Why Audre Hepburn was foreve haunted by the story of Anne Frank

AABOUT ANNE FRANK

UDREY Hepburn starred in a series of glittering roles that left Hollywood audiences spellbound and is best-known for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady and Roman Holiday. But her real starring role came in her early life.

Audrey grew up in an aristocratic Dutch family and formed part of the Resistance as her country fell to the Nazis during the Second World War.

Those memories never left her and as revealed in a book by Robert Matzen – Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II – formed part of her off-screen character all through her life.

From the first moment Audrey read Anne Frank’s diar y she would be haunted by the story of the little girl – who she called her “soul sister” for the rest of her life…

“I didn’t know what I was going to read,” said Audrey. “I’ve never been the same again.” She had first run into Anne Frank by accident in 1946. It was fate that she was living in Amsterdam below the apartment of a publishing house employee who was working on this soon-to-be released, strange wartime book of a young Jewish girl.

The editor knew of Audrey’s wartime experiences and saw some similarities. She said of the manuscript that Audrey “might find it interesting”. That didn’t begin to capture the reaction of 17-yearold Audrey to the power of the entries of her contemporary, Anne Frank.

The Frank family, including Anne’s father Otto, mother Edith, and sister Margot, had fled their Frankfurt, Germany, home in

1933 after Hitler’s ascension to power and began a new life in Amsterdam. Her father ran a successful business until after the German occupation, and when Margot Frank received a summons to appear before the Nazis in July 1942, the family went into hiding.

Anne’s diary described their experiences of living in a secret part of her father’s building from 1942 to 1944. “There were floods of tears,” Audrey said of that first encounter with the writing of Anne Frank. “I became hysterical.” As a resident of Amsterdam, she had been so moved that she became one of the first pilgrims to Prinsengracht 263 to experience the secret annex.

Now here it was, six crazy years later. Audrey no longer lived in a one-room f l at in Amsterdam ; she had just completed the run of Gigi on Broadway, USA, and now ran around her New York apartment packing for a trip to Rome where she would begin production of William Wyler’s Roman Holiday.

Her mind shook free of memories of the war. But all that changed in a heart

HOLLY-WOOD In Breakfast at Tiffanys Audrey moved to America Audrey with her mother Ella, in 1949 Anne Frank and a young Audrey Hepburn both lived in wartime Amsterdam