Always (1989).

In 1988 Audrey began her second career...as Unicef's Goodwill Ambassador. She took her job very seriously, devoting her energy to being a voice for the poor. She visited children being helped by Unicef's programs in more than 50 countries including Africa. It was especially her last visits to Africa that spurred her on to continue being very visible and vocal for those who suffered so much due to civil war, drought and disease.

"During the past years I have traveled the world and seen these children, so many of them, leading lives of tremendous pain. And yet, they retain their sweetness and their patience; their eyes reflect a deeper understanding, an awareness that this is not as it should be." Audrey Hepburn

Resources: A&E's Biographies

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