Unit 4  Biography
Passage 3 Audrey Hepburn
    Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century. Redefining glamour with "elfin" features and a gamine waif-like figure, she was inducted in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Hepburn became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age who received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations and accrued a Tony Award for her theatrical performance in the 1954 Broadway play Ondine. Hepburn remains one of few entertainers who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards. Her elegance and style will always be remembered in film history as evidenced by her being named to Empire magazine’s “The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time”.
Her Career and Life Experience
    Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4， 1929 in Brussels , Belgium . She was really blue –blood from the beginning with her father, a wealthy English banker, and her mother, a Dutch baroness. Audrey had a difficult childhood. Her parents divorced when she was young and Audrey went to live with her mother in the Netherlands. Soon after, the German army invaded Holland. During the Nazi occupation, Audrey's uncle and a cousin were executed for supporting the Resistance and her brother was placed in a labor camp. Her family faced starvation and Audrey suffered from severe anemia, and respiratory problems.
    After graduating from private schools, Audrey went to a ballet school in London on a scholarship and later began a modeling career. As a model, she was graceful. After being spotted modeling by a producer, she was signed to a bit part in the European film Nederland’s in 7 lessen in 1948. The part wasn’t mush, so she headed to America to try her luck there.
Audrey gained immediate prominence in the US with her role in Roman Holiday in 1953.
This film turned out to be a smashing success as she won an Oscar as Best Actress. This gained her enormous popularity. One of the reasons for her popularity was the fact that she was so elf like and had class. Roman Holiday was followed by another similarly wonderful performance in the 1957 classic Funny face. Sabrina, in 1954 for which she received another Academy nomination, and Love in the Afternoon , in 1957 , also garnered rave reviews. In 1959, she received yet another nomination for her role in Nun’s Story. Audrey reached the pinnacle of her career when she played Holly Golightly in the delightful film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961. For this she received another nomination. One of Audrey’s most radiant roles was in the fine production of My Fair Lady, in 1964.
    By the end of the sixties, after her divorce from actor Mel Ferrer, Audrey decided to retire while she was on top. Later she married Dr.Andrea Dotti. From time to time, she would appear on the silver screen. Her stunning combination of vulnerability, sophistication, elfin beauty and indomitable spirit engaged both men and women alike. But while Audrey Hepburn's loveliness may have gotten her noticed, it was her talent that made her a legend, as well as her heart.
    She appeared in fewer films as her life went on, and devoted much of her later life to UNICEF. Her war-time struggles inspired her passion for humanitarian work. Audrey Hepburn became a goodwill ambassador and spokesperson for UNICEF in 1986. Traveling to areas afflicted by famine and devastation, Hepburn worked to raise public awareness of the plight faced by children in times of crises-for example, in Ethiopia during the famine and in war-torn Somalia. Her commitment to improve the welfare of children across the world was intense and genuine. This commitment earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Humanitarian Award from the Congress on Racial Equality.
Her Contributions to UNICEF
    Hepburn was appointed Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF. Then-United States president George H. W. Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work with UNICEF, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences posthumously awarded her the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contribution to humanity, with her son accepting on her behalf. Grateful for her own good f
ortune after enduring the German occupation as a child, she dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished children in the poorest nations. Hepburn's travels were made easier by her wide knowledge of languages; besides being naturally bilingual in English and Dutch, she also was fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, and German.
glamour    Though she had done work for UNICEF in the 1950s, starting in 1954 with radio presentations, this was a much higher level of dedication. Those close to her say that the thoughts of dying, helpless children consumed her for the rest of her life. Her first field mission was to Ethiopia in 1988. She visited an orphanage in Mek'ele that housed 500 starving children and had UNICEF send food. Of the trip, she said, "I have a broken heart. I feel desperate. I can't stand the idea that two million people are in imminent danger of starving to death, many of them children, not because there isn't tons of food sitting in the northern port of Shoa. It can't be distributed. Last spring, Red Cross and UNICEF workers were ordered out of the northern provinces because of two simultaneous I went into rebel country and saw mothers and their children who had walked for ten days, even three weeks, looking for food, settling onto the desert floor into makeshift camps wh
ere they may die. Horrible. That image is too much for me. The 'Third World' is a term I don't like very much, because we're all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering."

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