Audrey Hepburn: From Underground Ballerina to Hollywood's Classiest

Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929 in Belgium. She lived there, as well as London and the Netherlands before moving to New York to start her career. She and her mother were in the Netherlands for her academic and dance schooling when World War II took over. Audrey Hepburn suffered from depression and malnutrition during the war, but she used her ballet training to support the anti-Nazi movement by donating funds from secret recitals. She also coped with chronic hunger pains by drawing, a skill she continued throughout her life.

After the war, she started modeling and was encouraged to act. She did smaller roles and theatre for two years before being cast as Princess Ann in her first big movie, which won her an Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe.

Audrey Hepburn starred in Roman Holiday and began her reign as Hollywood’s finest. It’s fitting that her career began with a royal character. Her innocence and charm gives the sheltered princess a likability, even when she is bossed around by her servants. Ann is constantly told what to do and how to do it, never given a choice despite the fact that she is royalty. After being drugged by her doctor in an attempt to “fix” her meltdown, she wanders out of the foreign palace and into an even more foreign city.

I love how she just stumbles into an adventure and has fun with it. She doesn’t remember deciding to abandon her duties but decides to make the best of it by enjoying her freedom. She cuts off all her hair, gets comfortable shoes, and eats ice cream. She smokes, plays guitar, goes dancing, and gets in a fight. She also goes for an unexpected swim, despite the fact that Audrey Hepburn was terrified of water.

It’s her first big movie and she conquered it. 

Audrey Hepburn stars as Sabrina, a remake of the Harrison Ford’s 1954 version. I really appreciate the love story in Sabrina. She’s a lovesick girl with a crush on her father’s boss’s son, so her father sends her to Paris so she get develop cooking skills and culture. She returns home with a new sense of style and renewed determination to win over David at last… despite his engagement to a profitable family.

She ends up spending more time with the grumpy eldest brother (Why does she always have to be in love with grumpy middle aged men?) and falling in love with him instead. I like Linus, he and Sabrina are really good together. I especially like the ending, it’s very romantic.

Funny Face is a fun little musical surprise.

It’s not my favorite and she’s definitely not a singer (although Moon River is her song and I will love it forever) but this movie has a goofy charm to it that’s hard to resist. She works in a bookshop and protests a photographers fascination with her face, claiming her face is too funny to be beautiful. But she joins him in Paris and takes a stunning picture in the Louvre, a French icon.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is probably her most famous movie, and idolizes both Tiffany’s and New York. For the longest time I believed that Tiffany’s was a famous New York bakery and only later realized it was a jewelry store. I watched this movie with my grandma, who has every Audrey Hepburn movie ever made and is therefore a classy person, and finally discovered the charm of Holly Golightly.

Holly is the opposite of Audrey in many ways. She’s an extreme extrovert who can’t commit to anything, much less naming her cat. She throws parties that she abandons and spends her time fussing over her lipstick and hunting down the richest single men in her area. She’s afraid to be alone and she meets someone who is not afraid to call her out on it. He’s determined to be there for her, even if he words his profession of love in a way that is not surprising for the 60s.

But don’t worry Fred, I forgive you.

I think My Fair Lady is the first Audrey Hepburn movie I saw. I’ve always been a fan of musicals, and these one was no exception. I loved how much she changes, her accents and antics, and especially the horse race. I laughed so hard when she loses composure during the race, my family stopped watching the movie and watched me instead.

This musical is actually one of the first ones I performed in as a teenager, and in college I got to spend some time in London and see a couple spots where they filmed the movie. Eliza Doolittle is a character, and an easy one to root for.

I’m glad she chose to film this movie, even if Julie Andrews was her pick for the role (she told the director to cast Andrews instead and he refused) and Marni Nixon sang her songs for her because they were out of Hepburn’s vocal range. She was upset about not being able to sing for herself, but Nixon did a beautiful job.

How to Steal a Million is my favorite of her movies.

It’s not as well known as some of her others, but I stumbled into it one day and just fell in love as soon as Nicole climbs through a wardrobe and into her father’s art studio. She’s constantly trying to keep her father from being arrested, to the point of cleaning up a thief who sneaks into her mansion and tries to steal one of her father’s forgeries (after she accidentally shoots him of course).

She hires this thief and comes up with a scheme to steal the forgery that her father sells to a museum before it can be tested too much for authenticity. She falls in love with the thief, of course, and learns a bit of espionage to add to her range of skills. She’s very chic and French, but still Audrey.

Some of her other movies include Charade, The Nun’s Story, Love Until Dark, War and Peace, and Two for the Road. She took a break from acting to raise her sons and work as an ambassador for UNISEF, then did her last film, Always, in 1989 before dying suddenly of cancer in 1993.

She’s remembered as an icon of style, both of fashion and character. She charmed everyone she met, especially directors and designers, and lived in gratitude for her blessings, especially after the war. People sometimes only remember her for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but she did so much humanitarian work. She not only endured Nazis, but worked against them, even though she was just a child. She’s one of America’s classiest icons.

Happy Birthday Audrey Hepburn.