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Biography : 1929 ~ 1993
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| Ella van Heemstra and infant Edda |
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Edda Hepburn-Ruston was born on May 4, 1929, in Brussels.
Her father, Joseph, was a bank director sympathetic to the Nazi cause; her mother, the Dutch Baroness Ella van Heemstra, was a stron willed woman deeply against it.
The two fought incessantly and by 1935 their marriage was over. Joseph Hepburn-Ruston moved to London, leaving his ex-wife,his daughter Edda and the Baroness' two sons by aprevious marriage, Alexander,then 14, and jan,10, behind.
Edda lived for a few years with her father in London but in 1939, when war broke out her mother moved to Holland with her children, convinced Hitler would not attack Holland.
When the German troops invaded Holland, she and her family suffered the misery of wartime and by the time of April 1945 when the Allied troops arrived, Edda was a scheletal 90 lbs, suffering from malnutrition, hepatitis and edema.
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| Audrey Hepburn, Babs Johnston(1948) high button shoes |
After the war, her stagestruck mother pushed Edda, who was by now studying dance, to audition for a movie shot in Holland : "Nederlands in Sieben Lessen" . She got the part who consisted of just two words "*Who, me?*.
By the end of 1948, Edda, who had taken the professional name of Audrey Hepburn, was in London with her mother and got a part as a chorus girl in the West End production of the musical " High Button Shoes".
She caught the attention of producer Cecil Landau who cast her in his revues, " Sauce Tartare" (1949) and " "Sauce Piquante" (1950)
She became the immediate audience favorite and at the same time she appeared in several small roles in British films.
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| Audrey(right) with Sauce Tartare chorus girls(1949) |
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| audrey in Sauce Piquante (1950) |
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| Audrey and French writer Colette (1951) |
While shooting a small film,"Monte Carlo Baby" in the South of France, Audrey cought the eye of the famed French writer Colette, whose novella "Gigi" had just been adapted for the Broadway stage. Upon seeing Audrey walking through the lobby of the Hotel de Paris,the wheelchair -bound Colette choose her to be the star of the Play.
The show opened in November 1951 and Audrey Hepburn was given star billing and it was a triumph with the critics raving about her.
Audrey would make only one return to Broadway, three years later in "Ondine" playing a water sprite opposite her future husband Mel Ferrer. Her performance won a Tony Award. By then she was already a Hollywood star and had already won an Oscar.
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| Audrey and fiancee James Hanson(1952) |
Audrey got engaged with a wealthy Britisher, James Hanson, but then broke the engagement because she preferred to continue her career.
During the filming of Sabrina she fall in love with her already married co-star William Holden, but broke off the relashionship when Holden told her he had had a vasectomy and could have no children.
On September 25, 1954 Audrey Hepburn married her first husband, 37-year-old, thrice-wed actor Mel Ferrer, her costar in Broadway's "Ondine"
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| Audrey,22 and husband Mel Ferrer ,37, their wedding day |
After a series of miscarriages, Audrey gave birth to a son, Sean, in 1960.
But the child could not save the marriage and in 1968 she and Mel divorced.
After a year of dating several different men, Audrey married a jet-setting italian psychiatrist, Andrea Dotti. She gave birth, at 40, to her second son, Luca and dedicated herself to rise her sons. The second marriage lasted about ten years and ended in divorce.
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| Audrey with husband Mel Ferrer and son Sean |
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| Andrea Dotti and Audrey Hepburn on their wedding day |
Audrey went to live in Switzerland with her two children, occasionally accepting a part in a movie, and dedicated herself to work for UNICEF.
Hepburn final companion was Robert Wolders, also Dutch, whom she met at a dinner party in 1980. He was the widower of actress Merle Oberon. Their relationship lasted to her end. During her 1992 UNICEF tour of Somalia she discovered she had cancer.
Certainly the most important men in her life never stopped loving her. Whith her health in its final decline both her ex-husbands traveled to Switzerland to be near her together with Wolders and her two sons. |
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