Take a look around and you will see a culture hypnotized by Audrey’s charm. Devoted fans can be seen in the United States, Great Britain, and even Italy. Her persona has resonated with so many people around the world that her name has single handily become a byproduct of American culture. She was Holly Golightly, a princess, and at one time a holy messenger of God as an adult actress in Hollywood. Audrey Hepburn stands out as one of the most imitated ladies of the twentieth century whom urged other women to find the best qualities within themselves, proving that you didn’t need the voluptuous curves of Marilyn Monroe to get noticed. Audrey had a certain effect on American pop culture, fashion, and beauty. Having a strong feminine presence on screen, she redefined female beauty. Audrey’s star image has been shaped over time as a cultural icon through extreme ingenuity and originality.
Audrey Hepburn was born in Brussels, Belgium on May 4th,
1929 and her mother was a member of the Dutch aristocracy.[1] Her father, a known Nazi sympathizer
during World War II was taken aback by German patriotism during the mid-1930s;
and so her mother decided to relocate the family of just Audrey and her two
brothers to the Netherlands.[2] As
a sixteen year old girl living in a country invaded by German forces in 1940,
Audrey hid herself in attics during the war; surviving on nothing but dry
tulips and baked grass in bread.[3] The
war would finally be over in 1945 and Audrey traveled to the United States to
earn her first breakout role in a Broadway play called Gigi (1951). Two years later she went on to star in a film titled Roman Holiday (1953), for which she won
her first and only Academy Award.[4]
The following year Audrey starred alongside Humphrey
Bogart in Sabrina (1954). By the time
the movie was made, Hepburn was already becoming a huge part of the 1950s
gamine.[5] Earning
several more nominations for her roles in Hollywood, Audrey would go on to star
in musicals too. One such example of this was Funny Face (1957) costarring with none other than Fred Astaire
himself. Her most famous movie Breakfast
at Tiffany’s was produced in 1961 and Hepburn earned 750,000$ for her
infamous role as Holly Golighty, a self-centered party girl with a charming
personality to match. Audrey Hepburn was married twice, once to Mel Ferrer and
then later to Andrea Dotti. These marriages brought her two sons, Sean in 1960
and Luca in 1970.[6]
Her last movie would not be until 1989 titled Always. She also donated all of the proceeds from her last three
films to U.N.I.C.E.F. Audrey Hepburn passed away four years later in 1993 of
colon cancer at her home in Switzerland.[7]
Her classic films and charitable humanitarian work as Ambassador for
U.N.I.C.E.F. would usher in a new generation of fans across the world.
On top of influencing Hollywood and championing the
global cause to end world hunger, Audrey Hepburn also influenced the pop
culture of the 1950s and 1960s through beauty; and fashion. Middle class white
women looked up to Audrey. She was their icon. Her casual, sweet smile and zest
for life is what every woman wished to have in her list of qualities as a
housewife or model. Gaylan Studlar, author of Precocious Charms: Stars Performing Girlhood in Classic Cinema goes
on to state that, “the star image of Audrey Hepburn in the 1950s existed in
contradistinction to Hollywood’s promotion of voluptuous, “sex bomb” femininity
exemplified by Marilyn Monroe”.[8] It
goes without saying that Monroe was idolized by many women during that period
but when it came to morals and comedy, Audrey was the actress almost every
female inspired to be. Beauty played a huge part in this because she wasn't the
best looking actress out in Hollywood but she had the intelligence and adorable
personality to at least get her foot in the door. Many women back then could
identify with her persona of a misunderstood, classy lady.
Audrey had a groundbreaking and tremendous influence on
fashion. The reason so many people flocked to see her movies is because she
displayed a rare, elegant sense of belonging. This can be said about her
fashion statements too. Renee Jacques of the Huffington Post discusses Audrey’s
style in her article, “She wasn't afraid to wear pants (or a suit!) and always
retained an aura of femininity with her outfit choices”.[9] Pictured
just before my bibliography page are examples of the sorts of dresses and
styles Audrey used to display on screen. The excess fabric and femininity was a
natural response to the forced austerity of the war years of the 1940s.[10] The
“Hepburn style” grew out of repeated references to her dance and musical
training overseas, bringing European culture to America’s shores.[11] It wasn't until the 1950s when women in the United States and elsewhere became more
open to different styles of dress.
None of this would have been possible without one of the
greatest fashion designers in the world, Hubert de Givenchy. Givenchy had
designed many of Hepburn’s dresses from films such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Sabrina,
and Roman Holiday. Tony Nourmand, the
author of Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount
Years asserts, “Hepburn was never in danger of being overwhelmed by his
dresses. Givenchy’s fashions not only made Hepburn beautiful – they also helped
a shy woman to overcome her insecurities”.[12] To get a good feel for how much it
meant to have Givenchy at her side during filming, Audrey Hepburn once said, “I
depend on Givenchy the same way American women depend on their psychiatrists”.[13] Audrey’s
fashionable style is so popular that in 2006, her black Givenchy dress worn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s sold at auction
for £467,200 - the highest price paid for a dress from any film in history and
a sign of Hepburn’s long reaching impact as a style icon.[14]
Other ways in which Audrey influenced fashion was through
magazine articles written on her life and beautiful photo-shoots for the covers.
This strategy kept her name in the world press daily and it worked because she
was gaining new fans every day. An article written by Hepburn’s son Luca Dotti
was included in the May 2013 issue of Vanity
Fair where Mr. Dotti said, “I believe she holds the record for magazine
covers – she appeared on 650 of them. Whether in public or private; she was
always true to herself”.[15] This
is a real issue that many actors/actresses have, even in today’s landscape.
They forget that with popularity comes critics and Audrey never had this
problem because she was always honest, and upfront about everything. Audiences
everywhere admired that, thus Hepburn became a popular box office hit.
Audrey Hepburn remained the gamine powerhouse beauty in
Hollywood for nearly 40 years, a testament that beauty can be timeless. Not
only women, but men too caught themselves fantasizing about having their own
Audrey in the 1950s and 1960s. As Sean Ferrer, Audrey’s eldest son and devoted
fan of his mother’s work put it, “This truly brings home the concept that it is
not what you wear but how you wear it.”[16] Not
bad for a girl who managed to survive the horrors of World War II and having
overseen the creation of U.N.I.C.E.F., a Children’s Relief Fund dedicated to
ending poverty and famine among the world population.[17] For
somebody who later became one of the biggest stars in entertainment history,
Audrey at first wasn’t even sure of her own self, once stating that she was “a
skinny little nobody”.[18]
Feminism
can be best defined as the advancement of women’s rights for social, political,
and economic equality in relation to men; and there are many ways in which
Audrey Hepburn displayed this in her films.[19]
The movie that best personifies this idea is Roman Holiday. In her book Growing
Up With Audrey: Text, Audience, and Resonance, Rachel Moseley brings up the
scene where Hepburn states to Gregory Peck in the film “I can sew too, and
clean a house, and iron. I learned all those things – I just haven’t had the
chance to do it for anyone”.[20] Moseley later goes on to say, “At
the same time, however, her ‘work’ and her decision to return to it are not
choices: being a princess is shown to be a ‘natural’ duty to her family and can perhaps still be
understood as women’s work”.[21]
This is what Audrey strived to maintain and embody in her work, the image of
the perfect woman in 1950s culture. She didn’t have to come out right and say that
she supported feminism because it was clear enough for the audience to see.
Other
actresses inspired this female movement too, which later moved into the 1960s.
Monika Bartyzel from The Week describes
Audrey’s way compared to that of say Katharine Hepburn (no relation), “Katharine
was a working woman who wore pants —
a "strong female presence within traditional boy-girl stories." Audrey,
meanwhile, was the waif who launched Hollywood's obsession with skinniness”.[22] Audrey’s
doe-eyed innocence and warmth won them over in the end. There was just
something so real behind the characters she portrayed on film. When discussing Hepburn
in her book Gidgets and Women Warriors:
Perception of Women in the 1950s and 1960s, Catherine Gourley put it
perfectly, “She possessed the three A’s of femininity: appearance, actions, and
ambition”.[23]
Nobody in Hollywood could match those traits as well as she did. Audrey perfected
this unconscious way of supporting femininity.
Along
with the feminist movement, Audrey’s fame grew substantially with the release
of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). This
put her in great bargaining position as Hollywood’s “go to girl” for
romanticized roles and comedy. A New York
Times article written by Janet Maslin states that, “The role of Holly
Golightly was deemed to sexually outré for Marilyn Monroe”.[24]
The producers felt Audrey was the perfect fit for Holly because their female
viewers would lose interest, seeing Monroe or Sophia Loren as a socially and
physically impossible standard.[25] They
weren’t wrong. In the 1950s and ‘60s, young women loved Holly’s aura of
liberation from men, mothers, marriage, and middle class morality.[26]
In the movie, you can tell a lot by the way she talks and acts that Audrey
truly devoted herself to that role. She loved playing the mysterious woman whom
everybody thought nothing of. This fit her persona perfectly because that’s
exactly how she acted whenever she saw German soldiers during the war.
If
you take a look in chapter two of Audrey
Hepburn: a biography written by Warren G. Harris, there’s a part where
Harris describes how life was for Audrey during World War II:
Once, while bringing a message to a British pilot
hiding in the forest outside town, she suddenly saw two German sentinels
heading toward her. Dropping to her knees, Audrey pretended to be picking wild
flowers and smilingly handed the Nazi’s a handful as they passed, the soldiers
were so charmed they just patted her on the head and walked away.[27]
In typical Hepburn fashion, she outwitted almost anybody
who questioned her well-being and it was here where Audrey earned her first acting
chops. To survive the terrible predicament she was in, pretending was the only
way one could live under Nazi occupation. Storylines like these are basically
repeated in almost every one of her films, Sabrina
and Roman Holiday just to name a few.
However, this isn’t the only favor Audrey managed to pull off during the war.
She also raised money for the Dutch Resistance in secret.[28] Hepburn
was even asked to play Anne Frank in a film adaptation but turned it down.[29]
She deemed herself unworthy to play such a real character from a place she had
been physically and emotionally exposed to as a child.
This catastrophic event would have long lasting
repercussions on Audrey and her willingness to become Goodwill Ambassador for
U.N.I.C.E.F. Both her movie career and charity work inspired popular culture.
In 1990, she travelled to Vietnam and the article read: “Audrey Hepburn Brings
Ray of Hope to Vietnam”.[30]
During the trip she stated that, “I’m not in the business of politics. I’m in
the business of children”. Audrey Hepburn has left a legacy of heart and
passion never seen before, and her image is still used in advertising campaigns
today. Her career story is a symbol of something the world and culture at that
time, was largely losing.[31]
Audrey Hepburn displayed a rare sentiment in her movies
that has echoed for generations to come. Her film accomplishments, charitable
work with U.N.I.C.E.F., and styles in fashion helped to push the boundaries
when it came to gender roles for women in Hollywood. Today’s generation sees Audrey
as this big cultural icon but they have no idea what she went through in life
during World War II, her breakups in marriage, or acting style she displayed on
screen. You must first understand what Hepburn stood for before calling
yourself a true fan of her work. Audrey’s idea of being kind and caring to
others has resonated for so long because she experienced emotional hardship too,
making it easier for others to understand her. When Hepburn passed away in 1993
of cancer, Gregory Peck remembered her as “one of the most skillful,
intelligent, and charming friends I have ever had in my life”. The memories and
images we have of remarkable people change over time but Audrey’s has overall
managed to stay intact in pop culture. Heart, passion, honesty; she displayed all
these qualities on screen and off it. Whether you love or hate Audrey Hepburn
there is really no denying the fact that she had true talent. Her image is one
that will be remembered forever throughout history as a gentle soul.
Bibliography
[1] Audrey
Hepburn Biography: The Fairest Lady. Written
by Steven Hunter (New York City: A&E Television Networks/Twentieth Century
Fox, 1997), YouTube.
[4] Denny Jackson and Volker Boehm.
“Audrey Hepburn Biography”, Internet
Movie Database. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000030/bio#mini_bio>
[5] Definition of gamine: a girl with
mischievous or boyish charm. See for example, Kevin Wilcox’s Audrey Hepburn 207 Success Facts: Audrey Hepburn
and Gamines of the 1950s (Emereo Publishing: 2014), p. 135.
[6] Michael Sheldon. “I suppose I
ended Hepburn’s career”. The Telegraph,
May 2014.
[7] de Givenchy, Hubert. Audrey Hepburn (London: Pavillion,
2007), p. 19.
[8] Gaylan Studlar. Precocious Charms: Stars Performing Girlhood
in Classical Hollywood Cinema (Oakland: University of California Press,
2013), p. 15.
[9] Jacques, Renee. “25 Timeless
Style Lessons From Audrey Hepburn.” The
Huffington Post, August 20, 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/20/audrey-hepburn-style_n_3780087.html>
[10] Moseley, Rachel. “Audrey Hepburn
– everybody’s dream girl.” The Guardian,
March 6, 2004. <http://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/mar/07/highereducation.gender>
[11] Jacqui Miller. Fan Phenomena: Audrey Hepburn (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2014), p. 42.
[12] Tony Nourmand. Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount Years (San
Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007), p. 92.
[13] Ibid
[14] Lucy Hutchings. “Style File –
Audrey Hepburn”, British Vogue Magazine,
November 18, 2011. <http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/celebrity-photos/2011/11/16/audrey-hepburn-style-file>
[15] Luca Dotti. “My Fair Mother”, Vanity Fair, May 2013. <http://www.vanityfair.com/unchanged/2013/05/audrey-hepburn-life-in-rome>
[16] Sean Ferrer. “Audrey Hepburn’s 85th
Birthday”, Google, May 4, 2014.
<http://www.google.com/doodles/audrey-hepburns-85th-birthday>
[17] The United Nations Children
Relief Fund. “Audrey Hepburn”, 2003.
<http://www.unicef.org/people/people_audrey_hepburn.html>.
[18] Amy Fine Collins. “When Hubert
Met Audrey.” Vanity Fair, December,
1995.
<http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/02/audrey-hepburn-givenchy-style>
[19] Chris Beasley. What is Feminism? (New York: Sage,
1999), pp. 3-11.
[20] Rachel Moseley. Growing Up With Audrey: Text, Audience, and
Resonance (London: Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 161.
[21] Ibid
[22] Monika Bartyzel. “Girls on Film:
The hidden feminism of Audrey Hepburn.” The
Week, May 2, 2014.
<http://theweek.com/articles/447336/girls-film-hidden-feminism-audrey-hepburn>
[23] Catherine Gourley. Gidgets and Women Warriors: Perception of
Women in the 1950s and 1960s (Minneapolis: Twenty First Century Books,
2007), p. 39.
[24] Janet Maslin. “Book of the Times:
Holly Golightly, Before She Was Immortal.” New
York Times, June 13, 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/books/14book.html?_r=1>
[25] Anna Möttölä. History of Stardom Reconsidered.
Edited by Kari Kallioniemi, Kimi Kärki, Janne Mäkelä and Hannu Salmi (Turku:
International Institute for Popular Culture, 2007). (Available as an eBook at
http://iipc.utu.fi/reconsidered/).
[26] Pat Ryan. “Forever a Gamine at
Tiffany’s” New York Times, March 14,
2013.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/theater/rekindling-the-mystery-of-holly-golightly.html?ref=topics&_r=0>
[28] David A. Smart. “Audrey Hepburn:
The best audience I ever had.” Coronet 35,
January, 1954, p. 46. <https://web.archive.org/web/20111001225330/http://www.audreyhepburnlibrary.com/50s/images/coronet1-55.jpg>
[29] John Corr. “Mindful of Her Past,
Hepburn Travels the World for UNICEF.” Philidelphia
Inquirer, February, 1990. <http://articles.philly.com/1990-02-08/news/25884465_1_unicef-new-musical-work-nazi>
[30] Kathleen Callo. “Audrey Hepburn
Brings Ray of Hope to Vietnam.” Reuters,
November 14, 1990.
<http://articles.latimes.com/1990-11-14/entertainment/ca-4384_1_audrey-hepburn>
[31] Noel Murray. “The elegant, rare
career of Audrey Hepburn.” The Dissolve,
November 5, 2014.
<https://thedissolve.com/features/career-view/811-the-elegant-rare-career-of-audrey-hepburn/>
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