Fairest lady
SHE was the ultimate Hollywood star, fashion icon and ageless beauty. Now a new documentary looks at Audrey Hepburn’s life – from being a child in World War Two, her Tinseltown career, her relationships with men, and her humanitarian work for Unicef later in life.
But how much do you know about the Breakfast At Tiffany’s star? has 12 fascinating facts…
AUDREY Hepburn wasn’t her real name. She was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston in 1929 and didn’t give herself the new name until 1948.
Born in Belgium, her family moved to the Netherlands but she had British citizenship. Audrey began dancing at age five and, by 1944, was doing so to raise money for the Dutch resistance. Her parents were Nazi sympathizers. Her father, who abandoned her when she was young, and her mother Ella were members of the British Union of Fascists.
As a teen growing up in the Nazi- occupied Netherlands, she almost starved to death in the Dutch famine of 1944- 45 when the Germans blockaded the area she lived in. Audrey was forced to eat tulip bulbs and attempt to make bread from grass. At the end of the war she was hiding in a cellar from the Nazis.
After the war, she started a ballet career but the effects of malnutrition had left her unable to become a prima ballerina, so she concentrated on acting and musical theatre.
Her most famous role was free- spirited Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. But she was only author Truman Capote’s fifth choice for the role. He wanted Marilyn Monroe. Audrey nearly got the role of Cleopatra, which went to Elizabeth Taylor. Another of Audrey’s famous roles was cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. But her singing was dubbed over with the voice of another vocalist, Marni Nixon.
The star is one of only 16 people to have ever achieved the ultimate Hollywood accolade – an EGOT. That means winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award.
Audrey, who spoke five languages, was a loner who described herself as an introvert, once saying: “I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night to Monday morning alone in my apartment.”
The actress was a famed lover of animals, especially her pet Yorkie Mr Famous. She once adopted a baby deer called Pippin after an animal trainer advised her it would help in a role. Pippin even went to the supermarket with her.
She was married twice – to American actor Mel Ferrer and Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti – but spent the last nine years of her life with Dutch actor
Robert Wolders, which she called the happiest of her life. Audrey had two children but suffered several miscarriages. Despite her petite frame, her feet were a large size 10. Audrey was also critical of her looks, saying: “I’d like to be not so flat- chested. I’d like not to have such angular shoulders, such big feet, such a big nose.”
Audrey is available on DVD and digital download now.