Audrey Hepburn (1929 - 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian who became one of the defining film stars of the 1950s and 1960s. [1] She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her first major Hollywood role, in Roman Holiday, and went on to appear in Sabrina, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady. [3] In her later years she worked as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. [2]
Early life and the war
Audrey Hepburn was born on 4 May 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, to a Dutch baroness and a British father. Her childhood was divided between Belgium, England and the Netherlands, and her father's departure left a lasting mark on the family. [1]
She spent the Second World War in the occupied Netherlands, where the family endured severe hardship during the famine of the final winter; the malnutrition she suffered affected her health for the rest of her life. She studied ballet in Arnhem and, after the war, in Amsterdam and London, but was told she was too tall and undertrained to become a prima ballerina. [2]
Stage and screen breakthrough
Hepburn took chorus work in West End musicals and small film parts before being noticed while filming in the south of France by the novelist Colette, who chose her for the title role of the Broadway adaptation of Gigi in 1951. The production brought her a Theatre World Award and Hollywood's attention. [1]
Her first major film role, opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday in 1953, won her the Academy Award for Best Actress along with a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. The following year she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Ondine. [3]
Career
A series of successful films followed: Sabrina, War and Peace, Funny Face, Love in the Afternoon and The Nun's Story, for which she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award. In 1961 she played Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's, a performance that became her most recognised. She starred in the thriller Charade, in the screen version of My Fair Lady and in Wait Until Dark, which brought another Academy Award nomination. [1]
Her long working friendship with the couturier Hubert de Givenchy, who designed her clothes on and off screen, made her one of the most imitated figures in twentieth-century fashion. She reduced her workload sharply after the late 1960s to concentrate on family life in Switzerland, returning only occasionally to the screen. [3]
Humanitarian work
Appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF in 1989, Hepburn devoted her final years to field missions and advocacy, travelling to Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Bangladesh and Vietnam to draw attention to child hunger, immunisation and clean water. She cited her own experience of wartime relief as the reason for the commitment. [2]
In 1992 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was also honoured with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. [1]
Death and legacy
Hepburn died of cancer on 20 January 1993 at her home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland. The Academy awarded her the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award posthumously, and she received posthumous Emmy and Grammy awards for a documentary series and a children's recording, placing her among the small number of performers honoured in all four major American entertainment award categories. [3]
The American Film Institute ranks her among the greatest female screen legends of classic Hollywood, and her image remains a point of reference in film and fashion. [1]
