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Audrey Hepburn
Like icons in museums admired for their beauty of design and color, Audrey Hepburn's
image appeals to our aesthetic sense. Not only was she an unusually beautiful film star,
but throughout her career she represented the height of fashion elegance. Her body
combined the height and the narrow waist of the elegant model with the shapely legs of
the dancer—perfect for both high fashion gowns and simple sportswear. Yet she looked
like no fashion model had ever looked with her long nose, unusually wide at the tip, wide
mouth, and slightly crooked teeth. No other figure associated with high fashion has had
such lasting popular appeal, for despite her haute couture image in films and Vogue
magazine, her style was surprisingly adaptable and undated because of its essential
simplicity.
Audrey Kathleen Hepburn-Ruston was born May 4, 1929, in Ixelles, Belgium, but spent her childhood in Arnhem,
Netherlands. She attended school in England and worked as a photographer's model in London. Erroneously
believing Arnhem was safer than London, her family moved back. However, the people of Arnhem suffered
near-starvation when the Germans occupied the town from 1939 to 1945. When the town was liberated, Hepburn
was 15 and dangerously malnourished. As she regained her health, she found herself too tall and too old to
realize her dream of becoming a classical dancer, but was "discovered" for films because of the need to work
rather than the desire to be a movie actress. Her thinness and the emotional neediness she brought to her
performances remind her fans to this day of the deprivations of her childhood and adolescence.
As she became a star, Hepburn had plenty of help refining her fashion image, but she always exercised control
over it. She chose French couturier Hubert de Givenchy, then only 26 years old, for her costumes in Sabrina—the
beginning of a lifelong association; his simple lines, pure color, and elegant fabrics suited Hepburn perfectly on
and off screen. The billowy, strapless gown for the 1954 filming of Sabrina made the angular Vogue and Bazaar
models in their Christian Dior suits and high heels look cold and old.
By the time she made Funny Face in 1957, she was as much fashion model as she was actress. The film
satirized those chilly Dior models and the whole business of couture, offering instead Audrey's playfulness with
clothes. Her most famous film, Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), launched the reign of the little black dress as a
modern fashion staple. Hepburn wears at least three black dresses in the film, two short and one long. The single
most iconic image of Hepburn is from this film: the head-shot of her as she looks into Tiffany's window, wearing
her black gown, pearls, and big sunglasses, holding a paper coffee container.
Most of her other 1960s films capitalized on her fashion model persona, no matter what character she played.
Charade (1963) established the pattern: distressed young woman, always wearing beautiful clothes. Paris When
It Sizzles (1964), How to Steal a Million (1966), and Two for the Road (1967) followed this formula. Even My Fair
Lady (1964) became a large-screen canvas for Cecil Beaton's designs, especially those in which he clothed her.
Hepburn in her Ascot gown and hat has become the representation of that film.
Hepburn made a total of 29 films, counting two for television. Early in her career she also appeared on stage in
two major productions that won good reviews for her performances: Gigi (New York and national tour 1951–1952)
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and Ondine (New York 1954). But Hepburn never thought of herself as an accomplished actress; her youthful
appearance and manner were what she offered, and as a result, she essentially played the same role in all her
work. Roman Holiday, her first major film and for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress of 1953, established
her screen persona as a girl almost becoming a woman. Directors often paired her with much older leading men
such as Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, Fred Astaire, and Cary Grant—pairings that enhanced
her virginal quality. She was Cinderella forever at the ball, an image that mutes the sexual subtext of films like
Love in the Afternoon and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Even in her 1960s films, those in the Charade mold, sexual heat
is subsumed by innocent flirtatiousness; she is still more girl than woman.
In the 1950s, when Hollywood offered Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell as representations of womanhood,
Hepburn's image had a powerful appeal for girls on the threshold of puberty, and older. To girls who did not see
themselves—or wish to see themselves yet—as sexual, Hepburn was a comforting alternative. In her film roles
she was beautiful, fashionable, appealing, and innocent, and men fell for her completely without putting overt
sexual pressure on her.
But Hepburn brought something more to her film performances—something that was part of her deepest self and
emerged through her eyes before the camera. In every Hepburn film, her characters at some point reveal
themselves as fragile and frightened; her great eyes beg for sympathy as the camera moves in for the close-up.
The clothes and makeup to which she gave such intense care were her armor, but the fear shone from her eyes.
When her only armor was a nun's habit in The Nun's Story (1959), her eyes became even more affecting; many
believe this to be her finest performance. When she played a blind woman in Wait Until Dark (1967), her eyes
became the focus of the film. Her thin body controlled in a dancer's posture, and the careful diction with which
she delivered every line of dialogue, augmented the expression in her eyes, conveying a deep need for sympathy
and understanding held under great restraint; audiences responded by loving her.
There were deprivations in her adult life as well. In 1954, after her success in Roman Holiday, she married actordirector Mel Ferrer; they established residence in Switzerland, because both preferred to remain apart from the
Hollywood milieu. But as he took over the management of her career, she began to resent his decisions on her
behalf; he apparently insisted that she work more often than she wanted to, especially after they had a son. She
divorced him in 1969 and soon married Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti, effectively retiring from films, living
permanently in Europe, caring for her two sons Sean Ferrer and Luca Dotti, gardening and homemaking, and
making only occasional public appearances. Dotti, however, was known as a playboy and continued his liaisons
throughout the marriage. Hepburn finally divorced him in 1982, returned to Switzerland, and lived there with actor
Robert Wolders until her death. She struggled unsuccessfully to keep her two marriages intact, sacrificing herself
for husbands who did not care enough for her as a person. She never married Wolders, but he offered her the
devotion she had not experienced in marriage. Hepburn appeared, in the publicity surrounding her personal life,
just as she did in her films: self-sacrificing and fragile.
If she had remained in her Swiss farmhouse into her old age, enjoying the privacy she so valued, her image
would probably have continued to be most associated with elegance in clothes. But at age 59 she became an
ambassador for UNICEF, using her image to attract attention to starving children in places like Ethiopia, Central
America, Vietnam, Turkey, and Sudan. Between 1988 and 1992, she made eight journeys to such places and
appeared in other public arenas to speak about her experiences and about the great need she saw. She had an
emotional investment in these experiences that few others could share, for while she offered her publicity power
to help these children, she revisited her own childhood hunger. Although most photographs of her during these
journeys show a smiling Hepburn, family, friends, and acquaintances said she was suffering greatly because of
her memories of Arnhem and because she felt there was so little she, or indeed any one person, could do. In
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September 1992 she made her last journey, and the most emotionally grueling one, to Somalia, where most of
the population was starving. By the time she returned, she was in great physical pain. Diagnosed with terminal
colon cancer, she returned to her Swiss farmhouse, where she died at age 63 the following January.
If the original purpose of an icon is to inspire faith, Hepburn certainly does that. Millions of filmgoers from the
1950s to today believe unquestioningly that Hepburn was in life just as she appeared on screen. She herself said
she never thought of herself as an icon; what was in other people's minds was not in hers. Whether her image will
continue to convey such spiritual meanings to "other people's minds," no one can say. In contrast to various
excesses of food, fashion, and politics, her dignified clothes, manner, and lifestyle along with her humanitarianism
have inspired admiration for decades. Of course, others have led similar lives and made similar choices. But they
did not look like Audrey Hepburn. All that she was, finally, is summed up in that remarkable face, an aesthetic
fascination and joy. Her face continues to offer its unique beauty as an object for meditation, communicating to
each individual observer more than words can convey.
Lucy Rollin
Further Reading
Arbetter, Lisa et al. Secrets of Style: The Complete Guide to Dressing Your Best Every Day, from the Editors of In
Style. New York: In Style Books–Time, 2003.; Capote, Truman. Breakfast at Tiffany's. New York: Random House,
1958.; Ferrer, Sean Hepburn. Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit. New York: Atria Books, 2003.; Hellstern,
Melissa. How to Be Lovely: The Audrey Hepburn Way of Life. New York: Dutton, 2004.; Keogh, Pamela Clarke.
Audrey Style. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.; Moseley, Rachel. Growing Up with Audrey Hepburn. Manchester,
UK: Manchester UP, 2002.; Paris, Barry. Audrey Hepburn. New York: Berkley Publishing Company, 1996.
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Rollin, Lucy. "Audrey Hepburn." Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, Ideas. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.
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