BIOGRAPHY: HOLLYWOOD STARDOM
After Roman Holiday, she filmed Billy Wilder's Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart
and William Holden. Hepburn was sent to fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy to
decide on her wardrobe. When told that "Miss Hepburn" was coming to see him,
Givenchy famously expected to see Katharine. He was not disappointed with
Audrey, however, and they formed a lifelong friendship and partnership. During
the filming of Sabrina, Hepburn and Holden became romantically involved and she
hoped to marry him and have children. She broke off the relationship when Holden
revealed that he had had a vasectomy.
In 1954, Audrey went back to the stage to play the water sprite in Ondine in a
performance with Mel Ferrer, whom she would wed later that year. During the run
of the play, Hepburn was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture
Actress and the Academy Award, both for Roman Holiday. Six weeks after receiving
the Oscar, Hepburn was awarded the Tony Award for Best Actress for Ondine.
Hepburn is one of only three actresses to receive a Best Actress Oscar and Best
Actress Tony in the same year (the other two being Shirley Booth and Ellen
Burstyn).
By the mid-1950s, Hepburn was not only one of the biggest motion picture stars
in Hollywood, but also a major fashion icon. Her gamine and elfin appearance and
widely recognized sense of chic were both admired and imitated. In 1955, she was
awarded the Golden Globe - World Film Favorite - Female.
Having become one of Hollywood's most popular box-office attractions, Audrey
Hepburn co-starred with major actors such as Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina, Henry
Fonda and Sir John Mills in War and Peace, Fred Astaire in Funny Face, Maurice
Chevalier and Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon, Anthony Perkins in Green
Mansions, Burt Lancaster and Lillian Gish in The Unforgiven, Shirley MacLaine
and James Garner in The Children's Hour, George Peppard and Mickey Rooney in
Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cary Grant and Walter Matthau in the critically
acclaimed hit Charade, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, Peter O'Toole in How to
Steal a Million, and Sean Connery in Robin and Marian. Many of her leading men
became very close to her. Rex Harrison called Audrey his favourite leading lady
(many accounts indicate that she became great friends with British actress and
dancer Kay Kendall, who was Harrison's wife); Cary Grant loved to humor her and
once said, "all I want for Christmas is another picture with Audrey Hepburn;"
and Gregory Peck became a lifelong friend. After her death, Peck went on camera
and tearfully recited her favorite poem, "Unending Love" by Rabindranath Tagore.
Some believe Bogart and Hepburn did not get along, but this is untrue. Bogart
got along better with Hepburn than anyone else on set. She later said,
"Sometimes it's the so-called 'tough guys' that are the most tender hearted, as
Bogey was with me."
Funny Face in 1957 was one of Hepburn's favorite movies to film because she got
to dance with Fred Astaire. 1959's The Nun's Story was one of her most daring
roles. Films in Review stated, "her performance will forever silence those who
have thought her less an actress than a symbol of the sophisticated child/woman.
Her portrayal of Sister Luke is one of the great performances of the screen."
Hepburn's Holly Golightly in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's became an iconic
character in American cinema. She called the role "the jazziest of my career".
Asked about the acting challenge of the role, she replied, "I'm an introvert.
Playing the extroverted girl was the hardest thing I ever did." She wore trendy
clothing in the film designed by her and Givenchy and added blonde streaks to
her brown hair, a look that she would keep off-screen as well.
Hepburn had established herself as one of Hollywood's most popular actresses.
Marilyn Monroe was not the only one to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to
President John F Kennedy on his birthday. For Kennedy's next (and last) birthday
on May 29, 1963, Hepburn, the President's favourite actress, sang "Happy
Birthday, dear Jack" to him. Despite her stardom, Hepburn retained her humility.
She preferred a more quiet living with family and nature. She lived in houses,
not mansions, and she loved to garden.
In 1963, Hepburn starred in Charade, her first and only film with Cary Grant,
who had previously withdrawn from the starring roles in Roman Holiday and
Sabrina. In 1964, Hepburn starred in My Fair Lady which was said to be the most
anticipated movie since Gone with the Wind. Hepburn was cast as Eliza
Doolittle instead of then-unknown Julie Andrews, who had originated the role on
Broadway. The decision not to cast Andrews was made before Hepburn was chosen.
Hepburn initially refused the role and asked Jack Warner to give it to Andrews,
but when informed that it would either be her or Elizabeth Taylor, who was also
vying for the part, she accepted the role. According to an article in Soundstage
magazine, "everyone agreed that if Julie Andrews was not to be in the film,
Audrey Hepburn was the perfect choice."[34] Julie Andrews had yet to make Mary
Poppins, which was released within the same year as My Fair Lady. Hepburn
recorded singing vocals for the role, but subsequently discovered a professional
"singing double", Marni Nixon, had overdubbed all of her songs. She walked off
the set after being told, but returned early the next day to apologize for her
behavior. Footage of several songs with Hepburn's original vocals still exist
and have been included in documentaries and the DVD release of the film, though
to date, only Nixon's renditions have been released on LP and CD. Some of her
original vocals remained in the film, such as "Just You Wait" and snippets from
"I Could Have Danced All Night". When asked about the dubbing of an actress with
such distinctive vocal tones, Hepburn frowned and said, "you could tell,
couldn't you? And there was Rex, recording all his songs as he acted...next
time-" She then bit her lip to keep from saying any more. Aside from the
dubbing, many critics agreed that Hepburn's performance was excellent. Gene
Ringgold said, "Audrey Hepburn is magnificent. She is Eliza for the ages."
The controversy over Hepburn's casting reached its height at the 1964–65 Academy
Awards season, when Hepburn was not nominated for best actress while Andrews
was, for Mary Poppins. The media tried to play up the rivalry between the two
actresses as the ceremony approached, even though both women denied any such bad
feelings existed and got along well. Julie Andrews won the award.
Two for the Road was a non-linear and innovative movie about divorce. Director
Stanley Donen said that Hepburn was more free and happy than he had ever seen
her, and he credited that to Albert Finney. Wait Until Dark in 1967 was a
difficult film. It was an edgy thriller in which Hepburn played the part of a
blind woman being terrorized. In addition, it was produced by Mel Ferrer and
filmed on the brink of their divorce. Hepburn is said to have lost fifteen
pounds under the stress. On the bright side, she found co-star Richard Crenna to
be very funny, and she had a lot to laugh about with director Terence Young.
They both joked that he had shelled his favorite star 23 years before; he had
been a British Army tank commander during the Battle of Arnhem. Hepburn's
performance was nominated for an Academy Award.
From 1967 onward, after fifteen highly successful years in film, Hepburn acted
only occasionally. After her divorce from Ferrer, she married Italian
psychiatrist Dr. Andrea Dotti and had a second son, after a difficult pregnancy
that required near-total bed rest. After her eventual separation from Dotti, she
attempted a comeback, co-starring with Sean Connery in the period piece Robin
and Marian in 1976, which was moderately successful. She reportedly turned down
the tailor-made role of a former ballerina in The Turning Point. (Shirley
MacLaine got the part.) Hepburn finally returned to cinema in 1979, taking the
leading role in Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline. Author Sidney Sheldon revised his
novel when it was reissued to tie into the film, making her character older to
better match the actress' age. The film was a critical and box office failure.
Hepburn's last starring role in a cinematic film was with Ben Gazzara in the
comedy They All Laughed, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. The film was
overshadowed by the murder of one of its stars, Bogdanovich's girlfriend,
Dorothy Stratten; the film was released after Stratten's death but only in
limited runs. In 1987, she co-starred with Robert Wagner in a tongue-in-cheek
made-for-television caper film, Love Among Thieves which borrowed elements from
several of Hepburn's films, most notably Charade and How to Steal a Million. The
TV-film, which also starred Jerry Orbach as a villain, was only a moderate
success, with Hepburn being quoted that she appeared in it just for fun.
Hepburn's last film role, a cameo appearance, was an angel in Steven Spielberg's
Always, filmed in 1988. This film was also only moderately successful. In the
final months of her life, Hepburn completed two entertainment-related projects:
she hosted a television documentary series entitled Gardens of the World with
Audrey Hepburn, which debuted on PBS the day of her death, and she also recorded
a spoken word album, Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales featuring readings of
classic children's stories, which would win her a posthumous Grammy Award for
Best Spoken Word Album for Children.
Credit: Wikipedia