Audrey Hepburn (born Audrey Kathleen
Ruston ; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a
British actress and humanitarian. 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
the history of American cinema and has been
placed in the International Best Dressed List
Hall of Fame. She is also regarded by some to
be the most naturally beautiful woman of all
time. [1][2][3][4]
Born in Ixelles , a district of Brussels, Hepburn
spent her childhood between Belgium,
England and the Netherlands, including
German-occupied Arnhem during the Second
World War. In Amsterdam, she studied ballet
with Sonia Gaskell before moving to London
in 1948 to continue her ballet training with
Marie Rambert and perform as a chorus girl
in West End musical theatre productions. She
spoke several languages including English,
French , Dutch , Italian , Spanish , and German .
[5]
After appearing in several British films and
starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi ,
Hepburn played the Academy Award -winning
lead role in Roman Holiday (1953). 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.
For her role in Roman Holiday , Hepburn was
also the first actress to win an Oscar, a
Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for a single
performance in 1954. The same year, she
won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a
Play for Ondine. Hepburn remains one of few
people who have won Academy, Emmy,
Grammy, and Tony Awards. She won a record
three BAFTA Awards for Best British Actress in
a Leading Role .
She 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 most
profoundly disadvantaged 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.[6][7][8]
Early life
Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen
Ruston on 4 May 1929 at number 48 Rue
Keyenveld in Ixelles , a municipality in
Brussels, Belgium. [9] Her father, Joseph Victor
Anthony Ruston (1889–1980), was a British
subject born in Úžice, Bohemia, [10][11] to
Anna Ruston née Wels of Austrian descent
[12] and Victor John George Ruston of British
and Austrian descent. [13] A one-time
honorary British consul in the Dutch East
Indies, Ruston had earlier been married to
Cornelia Bisschop, a Dutch heiress. [10][14]
Although born Ruston, he later double-
barrelled the surname to the more
"aristocratic" Hepburn-Ruston, mistakenly [13]
believing himself descended from James
Hepburn , third husband of Mary, Queen of
Scots .[14]
Her mother, Baroness Ella van Heemstra
(1900–1984), was a Dutch aristocrat and the
daughter of Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra ,
who was mayor of Arnhem from 1910 to
1920 and served as Governor of Suriname
from 1921 to 1928. Ella's mother was Elbrig
Willemine Henriette, Baroness van Asbeck
(1873–1939), who was a granddaughter of
jurist Dirk van Hogendorp .[15] At age
nineteen, Ella had married Jonkheer (Esquire)
Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford,
but they divorced in 1925. Hepburn had two
half-brothers from this marriage who were
both born in the Dutch East Indies: Jonkheer
Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford
(1920–1979) and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce
Quarles van Ufford (1924–2010). [14][16] Ella,
Baroness van Heemstra, was named Dame of
the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of
Saint John of Jerusalem by Queen Elizabeth II
on 7 September 1971. [17][18]
Ruston and van Heemstra married in the
Dutch-Colonial Batavia, Dutch East Indies in
September 1926. They moved back to
Europe, to Ixelles in Belgium, where Hepburn
was born in 1929. In January 1932 the family
moved on to Linkebeek , a nearby Brussels
municipality. [19] Although born in Belgium,
Hepburn held British citizenship through her
father. [9]
Because of her mother's family in the
Netherlands and her father's British
background and job with a British company,
[20] the family often travelled between the
three countries. With her multinational
background, she went on to speak fluent
English, Dutch, French, Spanish and Italian.
Hepburn participated in ballet by the age of
5.
Childhood and adolescence during World
War II
Hepburn's parents were members of the
British Union of Fascists in the mid-1930s, [21]
with her father becoming a true Nazi
sympathiser. [22] After her mother discovered
him in bed with the nanny of her children,
[23] Hepburn's father left the family abruptly.
In the 1960s, Hepburn would finally locate
him again in Dublin through the Red Cross .
Although he remained emotionally detached,
his daughter remained in contact and
supported him financially until his death. [24]
The marriage began to fail from 1935, and
Joseph settled in London following the
divorce. [10] In 1937, Ella and Audrey moved
to Kent , South East England, where Hepburn
was educated at a tiny independent school in
Elham , run by two sisters, known as "The
Mesdamoiselles Smith"; the school was
attended by about 14 children. [25][26] In
September 1939, Britain declared war on
Germany, and Hepburn's mother relocated
with her daughter back to Arnhem, in the
belief that (as during World War I ) the
Netherlands would remain neutral and be
spared a German attack. Whilst there,
Hepburn attended the Arnhem Conservatory
from 1939 to 1945 where, in addition to the
standard school curriculum, she trained in
ballet with Winja Marova. 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. In 1942, Hepburn's uncle, Otto
van Limburg Stirum (husband of her mother's
older sister, Miesje), was executed in
retaliation for an act of sabotage by the
resistance movement, while Hepburn's half
brother Ian was deported to Berlin to work in
a German labour camp . Hepburn's other
half-brother Alex went into hiding to avoid
the same fate. [27]
After this, Ella, Miesje, and Hepburn moved
in with Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra in
nearby Velp . During her wartime struggles,
Hepburn suffered from malnutrition ,
developed acute anæmia , respiratory
problems, and œdema. [28] Hepburn, in a
retrospective interview, commented, "I have
memories. More than once I was at the
station seeing trainloads of Jews being
transported, seeing all these faces over the
top of the wagon. I remember, very sharply,
one little boy standing with his parents on
the platform, very pale, very blond, wearing
a coat that was much too big for him, and he
stepped on to the train. I was a child
observing a child." [29]
By 1944, Hepburn had become a proficient
ballet dancer. She had secretly danced for
groups of people to collect money for the
Dutch resistance . "The best audience I ever
had made not a single sound at the end of
my performances," she remarked. [30] She
also occasionally acted as a courier for the
resistance, delivering messages and packages.
After the Allied landing on D-Day , living
conditions grew worse and Arnhem was
subsequently devastated in the fighting
during Operation Market Garden . During the
Dutch famine that followed in the winter of
1944, the Germans had blocked the resupply
routes of the Dutch already-limited food and
fuel supplies as retaliation for railway strikes
that were held to hinder German occupation.
People starved and froze to death in the
streets; Hepburn and many others resorted
to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake
cakes and biscuits. [22][31] One way young
Audrey passed the time was by drawing;
some of her childhood artwork can be seen
today. [32] When the country was liberated,
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration trucks followed. [33] Hepburn
said in an interview that she fell ill from
putting too much sugar in her porridge and
eating an entire can of condensed milk .[34]
Hepburn's war-time experiences sparked her
devotion to UNICEF , an international
humanitarian organisation, in her later
career. [22][31]
Entertainment career
Career beginnings and early roles
After the war ended in 1945, Ella and Audrey
moved to Amsterdam , where Hepburn took
ballet lessons for three years with Sonia
Gaskell , arguably the leading figure in Dutch
ballet. [35] In 1948, she appeared for the first
time on film, as an air stewardess in an
educational travel film made by Charles van
der Linden and Henry Josephson, Dutch in
Seven Lessons .[36] Gaskell provided an
introduction to Marie Rambert , and in 1948
Hepburn traveled with her mother to London
to study ballet at the Ballet Rambert . She
supported herself with part-time work as a
model. Around that time she decided to drop
"Ruston" from her double-barreled surname.
When Hepburn asked Rambert about her
future, Rambert assured her that she could
continue to work there and have a great
career, but her relatively tall height of 5 ft
7 in (1.70 m) [37] coupled with her poor
nutrition during the war would keep her from
becoming a prima ballerina. Hepburn trusted
Rambert's assessment and decided to pursue
acting. [38] After Hepburn became a star,
Rambert said of her, "She was a wonderful
learner. If she had wanted to persevere, she
might have become an outstanding
ballerina." [39]
