Actress Audrey Hepburn, star of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, remains one of Hollywood’s greatest style icons and one of the world’s most successful actresses.

Actress, fashion icon, and philanthropist Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929, in Brussels, Belgium. At age 22, she starred in the Broadway production of Gigi.
Two years later, she starred in the film Roman Holiday (1953) with Gregory Peck. In 1961, she set new fashion standards as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hepburn is one of the few actresses to win an Emmy, Tony, Grammy, and Academy Award.
In her later years, acting took a back seat to her charity work on behalf of children.

 

Background

Hepburn spent part of her youth in England at a boarding school there. During much of World War II, she studied at the Arnhem Conservatory in The Netherlands. After the Nazis invaded the country, Hepburn and her mother struggled to survive. She reportedly helped the resistance movement by delivering messages.
After the war, Hepburn continued to pursue an interest in dance. She studied ballet in Amsterdam and later in London. In 1948, Hepburn made her stage debut as a chorus girl in the musical High Button Shoes in London. More small parts on the British stage followed. She was a chorus girl in Sauce Tartare (1949), but was moved to a featured player in Sauce Piquante (1950).
That same year, Hepburn made her feature film debut in 1951’s One Wild Oat, in an uncredited role. She went on to parts in such films as Young Wives’ Tales (1951) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), starring Alec Guinness.
Her next project on the New York stage introduced her to American audiences.

At the age of 22, Audrey Hepburn went to New York to star in the Broadway production ofGigi, based on the book by the French writer Colette. Set in Paris around 1900, the comedy focuses on the title character, a young teenage girl on the brink of adulthood. Her relatives try to teach her ways of being a courtesan, to enjoy the benefits of being with a wealthy man without having to marry. They try to get a friend of the family, Gaston, to become her patron, but the young couple has other ideas. Only a few weeks after the play premiered, news reports indicated that Hepburn was being wooed by Hollywood.

Roman Holiday and stardom 

Hepburn had her first starring role in Roman Holiday (1953), playing Princess Ann, a European princess who escapes the reins of royalty and has a wild night out with an American newsman (Gregory Peck). The film was a box office success, and Hepburn gained critical acclaim for her portrayal, unexpectedly winning an Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best British Actress in a Leading Role, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama in 1953.
The next year Hepburn returned to the Broadway stage to star in Ondine with Mel Ferrer. A fantasy, the play told the story of a water nymph who falls in love with a human played by Ferrer. With her lithe and lean frame, Hepburn made a convincing sprite in this sad story about love found and lost. She won the 1954 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance. While the leading characters in the play grew apart, the actors found themselves becoming closer. The two also made a dynamic pair off stage and Hepburn and Ferrer got married on September 25, 1954, in Switzerland.

Film Star

Back on the big screen, Hepburn made another award worthy performance in Sabrina (1954) as the title character, the daughter of a wealthy family’s driver. Sabrina returned home after spending time in Paris as a beautiful and sophisticated woman. The family’s two sons, Linus and David, played by Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, never paid her much mind until her transformation. Pursuing her one time crush David, Sabrina unexpectedly found happiness with his older brother Linus. Hepburn earned her an Academy Award nomination for her work on this bittersweet romantic comedy.
Showcasing her dancing abilities, Hepburn starred opposite Fred Astaire in the musicalFunny Face (1957). This film featured Hepburn undergoing another transformation. This time, she played a beatnik bookstore clerk who gets discovered by a fashion photographer played by Astaire. Lured by a free trip to Paris, the clerk becomes a beautiful model. Hubert de Givenchy, one of her close friends, designed Hepburn’s clothes for the film.
Stepping away from light-hearted fare, Hepburn co-starred in the film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace with her husband, Mel Ferrer, and Henry Fonda in 1956. Three years later, she played Sister Luke in The Nun’s Story (1959), which earned her an Academy Award nomination. The film focused on her character’s struggle to succeed as a nun. Following that stellar performance, she went on to star in the John Huston directed western The Unforgiven (1960) with Burt Lancaster. That same year, her first child, a son named Sean, was born.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s and continued success

Hepburn next starred as New Yorker Holly Golightly opposite George Peppard, in Blake Edwards‘s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), a film loosely based on the Truman Capote novella of the same name. The character is considered one of the best known in American cinema, and a defining role for Hepburn. The dress she wears during the opening credits is considered an icon of the twentieth century and perhaps the most famous “little black dress” of all time. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

Later Work

For the rest of the 1960s, Hepburn took on a variety of roles. She starred with Cary Grant in the romantic thriller Charade (1963).
Hepburn’s second film of 1964 was George Cukor’s film adaptation of the stage musical My Fair Lady, released in November. Hepburn’s casting in the role of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle sparked great controversy. Julie Andrews, who had originated the role in the stage show, had not been offered the part because producer Jack L. Warner thought Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor were more “bankable” propositions. Hepburn initially asked Warner to give the role to Andrews but was eventually cast. The press further played up the fabricated rivalry between Hepburn and Andrews, when the latter won an Academy Award forMary Poppins at the 37th Academy Awards (1964) while Hepburn was not even nominated, despite My Fair Lady’s accumulation of eight out of a possible twelve awards.
Taking on more dramatic fare, she starred a blind woman in the suspenseful tale Wait Until Dark (1967) opposite Alan Arkin. Her character used her wits to overcome the criminals that were harassing her. This film brought her a fifth Academy Award nomination.
That same year, Hepburn and Mel Ferrer separated and later divorced. She married Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969, and the couple had a son, Luca, in 1970.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Hepburn worked sporadically. She starred opposite Sean Connery inRobin and Marian (1976), a look at the central figures of the Robin Hood saga in their later years. In 1979, Hepburn co-starred with Ben Gazzara in the crime thriller Bloodline. Hepburn and Gazzara teamed up again for the 1981 comedy They All Laughed, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

Her last screen role was a cameo appearance as an angel opposite Richard Dreyfuss,

in Always (1989) directed by Steven Spielberg.

Legacy

In her later years, acting took a back seat to her work on behalf of children. She became a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF in the late 1980s. Travelling the world, Hepburn tried to raise awareness about children in need. Making more than 50 trips, Hepburn visited UNICEF projects in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. She won a special Academy Award for her humanitarian work in 1993, but she did not live long enough to receive it. Hepburn died on January 20, 1993, at her home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland after a battle with colon cancer.

Her work to help children around the world continues. Her sons, Sean Ferrer and Luca Dotti, along with her companion Robert Wolders, established the Audrey Hepburn Memorial Fund at UNICEF to continue Hepburn’s humanitarian work in 1994. It is now known as the Audrey Hepburn Society at the US Fund for UNICEF.

 

Top 10 Hepburn Films

Roman Holiday – 1953

Sabrina – 1954

Wait Until Dark – 1956

Love in the Afternoon – 1957

Funny Face – 1957

Breakfast at Tiffany’s -1961

Charade – 1963

My Fair Lady – 1964

Paris When it Sizzles – 1964

How to Steal a Million – 1966

 

Source: www.biography.com, en.wikipedia.org, www.audrey1.org and www.unicef.org