The world has known her face and name since the 1950s, when she became one of Hollywood’s most iconic actresses. But away from the cameras, few knew the real Audrey Hepburn, the charming leading lady of classic films Roman Holiday, My Fair Lady and Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
Her eldest son Sean Hepburn Ferrer was one of those few lucky people and in his new biography Intimate Audrey, he shares her magic – and her personal heartaches – with the rest of the world. While her fans fondly remember her as a bright star of the golden era, he knew her as a normal mum.
“One of the greatest gifts she gave me, and subsequently my brother Luca, was not letting us grow up in that environment,” tells Sean, 65.
“She really gave up Hollywood to be a full-time mum in a country home, making jams and fetching us at school. She was a mum who went through the war, who suffered, who knew the value of work and a dollar, and made you finish your plate.”
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A childhood shaped by war
Audrey’s journey to stardom is more than an ordinary rags-to-riches story. As a schoolgirl in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, she saw unspeakable horrors during World War II – a traumatic time her son describes as her “early years of hardship and heartbreak”.
Sean reveals that the war contributed to his famous mother’s upright pose – during an air raid, a bit of metal landed in her neck and permanently caused the restriction.
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“What she never told anyone until a few years before her death was that a small piece of shrapnel embedded itself in her neck,” Sean writes.
“She confided to a friend, ‘It left me so I can’t bend my neck in the ways other people can. Promise not to tell anyone as long as I’m alive!’”
Fighting with the Resistance
In a storyline that reads straight from an action film, Audrey bravely became a spy for the Dutch Resistance.
“By the time Holland was liberated, she had seen men executed before her eyes,” Sean shares.
“She had risked her life over and over again by working for the Resistance.”
What mattered most to her
It’s hard to believe that just a few years later, ballet-trained Audrey had made her mark in the movies and won an Oscar for her breakout role in Roman Holiday. However, despite the industry accolades, Sean insists the professional role she cherished most was serving as a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador until her death in 1993.
“She always talked about her Unicef years as her second and most important career,” he says of her humanitarian missions, which took Audrey as far afield as Ethiopia, Venezuela and Vietnam.
“All of it was very meaningful to her in the sense that she really took it seriously. She wasn’t just a celebrity who showed up and was given a memo.”
A turbulent love life
Though she knew great success in her working life, Audrey’s love life was tumultuous. After divorcing Sean’s actor dad Mel Ferrer, she fell for Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti and they married in 1969. She suffered a series of miscarriages before welcoming son Luca, but it was Andrea’s promiscuous ways that eventually led her to accidentally overdose on sleeping tablets and later file for divorce.
Sean remembers, “Sitting me down, my mother said, ‘I know what this looks like, but please try to understand. I was in so much pain that I desperately wanted to knock myself out. I overdid it with the Mogadon, that’s all. I’ve been hurting too much and needed it to stop. I’m so dreadfully sorry. I never meant to take my life.’”
A final goodbye
Sean recalls saying a final farewell to his beloved mother at La Paisible, her home in Switzerland, where the outpouring of love from the public was immense. The actress passed away at the age of 63 from a rare form of abdominal cancer.
“The effect she had on people really hit us when we carried her coffin from the church to her grave, gazing in wonder at all the people crowded at the roadside or standing like silent sentinels in the vineyards, weeping openly,” he writes. “That was an extraordinary sight.”
Lily’s biopic a flop before it’s made?
The brunette bob, the doe eyes, the petite frame… Lily Collins certainly looks the part to play Audrey in a new biopic. But there’s been backlash over everything from Lily’s acting skills to the content of the planned film, which will focus on the making of 1961’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
While son Sean offered his support for the film and Lily, he did question whether the adaptation from Sam Wasson’s book Fifth Avenue, 5am will be “compelling” enough for the big screen.
“The whole thing revolves around one photo of my mother standing on Fifth Avenue,” Sean says.
“I’m not sure how you adapt that into a film and make it interesting.”
