Hi Hello & Welcome to this week’s look at the movies and movie people that matter to me.
She epitomised Hollywood chic, style, fashion and gamine femininity and eventually became a cultural icon the world over. She was beautiful, wildly successful, loved and respected by her industry and the world at large. She was a Daughter, Mother, two-times Wife, Actress, a tireless champion of and goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. She was so many things to so many people. But what was she to herself and what did she receive back for all her the giving and gifting of herself to others.
This week then I take a quick gallop through the life and career of AUDREY HEPBURN and throw the spotlight on three of her films that I think best represent her the person & the actress - ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953), BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961) and ROBIN AND MARIAN (1976).
Audrey Kathleen Ruston (later Hepburn-Ruston) was born in the Brussels municipality of Ixelles in 1929. Her parents were interesting and impactful to say the least. Her Mother was a Baroness, her father at one stage an Honorary British Consul, which would be interesting enough except it doesn't stop there. Her parents recruited and collected donations for the British Union Of Fascists, her Mother met Adolf Hitler and after dumping his family and moving to London Audrey’s Father became ever more deeply involved in the Fascist movement in the UK. Which brings us to the impactful. When Audrey’s father abandoned the family and high-tailed it to London it was something from which she never recovered. Indeed Audrey herself described it as “the most traumatic event of my life” and she wasn’t exaggerating, because in her search for the love of a man she so craved in order to fill the painful void her father left her, it wouldn’t be until some 50 years into her 63 on this earth that she’d finally find it.
But before her father irreparably broke her heart at the age of six, Audrey and her parents were on the move. Brussels, Arnhem, The Hague, London - Audrey led a transitory, sheltered and privileged early childhood - which was great for her multi-linguistic education but not so much in terms of stability, habit, developing her social skills and friendships. Aged 8 and at the behest of her father Audrey was sent to boarding school in Kent, where she was known as “Little Audrey”. Her parents finally divorced a year later in 1938, but the pain of this would be nothing compared to trouble brewing in Europe courtesy of one of her parents idols - Adolf Hitler - and so it was that as soon as Britain had declared war on Germany in September 1939 Audrey’s mother moved her daughter back to Arnhem in the hope that as with WW1 Holland would remain neutral and unlike Britain spared a German blitzkrieg.
Not this time however, and in 1940 Hitler’s forces took just seven days from invasion to declaration of victory to occupy the Netherlands and declare it part of the Third Reich.
Audrey and her family were of course hugely affected by their WW2 experiences under Nazi rule. Her Uncle was shot for being associated with the resistance, her half brother Ian was sent to Berlin to work in a labour camp, and her other half brother Alex went into hiding to avoid the same fate. During this time Audrey performed silent dances to raise money for the Dutch resistance movement, reportedly delivered the resistance newspaper and took messages & food to downed Allied flyers hiding in nearby woodlands as well as volunteering at a hospital that was in effect the de facto centre of resistance activities in the area. Her family even temporarily hid a paratrooper in their home during the ‘Battle Of Arnhem’. Audrey was privy to many traumatic events during this time of course but none more so than witnessing the transportation of Dutch Jews to concentration camps, later commenting that "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 the train. I was a child observing a child."
After the D-Day landings and Operation Market Garden, German occupiers made a point of hindering or reducing already meagre food supplies to the Dutch population, and despite Audrey’s family (along with millions of her country men & women) resorting to making flour from tulip bulbs in order to survive and provide carbohydrates, between 1944 and 1945 a famine took hold of the country that came to be known as the ‘Hunger Winter’. Not only would Audrey never forget this, she would also never forget how UNICEF food aid helped her survive this terrible period. Despite this important aid however Audrey suffered terribly from the effects of malnutrition and after the war ended became gravely ill with jaundice, anaemia, oedema as well as respiratory infection. Incredibly, Audrey’s mother wrote to a former lover and British Army officer whilst he was a POW at Colditz asking for help, and he sent back thousands of cigarettes which the family then sold on the black market to buy the penicillin which eventually helped save Audrey’s life.
Trauma. Everywhere. Pre-war, mid-war, post-war. Psychological, physical, emotional. Audrey had already witnessed and endured more than any child ever should.
In 1945 Audrey’s mother moved the family to Amsterdam and our girl finally began formal ballet training. In 1948 19yr old Audrey made her film debut in an educational travel film (Dutch in Seven Lessons) playing an air stewardess and then moved to London having accepted a scholarship with Ballet Rambert. She modelled a little to pay the bills, worked hard in dance classes, dropped Ruston from her surname but was eventually told that her height and weak constitution would never have her make the grade as a prima ballerina.
After dancing in some West End musicals and revues Audrey decided to turn to Acting and in one of those classic moments of good fortune every successful Actor needs, Ealing Studios casting director Margaret Harper-Nelson spotted her and Audrey started getting tiny roles in BBC TV dramas and films like The Lavender Hill Mob (1951).
Audrey then took another small role in a bilingual French/English movie called Monte Carlo Baby (1952) and in a further stroke of good fortune was spotted whilst filming in Monte Carlo by French novelist Colette and subsequently cast in the title role of the 1951 Broadway adaptation of her novel Gigi.
LIFE magazine declared her “a hit” and the New York Times purred “"her quality is so winning and so right that she is the success of the evening". She’d arrived, a hit in a Broadway hit. But this of course was as nothing compared to what was to come once Audrey finished with Gigi in 1953.
Legendary director William Wyler initially wanted Elizabeth Taylor and Jean Simmons for the role of the princess but neither were available. In late 1951, shortly after wrapping a pretty awful movie Audrey had an uninspiring part in called Secret People, the film’s director Thorold Dickinson made a screen test with Audrey and sent it to Wyler in Rome where he was already involved in pre-prod for a movie called ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953) . Wyler replied to Dickinson, saying that "as a result of the test, a number of the producers at Paramount have expressed interest in casting her." So it was that a guy I’d never heard of until I started researching this week’s column effectively changed Audrey Hepburn’s life and career forever with a hunch and a little screen test
Here’s legendary costume designer Edith Head introducing the life-changing, career-transforming screen test -
There are of course many striking things about this screen test, but what strikes me most about it is the instant pain in Audrey’s eyes & face the moment she sits down and is asked about her time in Arnhem during WW2. Heartbreaking stuff.
Nevertheless, our girl had landed herself a co-lead (plum of a part) with Gregory Peck in a major Hollywood motion picture directed by the great Wyler with a script co-written by the great Dalton Trumbo. All that was left to discover was, could she nail it…
…and boy did she.
Wyler said later "She had everything I was looking for: charm, innocence, and talent. She also was very funny. She was absolutely enchanting, and we said, 'That's the girl!'" There’s an adage in my industry which goes something like “Get the casting right and you’re 90% there”, and whilst there is absolutely something to this, for a film to become a bonafide classic like ROMAN HOLIDAY it actually involves a huge number of stars aligning, and they really did here. Wyler, Peck, a brand new star in Hepburn, Trumbo, and Rome looking so beautiful even in b&w that the film might as well have been commissioned by the Roman Tourist Board. It all just came together, and audiences and critics alike fell in love with it.
The best was yet to come however, because if $12m at the Box Office off a $1.5m budget wasn’t enough for Paramount, 10 Academy Award nominations and three Oscars for Best Story (Trumbo), Best Costume Design (Head) and Best Actress for Hepburn must’ve had them in seventh heaven. But it was Audrey’s best actress Oscar for her first lead role in her first Hollywood film that took the breath away. This really was proper overnight success stuff. Best Actress BAFTA and Golden Globe wins. This was crazy. Only it wasn’t because Audrey was magical, transcendent, translucent, stunning, charismatic and brilliant as the princess. The accolades and acclaim in Audrey’s case were thoroughly deserved, warranted, justified. That night she clutched her golden statuette she surely would’ve been continuously pinching herself. She was 24.
Skip ahead I must however, and so what followed was in effect Audrey’s golden period spanning some thirteen years, with numerous hits and wonderful performances. First up was Sabrina (1954) with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden and Billy Wilder in the chair (Audrey and Holden got hot & heavy for real during filming with Holden telling her he’d leave his wife, not, and breaking Audrey’s heart in the process apparently). This was followed by lovely work in (amongst others) Funny Face (1957) with Fred Astaire, Green Mansions (1959) where she met future husband (and so he thought ‘Svengali’) Mel Ferrer, and then the second of our spotlit Hepburn movies this week, the frankly almost beyond iconic if that’s even possible -
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961)
Loosely based on Truman Capote’s novella the author wanted Marilyn Monroe to play ‘Holly Golightly’ and screenwriter George Axelrod had written the script not just with Monroe in mind but totally for Monroe. It was going to be Monroe all the way until… Monroe’s then mentor Lee Strasberg advised her not to play “a lady of the evening”. Bullshit advice but frankly thank fuck because now you’re imagining Monroe in Hepburn’s place, and much though I love Marilyn… you get my drift.
Shirley MacLaine and Kim Novak passed on Holly, even Audrey was hesitant when offered Holly - but - thankfully she thought better and signed on. Steve McQueen, Jack Lemmon and Robert Wagner passed on ‘Paul Varjak’ before George Peppard got the part, and the film’s original director John Frankenheimer (car chases in Breakfast At Tiffany’s?!) was eventually replaced by Blake Edwards.
If you haven’t seen the film (a) that’s totally ok but also (b) where have you been, so as regular subscribers will know I’m not here to outline plots and give detailed story breakdowns (I try and let the movies speak for themselves), so all I will say is the less said about Mickey Rooney’s ‘Mr. Yunioshi’ obviously the better, Henry Mancini’s ‘Moon River’ is a key ingredient in the film’s iconic status, and Audrey is just glorious in it.
The movie was a huge success garnering $14m off a $2.5m budget, widespread critical acclaim, and Audrey was nominated for another Academy Award, further enhancing her status in Hollywood, at the Box Office and amongst an adoring public.
It was tough to leave out The Children’s Hour (1961) and Charade (1963) from this week’s three spotlit movies, but I had to in order to include what for me is one of Audrey’s best and most mature performances, in
ROBIN AND MARIAN (1976)
In essence James Goldman does something similar to his The Lion In Winter (1968) by having us revisit (mythical) legends in their later years, in this case Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Reunion and romance. With Richard Lester in the chair left-field and uneven was always on the cards, but apart from an extraordinary cast including Robert Shaw, Richard Harris, Nicol Williamson, Denholm Elliot, Ian Holm, and Ronnie Barker what really holds this movie together are the performances of Audrey & Sean Connery. They’re wonderful together - ‘silk & chain mail’ as one critic put it - and even though Audrey was worried about how she’d look on screen after a nine year absence from cinemas, 46yrs on this earth and working with a whirling dervish crazy man like Lester, she gives a beautifully constructed and moving performance in it.
It’s not her best film and it ain’t Citizen Kane, but I love her in this movie and I love the chemistry between her and Connery and what Connery brings out of Audrey. She was nervous going into this one, no Dior, no Givenchy, guerrilla filmmaking Lester-style, a crack cast of male actors everywhere she looked - and yet she got gutsy, dug deep, pulled on the strength that had got her through so much in her life, and delivered.
There were just three more movies to come after this before she finally hung up her celluloid hat in Spielberg’s Always (1989).
Audrey Hepburn’s career was extraordinary in so many ways, but bearing in mind she made only nineteen movies after Roman Holiday the degree to which she’s continued to exist in contemporary culture & fashion is even more extraordinary.
Audrey searched hard for loving approbation her entire life. She got zip from her cruelly cold father, Ferrer was a controlling fuck of an egoic husband, and hubby number two - Andrea Totti - publicly humiliated her by having literally hundreds of affairs during the course of their marriage. But Audrey was a Mother twice, a damn fine one and partly why she made so few films - motherhood mattering more to her than movies and eventually she found her true love aged 51 with the actor and fellow Dutch national Robert Wolders with whom she’d remain until her death.
Her humanitarian work with UNICEF was legendary, real and authentic, and her later years were filled with the happiness and love she’d so keenly sought, had such difficulty finding but so richly deserved.
Upon returning to her home in Switzerland from a UNICEF trip to Somalia in 1992 Audrey started to develop abdominal pains and eventually a rare form of advanced abdominal cancer was diagnosed. But as she desperately wanted to spend her final days in her beloved home in the small Swiss village of Tolochenaz - the house was even called ‘La Paisable’ (‘The Peaceful’) - arrangements were made to fly her home from hospital in L.A. via private jet and with a skilled pilot who could descend gently enough to reduce cabin pressure as she was basically on life support by this stage.
And so surrounded by family and love, AUDREY HEPBURN passed away peacefully on the 20th of January 1993. She was 63.
Almost finally then, do try and watch this wonderful documentary - Audrey: More Than An Icon - it’ll fill in a lot of gaps and puts Audrey’s life into a beautiful but very real perspective.
The sub-header on this piece is ‘The Tinkerbell Goddess’ and I really like this for Audrey as the definition of Tinkerbell is “anything whose existence or power depends on the faith of believers” - which I think to a decent extent is true in Audrey’s case, certainly if one replaces ‘faith’ with ‘love’ - and she was, very much still is and I’m 100% certain always will be, one of the classiest, most graceful, most gentle and most beautiful goddesses to ever grace the camera - moving or still.
I’ll see you all next week, on Twitter of course if you follow me there, and look after yourselves and each other.
Michael
Hey Michael.. your twitter was awesome back in the day.. good to find you on here