Audrey Hepburn: A Biography

by Warren G. Harris

Book Overview

Chronicles the life of the charming and dignified actress, discussing her childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland, rise to stardom, unhappy marriages, and work for UNICEF.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671758004
• ISBN13: 9780671758004
• Release Date: August 1994
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 318 Pages
• Weight: 1.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.6" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

A MEMORABLE MOVIE STAR

She looked like a princess; she deported herself regally. Her life followed the fairy tale plot of rags to riches. Regrettably, it did not often have the requisite happy ending. Sent to boarding school in England, Audrey Hepburn rejoined her family in Holland prior to the German occupation in World War II. Along with her fellow countrymen, she suffered greatly. Virtual starvation permanently affected her health. How impossible it would have seemed to her during those war torn years that she would some day become a sought after movie star, sharing the screen with Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck, and William Holden. A lucky break - she was seen by Colette in a hotel lobby - took her to the Broadway stage as "Gigi." Another lucky break won her the lead in "Roman Holiday." Although family was more important than career to Miss Hepburn, her two marriages failed. She found solace in motherhood, her friends and, in later life, through her untiring labors for UNICEF. Audrey Hepburn forever changed America's view of glamour. As a New York Times reporter wrote at the time of her death: "What a burden she lifted from women! Here was proof that looking good need not be synonymous with looking bimbo." This biography offers a wide-screen view of one of our favorite actresses. - Gail Cooke

Why many grew so accustomed to her face

Warren G. Harris's biography on Audrey Hepburn is an unbiased, straight-ahead account that details her ups and downs, from her childhood in the war-torn Netherlands, her first starts at stardom in England, her breakthrough in Roman Holiday, marriages to Mel Ferrer and Andrea Dotti, to her declining movie career from the late 1970's onward, and to her work as UNICEF spokesperson.The initial quotes from Billy Wilder, Cecil Beaton, Hubert Givenchy, and Stanley Donen give what made Hepburn a star. Wilder says that God kissed her with that gift of stardom. True enough: that 5'7" height, slender birdlike figure, prominent eyebrows, squared off chin, princess-like elegance and beauty that continued in her fifties, a wistful fragility, and soft voice that spoke perfect English and ended a sentence in a girlish query. And that European sophistication she exuded no doubt came from a multinational heritage that included British, Dutch, Austrian, Hungarian, French, Scotch, and Irish. And she is very distantly related to Katherine Hepburn, as both traced their lineage to James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, the third husband of Mary Queen of Scots.And she was a professional actress, someone striving for perfection and a trooper when it came to her work. She took time studying her background material, whether it be reading Tolstoy's War And Peace, where she played Natasha Rostova, Kathryn Hulme's biography on her experiences as a nun, and even going to see Hulme, resulting in The Nun's Story, and her going to a college for the blind for her part as Susy Hendrix in Wait Until Dark. That's not to say Audrey was perfect. Her one vice, smoking, came from the cigarettes she saw American soldiers smoking when her homeland was liberated. She became addicted to life on them.Hepburn's wartime hardships in occupied Netherlands is given quite some coverage because the experiences affected her later in life. One was the closeness to her mother and brothers, one of whom, Alexander, became a "diver," people who avoided conscription by the Axis army by hiding. Second, being malnourished in the final years of war led to a metabolism that prevented her from significantly gaining weight. And finally, the suffering she went through made her empathize with the starving children in Africa when she joined up as a UNICEF spokesperson during the last years of her life. Her generosity extended to Givenchy, whom she fought to get him credit for his designs, and to William Wyler, to whom she felt indebted for Roman Holiday and thus agreed to star in The Children's Hour, which wasn't among her best movies.All of Hepburn's movies, from her bits parts beginning with 1948's Dutch In 7 Easy Lessons through her final performance in Always, depending on how significant the movie, is given 5 to 7 pages coverage, from a brief synopsis, recollections by Hepburn herself, the directors, and co-stars. So far, the only person who hated Hepburn was her Sabrina co-star Humphrey Bogart, who th