Audrey Hepburn.
Iconic. Classy. Tenderness.
1953. Hepburn was a superstar, and she was doing Sabrina. Wearing some of the best collections, she was out there making headlines. She was the highest-paid female actor in the world with $750,000 for a film.
It was something you call as fantasy. Cinderella kind of fantasy. Seven years ago, she was “abandoned”. Living through the famine.
Things were good for the kid until her parents met Adolf Hitler. Her mother would brag about being kissed by him and even wrote an article about it at that time. Later, her mother distanced herself from everything. Her father went on to join an extreme splinter group, abandoning the family, leaving them with no money.
In the 1940s, her mother had no choice to make her move to the Netherlands which proved safe until Nazis occupied. Hepburn who was schooled in London had to adapt to Dutch persona.
Most of the days, she had no food and on other days, her meals consisted of bread made from beans and potato.
She would indulge herself in the books to forget about hunger. At times, she would watch railway wagons filled with tons of children, also starving, taken away as the prisoners.
In 1944-1945, she lived a life without water, electricity and survived on endive and tulip bulbs. The severe malnutrition resulted in anaemia and Jaundice.
Malnutrition was forced on her just like acting. She wanted to become a ballet dancer. She would perform ballet dancing to raise money, to survive and to support the anti-Nazi population.
UNICEF played a major role in helping her to fight malnutrition and saving money for ballet classes proved illogical at that time. She eventually had to give up because of her height.
She was forced to take up acting and modelling, and one thing led to another. Everything was worth it when she got noticed while playing a small role in a film that led to Colette’s Gigi. From then on, there is no looking back. Roles came to her in numbers, money kept flowing.
She became picky with her roles, most of them had the same plotline, an independent woman fighting all the odds and becoming what she wanted to, well, with a man. Maybe, she was fighting to get out of her childhood that itself is worth making a beautiful movie.
While she was growing into the star, she also turned into the fashionista that people even today admire. Her classy looks went well with her outfits and they became iconic.
Hepburn was most relatable to the normal people like you and me. They were simple yet classy. Those sunglasses, the little black shirt, gloves, hat or simply her ballet flats in Sabrina were all normal yet it looks admirably great on her. Slowly, there were outfits something similar to Hepburn wore in films, and you could see millions on roads wearing them. Recreating Hepburn looks wasn’t tough compared to Marilyn Monroe though.
She was one among us. Vulnerable, yet strong in character, Innocent and her tender eyes carried her story throughout. At times, she wasn’t acting on screens after all. She was a born star, and she would pull things off just by her looks and by being there.
She established a standard of beauty and the designers were glad to design outfits exclusively for her. Her thick and lined eyebrows and beautifully aligned eyes would merge with whatever she wore. Her smile could make add the prefix “extra” to any ordinary look. Such was her elegance.
She would have won more awards and the audience definitely would have paid more just to get the glimpse of her. But at heart, she was the mother first. She walked away from films to stay at home to raise her children.
She couldn’t forget what UNICEF did to her and she reciprocated later. She became the face of UNICEF, helped, served more children.
The audience did enjoy this side of her. They loved it when they could get a motionless still of her on the Magazines. Of course, it was easy to worship something still than something in motion. They loved it for sure.
***
As I already said, her life was more like Cinderalla kind of fantasy. She even played roles similar to them. Either pre-Cinderalla kind or post-Cinderalla kind. Maybe, that why she ended her film career by playing an Angel.
***
Hepburn is still a relatable star because of the films she chose to do. She was one of the women who chose the right characters during the evolving stages of feminist time. Had she did films that were offered to her, she would have had more awards but she would have gone, done and dusted. Would have washed away by the storm of actors that came after her. She chose to stay unique, picky. Maybe, that’s how some actors are. They love to do things differently.
Happy Birthday, Audrey Hepburn!
