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Draft for Audrey Hepburn.

Hepburn in 1956

Audrey Hepburn (/ˈɔːdri ˈhɛpˌbɜːrn/; born Audrey Kathleen Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress. Recognised as a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywood's Golden Age. She was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend in Golden Age Hollywood and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Born in Ixelles, a district of Brussels, Hepburn spent her childhood between Belgium, England and the Netherlands. While living in Amsterdam she studied ballet with Sonia Gaskell. She moved to London in 1948 to continue her ballet training with Marie Rambert and perform as a chorus girl in West End musical theatre productions.

Following minor appearances in several films, Hepburn starred in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi after being spotted by French novelist Colette, on whose work the play was based. She shot to stardom for playing the lead role opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday (1953), for which she was the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for a single performance. The same year Hepburn won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play for her performance in Ondine. She went on to star in a number of successful films, such as Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963), My Fair Lady (1964) and Wait Until Dark (1967), for which she received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Hepburn won a record three BAFTA Awards for Best British Actress in a Leading Role, and also won the Lifetime Achievement Award from BAFTA, Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and the Special Tony Award.

Hepburn appeared in fewer films as her life went on, devoting much of her later life to UNICEF. Although contributing to the organisation since 1954, she worked in some of the poorest communities of Africa, South America and Asia between 1988 and 1992. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in December 1992. A month later, Hepburn died of appendiceal cancer at her home in Switzerland at the age of 63.

Early life

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Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston on 4 May 1929 at number 48 Rue Keyenveld in Ixelles, a municipality in Brussels, Belgium.[1] Her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston (1889–1980), was a British subject born in Auschitz, Bohemia.[2][a] His parents were Anna Ruston (née Wels), of Austrian descent,[3] and Victor John George Ruston, of British and Austrian descent.[4] Biographer Alexander Walker describes Joseph as "a tall man with a square jaw and a well-defined moustache", with a "very confident" demeanor.[5] After World War I, Joseph was appointed British consul in the Dutch East Indies, and prior to his marriage to Hepburn's mother he had been married to Cornelia Bisschop, a Dutch heiress whom he had married in the East Indies.[2][6] Although born Ruston, he later double-barrelled the surname to the more "aristocratic" Hepburn-Ruston, mistakenly[5] believing himself descended from James Hepburn, third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.[1] Walker suggests that Hepburn may have had an ancestor of East Asian descent on her father's side, pointing out that her delicate features and high cheekbones looked Javanese.[7]

Hepburn's grandfather, Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra

Hepburn's mother, Baroness Ella van Heemstra (1900–1984), described by biographer Barry Paris as "a strong-willed energetic woman who loved the good life",[8] was a Dutch aristocrat of Dutch, French and Hungarian descent.[5] She was the daughter of Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra, who served as mayor of Arnhem from 1910 to 1920, and as Governor of Dutch Suriname from 1921 to 1928 and Elbrig Willemine Henriette, Baroness van Asbeck (1873–1939), who was a granddaughter of jurist Count Dirk van Hogendorp.[9] In 1920, at the age of nineteen, Ella married Jonkheer (Esquire) Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford, an oil executive based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies, where they subsequently lived.[10] They had two sons, Jonkheer Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford (1920–1979) and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford (1924–2010), before divorcing in 1925 in Arnhem.[11][12]

Hepburn's parents were married in Batavia in September 1926.[1] After three years spent travelling between Brussels, Arnhem, The Hague and London, the family settled to the suburban Brussels municipality of Linkebeek in 1932.[10][13] Hepburn's early childhood was sheltered and privileged.[14] Her parents shared a love of music and would frequently play music over the gramophone,[5] and they began paying for piano lessons for their daughter at a young age.[15] Due to the often volatile relationship between her parents, with her mother being overbearing and deeply critical of people, Hpeburn would often hide under the dining room table when she heard their voices. [15][5] As a result of her multinational background and travelling with her family due of her father's job,[7][b] she learned to speak five languages: Dutch and English from her parents, and later French, Spanish, and Italian. To strengthen her English, Hepburn was sent to a boarding school in Elham, Kent when she was five years old,[14] though this is disputed by Pauline Everts who claims that she received her initial education at Tamboers Basse School in Arnhem.[16] Though energetic and inquisitive as a child,[17] Hepburn found the experience being away from home a "terrifying" one, and was teased for being shy, plump and not speaking English as fluently as her peers.[14]

In the mid-1930s, Hepburn's parents recruited and collected donations for the British Union of Fascists.[18] Her mother contributed several articles to their publication, Blackshirt.[19] Joseph left the family abruptly in 1935 and divorced Ella in 1938, which Hepburn later professed was "the most traumatic event of my life".[10] Hepburn said of his sudden disappearance: "I was destroyed at the time... I worshipped my father and missed him terribly from the day he disappeared. Having my father cut himself off from me when I was only six was desperately awful". [20][c] Following the divorce, Ella began making more frequent visits to Kent, enjoying the shopping in London.[22]

Shy and introverted, Hepburn suffered from anxiety as a child, and exhibited symptoms of mild bulimia.[23] A bookworm, she particularly enjoyed the works of Rudyard Kipling such as Just So Stories and The Jungle Book.[24] After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Hepburn's mother relocated her daughter back to Arnhem in the hope that, as during World War I, the Netherlands would remain neutral and be spared a German attack. While there, Hepburn attended the Arnhem Conservatory from 1939 to 1945, beginning ballet classes there just prior to her tenth birthday.[24] Dame Margot Fonteyn would become an early role model for her. Though she was considered too tall for ballet, reaching her full adult height of just under 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m),[25] she performed well and found it to be an ideal way to express herself. She began performing in solo dances roles in Arnhem amid her school studies.[26]

After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Hepburn adopted the pseudonym Edda van Heemstra, because an "English-sounding" name was considered dangerous during the German occupation. Her family was profoundly affected by the occupation, with Hepburn later stating that "had we known that we were going to be occupied for five years, we might have all shot ourselves. We thought it might be over next week ... six months ... next year ... that's how we got through".[27] She left Arnhem with her mother to live with her grandfather, Aarnoud van Heemstra, in nearby Velp.[27] During this time, Hepburn participated in the Dutch resistance, delivering messages and packages, and performing ballet in clandestine fundraising events.[27] After the Allied landing on D-Day, living conditions grew worse and Arnhem was subsequently destroyed during Operation Market Garden. During the Dutch famine that followed in the winter of 1944, the Germans blocked the resupply routes of the Dutch people's already-limited food and fuel supplies as retaliation for railway strikes that were held to hinder German occupation. Hepburn and many others resorted to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake cakes and biscuits;[28][29] she developed acute anæmia, respiratory problems and edema as a result of malnutrition.[30] The van Heemstra family was also seriously financially affected by the occupation, during which many of their properties, including their principal estate in Arnhem, were badly damaged or destroyed.[31] The Allies liberated the Netherlands in May 1945, with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration beginning the distribution of food and other essentials.[27][32]

Early career (1948-52)

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Hepburn trained in ballet under Sonia Gaskell

After the war ended in 1945, Hepburn moved with her mother and siblings to Amsterdam, where she began training ballet under Sonia Gaskell, a leading figure in Dutch ballet, and Russian Olga Tarassova.[33] As the family's fortunes had been lost during the war, Ella supported them by working as a cook and housekeeper for a wealthy family.[34] Hepburn made her film debut in 1948, playing an air stewardess in Dutch in Seven Lessons, an educational travel film made by Charles van der Linden and Henry Josephson.[35] Though several accounts state that Hepburn and her mother arrived in England together that year with just £35 between them, Walker states that they did not arrive together, though they were soon living together at 65 South Audley Street in Mayfair. She took up a ballet scholarship with Ballet Rambert, which was then based in Notting Hill.[36][d] Her intention was to become a professional performer, but it became evident that she lacked natural talent.[37] As she became a young woman, Hepburn modelled hats for a trade catalogue and used her language skills as a filing clerk for a travel firm, before being hired as a dancer at Ciro's nightclub on Orange Street. Audiences began to notice her special charm, with magazine publisher Peter King saying: "It was her personality. Her smile had a particular radiance. Enjoyment was all over her face". [38]

Hepburn successfully auditioned for a part on the chorus line in the Jack Hylton production of High Button Shoes, making it into the last ten out of 3000 applicants. She used part of her earnings to take elocution lessons from Felix Aylmer. After the show ended, she appeared with five other girls and six boys in Cecil Landeau's music revue, Sauce Tartare, which commenced in May 1949. During the production, Landau agreed for Hepburn to feature in an advertisement for the moisturizer Lacto-Calamine. Sauce Tartare was followed by Sauce Piquante in 1950, which co-starred Bob Monkhouse.[39] Director Mario Zampi spotted Hepburn, and was quoted as saying in a January 1951 publication of Cinema magazine that "she will be a big star some day".[40] He cast her in her first professional role as an actress in Laughter in Paradise (1951), in which she played a vendor wearing a hair bow who utters the line: "Want a ciggy?".[41] This was followed by a very brief role opposite Alec Guinness in the Ealing Comedy The Lavender Hill Mob, the same year.[42]

In 1951, Hepburn was signed by Robert Lennard, the casting director for the Associated British Picture Corporation. Lennard talked Hepburn into signing a three-year contract, in which she would agree to make one film a alongside her studio work.[43] She subsequently appeared in her first lead role in Thorold Dickinson's The Secret People (1952), playing Nora, a prodigious ballerina, and the sister of Valentina Cortese's character.[44] Though the film was not a success, with significant flaws, Walker remarked of her appearance: "The naturalness and simplicity she radiated in later films are already visible the minute she appears on screen in The Secret People: in the check suit and flat hat with a floating ribbon that Nora wears with such vivacity; in the guileless pleasure she demonstrates at exchanging her refugee status for British nationality".[45] After filming was completed, Hepburn travelled to southern France with her mother in late May 1951 to begin shooting Monte Carlo Baby.[46] Walker states that during the production she met playwright Colette, who selected her for the lead role in the play Gigi.[47]

After filming for Monte Carlo Baby was wrapped, Hepburn arrived in New York to play Gigi on Broadway in a Gilbert Miller production. Hepburn initially found rehearsals very demanding, conflicting with director Raymond Rouleau, who criticized her phrasing of lines and over-animation of tempo.[e] Rouleau became particularly stern with the young actress, and promptly the problems were eradicated.[48] Though she still appeared to be nervous on stage,[49] when Gigi opened at the Fulton Theatre on 24 November 1951, Hepburn captured the hearts of the critics and won the Theatre World Award, despite criticism that the stage version was inferior to the French filmatisation.[50][51] Richard Watts, Jr. of the New York Post remarked that her "quality is so winning", while Walter Kerr of The New York Times stated that she "brings a candid innocence and a tomboy intelligence to a part that might have gone sticky".[52] The play ran for 217 performances, closing on 31 May 1952,[53] before going on a US tour between October 1952 and May 1953, appearing in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles before closing in San Francisco.[27]

Hollywood breakthrough

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Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday (1953)

Richard Mealing, the chief of Paramount Studios in London, had been "much struck" with seeing Hepburn in Laughter in Paradise,[54] and arranged for her to be given a screen test for a leading role opposite Gregory Peck in William Wyler's romantic comedy Roman Holiday (1953).[42] The script for the film had been penned by Dalton Trumbo and Ian McLellan Hunter in the mid-1940s, but Frank Capra, who was originally hired to direct, couldn't find the right actress to play the part. When Wyler took over, he explicitly stated that the lead actress should be a girl without an American accent. He initially wanted Elizabeth Taylor to star but MGM were unwilling to loan her to Paramount for the picture.[55] The decision to cast Hepburn proved to be a successful one, and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.[56]

Filmography and stage roles

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Main article: Audrey Hepburn on screen and stage

Awards

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Main article: List of awards and honours received by Audrey Hepburn

References

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Notes

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  1. ^ On Hepburn's birth certificate her father was stated to have been born in London. This was corrected in 1952 by her mother to "born in Onzic, Bohemia". Onzic is a misreading of Ouzic (German Auschiz), now Úžice in Czech Republic.
  2. ^ Walker writes that it is unclear for what kind of company he worked; he was listed as a "financial adviser" in a Dutch business directory, and the family often travelled between the Netherlands, Belgium and England.[7]
  3. ^ Hepburn only renewed contact with her father in the 1960s, after locating him in Dublin, Ireland, through the Red Cross.[10] He had been imprisoned during World War II and was released only in April 1945.[21] He later took sanctuary for a period in a Trappist monastery in County Waterford, before its abbot helped him find a job as an insurance broker in Dublin.[10]
  4. ^ She had been offered the scholarship already in 1945, but had declined it due to "some uncertainty regarding her national status".[31]
  5. ^ Rouleau's widow recalled: "The first eight days of work with Audrey were truly terrible. She was acting extremely badly, totally failing to understand the meaning of the text, going out late at night and arriving very tired at the theatre in the mornings."[48]

Citations

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  1. ^ a b c Spoto 2007, p. 6.
  2. ^ a b "Hepburn, Audrey". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. Retrieved June 26, 2016.(subscription required)
  3. ^ "Anna Juliana Franziska Karolina Wels, born in Slovakia". Pitt.edu. Retrieved May 4, 2013.
  4. ^ McEwen 2012, p. 5.
  5. ^ a b c d e Walker 1994, p. 6.
  6. ^ Spoto 2007, p. 4.
  7. ^ a b c Walker 1994, p. 8.
  8. ^ Paris 2001, p. 5.
  9. ^ Segers, Yop. "'Heemstra, Aarnoud Jan Anne Aleid baron van (1871-1957)'". Historici.nl. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  10. ^ a b c d e Paris.
  11. ^ Spoto 2007, p. 3.
  12. ^ "Ian van Ufford Quarles Obituary". The Times. May 29, 2010. Archived from the original on June 21, 2016. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
  13. ^ "De vijf hoeken van de wereld: Amerika in Elsene" (in Dutch). brusselnieuws.be. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  14. ^ a b c Paris 2001, p. 8.
  15. ^ a b Paris 2001, p. 7.
  16. ^ Walker 1994, p. 15.
  17. ^ Walker 1994, p. 9.
  18. ^ Spoto 2007, p. 8.
  19. ^ Walker 1994, p. 11.
  20. ^ Walker 1994, p. 14.
  21. ^ Walker 1994, p. 30.
  22. ^ Paris 2001, p. 41.
  23. ^ Walker 1994, p. 17.
  24. ^ a b Walker 1994, pp. 18–20.
  25. ^ Walker 1994, p. 32.
  26. ^ Walker 1994, pp. 23–4.
  27. ^ a b c d e Paris 2001.
  28. ^ Tichner, Martha (26 November 2006). "Audrey Hepburn". CBS Sunday Morning.
  29. ^ James, Caryn (1993). "Audrey Hepburn, Actress, Is Dead at 63". New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 January 2007. Retrieved 26 November 2006.
  30. ^ Woodward 2012, pp. 45–6.
  31. ^ a b Woodward 2012, p. 52.
  32. ^ Woodward 2012, pp. 50–2.
  33. ^ Woodward 2012, pp. 52–3.
  34. ^ Woodward 2012, p. 53.
  35. ^ Vermilye 1995, p. 67.
  36. ^ Woodward 2012, p. 54.
  37. ^ Walker 1994, p. 34.
  38. ^ Walker 1994, p. 35.
  39. ^ Walker 1994, pp. 36–8.
  40. ^ Walker 1994, p. 41.
  41. ^ Walker 1994, p. 42.
  42. ^ a b Miller 2014, p. 22.
  43. ^ Walker 1994, pp. 42–3.
  44. ^ Woodward 2012, p. 94.
  45. ^ Walker 1994, pp. 47–8.
  46. ^ Walker 1994, p. 51.
  47. ^ Walker 1994, p. 52.
  48. ^ a b Walker 1994, p. 62.
  49. ^ Walker 1994, p. 63.
  50. ^ Cite error: The named reference gigi was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  51. ^ "Audrey Is a Hit". Life. December 10, 1951. Retrieved April 22, 2016.
  52. ^ Walker 1994, pp. 62–3.
  53. ^ Walker 1994, p. 67.
  54. ^ Walker 1994, p. 56.
  55. ^ Walker 1994, pp. 56–7.
  56. ^ Osborne 1965, p. 199.

Sources

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