The Oscar-winning actress became a style icon, popularizing the sheath dress, dark sunglasses, headscarves (she even wore one at her wedding), ballet flats, cropped plaid cigarette pants, white shirts, and leather belts that emphasized her famously small 22-inch waist. Her boyish bangs, delicate frame, lean silhouette, and the striking simplicity of her wardrobe set a new standard for feminine beauty.
Among Hollywood’s gallery of sex symbols, Hepburn offered a different kind of image: a vibrant yet innocent heroine—open but unattainable. Her own persona was equally intriguing. Her charm came from intelligence and a disciplined reserve that was rare among Hollywood beauties. What hidden dramas lay behind this captivating enigma?
Audrey Hepburn (1951)
In the Grip of Self-Control
Stanley Donen, the director who made three films with Hepburn, said he could never break through the invisible barrier she kept between herself and others. “She had an uncanny ability to maintain distance, mysteriously avoiding intimacy,” he recalled. “She never let you get close enough to lose that sense of space.” Everyone who worked with her noted her “iron self-control.” Even friends often searched for reasons behind her reticence. This alluring beauty defied Hollywood’s “slave etiquette,” which demanded total submission from actors to promotional demands. Hepburn was among the first to separate her personal life from her work and never invited journalists into her home—literally or figuratively. With the graceful poise of a ballerina, the former dancer carried the burden of troubling childhood memories and family secrets that caused her undeserved pain.
The actress’s distinctive English accent came from her background: her birth certificate listed British citizenship through her father. The daughter of a London financier and a Dutch noblewoman, she grew up speaking English, Dutch, and French. Born on May 4, 1929, in the suburbs of Brussels, she lived in both England and the Netherlands after her parents’ divorce. In search of refuge during World War II, her family moved across Europe, and Hepburn also learned Italian and Spanish.
In her family, Audrey was called Adriantje, and in Nazi-occupied Arnhem (her mother Ella’s hometown) she had to hide her British roots under the name Edda and her mother’s Dutch surname, van Himstra.
She inherited two surnames from her father after Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston added “Hepburn” to hint at aristocratic ties to James Hepburn, the third husband of Mary Stuart. Biographers later found no evidence for the claim. The nature of Hepburn-Ruston’s career is also unclear: records show he served as an honorary British consul in a Dutch colony (with “interrupted duties,” according to Foreign Office documents), and he worked as a trade representative and financial adviser. Some described him as a banker; others called him an adventurer.
The castle where Audrey lived with her family during the early years of the war
The Forbidden Topic
Known as “Jamaican Joe” in the West Indies, Joseph Ruston charmed a Dutch baroness when they met in Suriname. She was 17 years his junior and already married with two sons; both spouses divorced before they married in 1926 in Jakarta. The couple later settled in Brussels, where Audrey was born.
Audrey was six when her parents separated: her mother caught her husband in the arms of the children’s nanny. The split, which began in 1935 and was finalized three years later, was Hepburn’s first traumatic experience.
The family rarely discussed the reasons for the divorce—or their prewar ties to the British Union of Fascists. In the mid-1930s, the Hepburns reportedly helped recruit supporters and raise funds for the group, a connection that later had serious consequences for Joseph Hepburn-Ruston. He disappeared from Audrey’s life for a long time; after the war she located him through the Red Cross and found him in Dublin. Until her final years she supported her father financially, keeping their relationship private and never trying to rekindle closeness. He served a five-year prison sentence for his political activities, while her mother faced the hardships of wartime survival.
Childhood in Adulthood
“If we had known the occupation would last five years, we would have shot ourselves,” the actress recalled. “Hope saved us, the hope that this horror wouldn’t last forever; otherwise, we wouldn’t have survived it.”
The family estate in Arnhem—the city where her father had been mayor for ten years before being appointed governor of a remote colony—was shared with refugees. After sending her teenage sons to relatives in The Hague, Audrey Hepburn’s mother, exhausted both physically and emotionally, endured the burdens of occupation alongside her daughter, witnessing deportations to concentration camps and the executions of loved ones. One of Audrey’s brothers was taken to work in Germany, while the other escaped by hiding.
“I often went to the station, but I only remember one pale, light-haired child on the platform in a coat that didn’t fit,” the actress recounted. “He boarded the train with his parents, and I couldn’t take my eyes off that boy: one child was watching another.”
Surviving on tulip bulbs ground into flour to bake bread, Audrey Hepburn found the strength during the hungry war years to attend conservatory, go to school, and practice ballet. She even tried to earn money through dancing, collecting funds for the Dutch Resistance.
Malnutrition left her with anemia and shortness of breath. The family lost nearly all their possessions during the occupation: they were either damaged or destroyed.
Later Hepburn reflected that she “felt older then than I do now”: “Children of war had no sense of security. Is it any wonder I was so withdrawn? We didn’t plan our futures. The only promise I remember from that time and try to keep is this: if this ends, I told myself, I will never complain about my fate; I will be content with everything.”
Ballet lessons
Steps into the Profession
After the war, her mother took a job as a housekeeper and cook for a wealthy family. Audrey landed her first screen role in 1948 as a flight attendant in a documentary—a promotional film for a Dutch airline. She then won a ballet scholarship with a London dance troupe, did modeling, and studied acting, public speaking, and singing.
The young performer entered the acting profession through theater, becoming a chorus girl in productions like “High Button Shoes,” “Tartare Sauce,” and “Spicy Sauce” from 1948 to 1950. After registering with an acting agency, she began appearing on screen and even played a ballerina in the film “Secret People,” performing all the choreography herself.
Audrey Hepburn in the play Gigi (1951)
Hepburn worked her way to the lead role in the Broadway production of Gigi. While filming at a hotel in Monte Carlo, the play’s author Colette noticed her and invited her to rehearsals. The 1951 Fulton Theatre premiere was a sensation, running for 200 performances, and Hepburn won the Theatre World Award. More accolades followed: the young actress soon earned a Golden Globe and an Oscar.
For her Hollywood debut she won a key casting over Elizabeth Taylor and seized the opportunity. Roman Holiday introduced a new global star whose light has not dimmed for more than half a century. In Hollywood’s “golden hierarchy,” she ranks among the most outstanding actresses in American cinema.
Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in a scene from “Roman Holiday” (1953)
Goodwill Ambassador
Hepburn’s later films—”Sabrina,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Charade,” “My Fair Lady,” and “Ondine”—only reinforced the impression that she was a singular discovery.
After spending a decade and a half in the film industry, by the late 1960s she shifted focus to her family. In marriages to actor Mel Ferrer and Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti—who had treated her for depression after her first divorce—she had two sons.
Audrey Hepburn and Ferrer at a film gala
After her second divorce, she appeared opposite Sean Connery in “Robin and Marian” (1976) and later turned down—a decision she reportedly regretted—a nearly autobiographical role as a former ballerina in “The Turning Point.”
Her companion from 1980 until near the end of her life was Dutch actor Robert Wolders, and her final film role was as an angel in Steven Spielberg’s “Always” (1989).
Audrey Hepburn and Robert Wolders at the White House (1981)
From then on, Hepburn devoted more time to UNICEF (she had worked with the organization since the 1950s), using her fame to draw attention to humanitarian crises. Her visits to Somalia and Kenya in September 1992 were her final mission as a goodwill ambassador.
Audrey Hepburn in the Netherlands receiving the Danny Kaye Award (1989)
Painful symptoms she experienced during that exhausting trip turned out to be signs of cancer. Surgery was unsuccessful. On January 20, 1993, 63-year-old Audrey Hepburn died surrounded by family at her mountain home in the Swiss village of Tolochenaz-sur-Morges, where she is buried.
Writer Peter Ustinov wrote in his obituary, “By the numbers, Audrey died young, but she would have died young at any age.” Actress Elizabeth Taylor compared her colleague to “a beautiful angel awaiting many bright deeds in heaven.”
Facts About Audrey Hepburn
- Audrey Hepburn was called the “muse of Givenchy”: her long collaboration with the French designer went beyond creating iconic looks and included a 40-year personal friendship. Hubert de Givenchy referred to her as “sister.”
- Her role in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was challenging not only because of her relative inexperience but because Audrey’s quiet temperament clashed with the impulsive, extroverted character she played; she found the part emotionally draining.
- Hepburn is among a small number of performers who have won major awards across film, theater, television, and music.
