Audrey Hepburn: the life and the legacy

Audrey Hepburn is best known as a beautiful, talented actress and fashion icon of the late twentieth century; the woman in the slinky black Givenchy dress standing in front of the Tiffany’s window and giving off such an air of confidence in the opening scene of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” But Hepburn should also be remembered as a fighter, having overcome adversity and personal struggles throughout her life. The legacy she left is so unique that it will be hard for any other actress to match.

Hepburn was born in Brussels, Belgium on May 4, 1929 to Joseph Ruston-Hepburn, a British banker, and Ella vanHeemstra, a Dutch baroness. She traveled between Belgium, England, and the Netherlands throughout her childhood.

At age six, Hepburn had to cope with her father’s leaving the family. She did not see him again until twenty years later. When they finally met, he was unable to show remorse for what he had put the family through. Her father’s absence would later affect Hepburn in her two failed marriages, but also the yearning to keep her family together once she had one.

Hepburn also suffered through World War II; most especially the 1940 invasion of the Netherlands, a country that Hepburn’s mother had moved her family to in hopes of safety. Though Hepburn did her part working for the Dutch resistance and carrying secret messages in her shoes, the devastation of the war left her malnourished.

It was this affect that kept Hepburn from pursuing her initial dream of becoming a prima ballerina. Dancing had served Hepburn through the war; she had danced for private groups of people to collect money for the resistance. She studied ballet in Amsterdam and London, most notably under Marie Rambert, who remarked that Hepburn was, at five feet seven inches and 110 pounds, to be too tall and too heavy for smaller male dancers to lift her. The malnourishment from the war also left her too weak. Though she would never be a prima ballerina, Hepburn moved to perfect herself in another field; she moved on to acting.

Hepburn’s initial work came on the stage. She starred in a stage production called “High Button Shoes.” Producer Cecil Landau, quoted in a 1993 “PEOPLE Extra Magazine” article said, “I saw this girl running across the stage. I remember two black eyes and a fringe. I got very excited.” Hepburn was cast because she was so visually stimulating. And to Rambert’s possible dismay, Hepburn’s tiny proportions enhanced her on-screen presence.

Though many of her first silver screen roles were small, Hepburn was “discovered” by a French writer named Collette when she was filming “Monte Carlo Baby” in the early 1950s.

Hepburn passed a wheelchair-bound Collette in a Parisian hotel, which caused the woman to exclaim, “Voila! There’s our Gigi!” Hepburn was given the lead part in the stage adaptation of Collette’s novel of the same name.

In 1953, Hepburn achieved what few other new actresses could: an Academy Award for Best Actress for her break-out film, “Roman Holiday.” Perhaps it was co-star Gregory Peck’s insistence that Hepburn’s name was to be given equal billing to his. (Originally, the marquee was to read “Introducing Audrey Hepburn.”) It was no question, though that Hepburn had remarkable screen presence. Director William Wyler had initially cast her after her legendary screen test in which she showed moments of spontaneity after he yelled “cut,” but the camera kept rolling.

Hepburn continued success later in her career. She was nominated for Best Actress Oscars for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Sabrina,” and “Wait until Dark.” Audiences loved her as Eliza Doolittle in the movie version of “My Fair Lady” (originated on stage by Julie Andrews), but she was not nominated for an Oscar in this role.

She worked steadily from the 1950s into the late 1960s, but took a semi-retirement from acting after the 1967 release of “Wait until Dark.” She married actor Mel Ferrer in 1954, with whom she co-starred in the play “Ondine” in 1964. They had a son named Sean. Her marriage to Ferrer lasted only until 1968, and a year later she married psychiatrist Andrea Dotti. Hepburn and Dotti divorced in 1982, but had a son, Luca. During the time away from the big screen, she chose not to accept any film roles, but to raise her sons in Europe instead. “I had to make a choice at one point in my life, of missing films or missing my children. It was a very easy decision because I missed my children so very much…I was happy (in my decision); it was not as if I was at home, biting my nails,” she was quoted in her son Sean’s biography of her.

Hepburn’s last film role was a cameo in Steven Spielberg’s “Always” in 1989. Then she took a permanent retirement from films. She chose to focus instead on her humanitarian work, and became an ambassador for UNICEF, and worked there until the year before her death, 1992. She wanted to “speak for the children who could not speak for themselves.” In a way, Hepburn had been a part of UNICEF her entire life; they were the organization that gave her shelter and sustenance during the war, and she had always been grateful to them.

During the last years at UNICEF, Hepburn became increasingly fatigued by the work. Not only was seeing the impoverished countries increasingly difficult to her, but she was becoming physically ill with stomach pains. This caused her to visit a doctor, and the prognosis was abdominal cancer that had spread unbeknownst to Hepburn over five years. She died from colon cancer in January of 1993.

By the kindness she had shown over her life and her eloquence onscreen and off, Audrey Hepburn has built a lasting legacy; twin legacies, according to TIME magazine reporter Richard Corliss: for one, “her effortless chic in movies;” for the other, “a consciousness-raiser for UNICEF.” She was a humble and loving person, who had a “lifelong craving for affection and (a) need to give it,” Corliss wrote.

Hepburn summed her life perfectly: “My life has been much more than a fairy tale. I’ve had my share of difficult moments, but whatever difficulties I’ve gone through, I’ve always gotten the prize in the end.”

Article compiled with information from:

The Audrey Hepburn Children's fund online

Audrey Hepburn from MSN Encarta

Audrey Hepburn: Still the fairest lady by Richard Corliss

Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit by Sean Ferrer

Lighting Up Broadway from PEOPLE Extra magazine

Audrey Hepburn by Hubert deGivenchy

Audrey Hepburn from the Internet Movie Database
Audrey Hepburn: A son's reflections by Ted Kreiter

(images found at allposters.com (top) and flickr.com (bottom)

America, Just Who is Russell Brand?

“He came, he swore, but he failed to conquer” was how the United Kingdom’s The Times media correspondent Patrick Foster described Russell Brand’s stind as host of this past Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards.

In the UK, Russell Brand is a well-known name. According to another Times article by Michael Moran, Brand was first noticed at a British talent competition in 2000. Since then he has been featured on numerous television shows in Britain, like “Big Brother.” He also has had several presenting jobs, one for an indie rock radio station, and one for MTV Europe. He was fired from both after only a short time because of some off-color on-air stunts. Moran notes that on the day after the September 11 attacks, Brand came to work dressed as Osama Bin Laden. In his autobiography My Booky Wook (not yet released in the United States), Brand said that he regularly smoked heroin during those days.

Brand’s style of humor touched a nerve with American audiences on Sunday’s awards show. In his opening monologue, he urged Americans to vote for Barack Obama and referred to President Bush as a “retarded cowboy” who “would not be trusted with a pair of scissors” in England. He also took several jabs at the tween sensation rock group, The Jonas Brothers and their choice to wear purity rings as a symbol of not wanting to have pre-marital sex.

Brand’s humor also made other celebrities uncomfortable. Before she presented the award for Best Hip Hop Video, season six “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks shot back with this rebuttal:




Brand later apologized on air for his Jonas Brothers comments:




Though Brand’s appearance may be hard to swallow visually—Moran says his personal style “[evokes] the notion of Dickens’ Artful Dodger auditioning for The Cure,” Americans should not dismiss Brand’s awkward VMA gig (as well as his prior indiscretions) as his last hurrah in this country. I thoroughly enjoyed his performance as rocker Aldous Snow in the film “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (see review below) and look forward to seeing him reprise his role in 2009 in Judd Apatow’s “Get Him to the Greek.” And, as Brand said, “my persona don’t [sic] really work without fame. Without fame, this haircut could be mistaken for mental illness.”

P.S. According to sfgate.com, the Jonas Brothers have forgiven Brand’s comments, and seeing them for what they really are—comedy. Youngest brother Nick told BBC’s Radio 1: "For us it's cool to see that he recognizes we are gentleman. ...I think he did a good job. We saw him on Conan O'Brien and thought he was hilarious."

*Thanks to mtv.com for the videos.

*To read the full featured articles:

-Americans Not Sold on Russell Brand's Brand of Humour

-Just Who is Russell Brand?

(picture: the Associtated Press, via seattlepi.com)

Next Up: Movie Treasures: "Some Like it Hot"

'Catch Me if You Can' and the Real Frank Abagnale

Release Year: 2002
Director: Steven Spielberg
Main Characters: Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio)
Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks)
Frank Abagnale, Sr. (Christopher Walken)
Runtime: 2 hours, 21 minutes
Rated: PG-13 for language and some sexual content

“Catch Me if You Can” (yet another DVD in my collection) has intrigued me since I first saw it in the theater nearly six years ago. The movie is based on the story of the real Frank Abagnale, Jr. and the way he conned the world from millions of dollars (by passing fraudulent checks) and by portraying a Pan-Am airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, to name some of his phony professions, all before the age of 19.
According to the portrayal in the movie (set in the 1950s and 60s), Frank was sixteen when his parents divorced, due to the tension caused by his father’s tax frauds. Frank is torn apart when he is asked to decide which parent to live with that he runs away and soon after begins his live as a con man.
Frank’s savvy comes from his ability to smooth talk the people he cons. He is helped along the way most by some well-meaning but naïve young ladies, whom he very evidently charms the socks right off of. (The real Frank must be quite the ladies man, if they got the always charming Leonardo DiCaprio to play him.)

A real cat- and- mouse game begins when the FBI agent from the check fraud department, Carl Hanratty (played entertainingly by Hanks), gets wind of the paper trail Frank leaves behind and begins his pursuit. Frank manages to elude him for several years (again, managing to con Hanratty into believing he is someone else). After many attempts to escape, Frank is caught in France in 1969.
At the end of the film, we learn that the real Frank was released from jail, has been married for over 20 years, is still friends with the FBI agent that caught him, and, get this, is now a legitimate millionaire with his own business in which he creates un-forgeable checks.

Since the movie is based on Abagnale’s autobiography of the same name, I wanted to see how much of the movie was based on the actual events. I recommend watching the movie and then checking out this Q&A.

Was the FBI Agent played by Tom Hanks a real person?
No, there is no real Carl Hanratty, Tom Hanks revealed in an interview. There was an agent who was Frank's main contact, but a lot of FBI agents helped catch Abagnale.


Did Frank really escape a VC10 jetliner by removing the toilet and climbing down beneath it, eventually escaping through a hatch onto the tarmac?

The event is in Frank's 1981 memoir, but airline experts say it is impossible. "The entire system is sealed," says Skip Jones of the Aerospace Industries Association.
"No matter what happens in there, you can't get into the rest of the airplane." Payload systems engineer Alan Anderson explains that the toilets are mounted on top of tanks that weigh over 100 pounds, and even if he manage to undo the toilet, he would have to crawl through a pipe four inches in diameter. "A person would have to be pretty small, and it would be messy," says Anderson.

Why did he do it?

Only Frank Abagnale, Jr. can answer this question, and in an interview he said the following, "It begins with my parents’ divorce and its dramatic effect on me. I ran away and suddenly found myself a teenager alone in the world. I had to grow up very quickly and become very creative in order to survive. But what started out as survival became more and more of a game. I was an opportunist, so when I saw an opening I asked myself, ‘Could I get away with that?’ Then there was the satisfaction of actually getting away with it. The more I got away with, the more of a game it became—a game I knew I would ultimately lose, but a game I was going to have fun playing until I did."

Leonardo DiCaprio, left, and Frank Abagnale, Jr.

Check out Frank Abagnale's business website

(thanks to soundtrackcollector.com (top) and catchingthefrog.com (bottom) for the pictures)

Next Up: Movie of the Week "Sex & the City"

Featured Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

I’ll admit that when "There Will Be Blood" was released in December of last year, I did not know much about its star, Daniel Day-Lewis. I had only previously seen him in "The Ballad of Jack and Rose," which I had only wanted to see because of Paul Dano, whom I loved in "Little Miss Sunshine." I went back and re-watched Ballad (it’s part of my DVD collection), I fell in love with Day-Lewis’s character. (He plays Jack, a sickly father who lives on an abandoned commune in an island off the coast of the United States with his sixteen year old daughter, Rose [Camilla Belle]. When Jack brings a woman and her two sons to come live with them, Rose takes it badly and he wonders why he ever chose a life of isolation for himself and his daughter.)

Nevertheless when I found out that "There Will Be Blood" was starring both Dano and Day-Lewis, I was excited to see it. Because I was in school, I didn’t get a chance to see it in theaters, but when it was released on DVD, I bought it for my collection straight away.

In "Blood," Day-Lewis plays (appropriately, for these times) a money-hungry oil tycoon named Daniel Plainview. His performance won him his second Oscar for best actor in a leading role (his first having been for 1989’s "My Left Foot") this past February.

Day-Lewis is known for his method acting, a style in which he dives deep into the character and does not leave it for the entirety of filming. I found this press release that discussed his roles and acting style.

Less is more for acting legend Daniel Day-Lewis
Feb 24, 2008
HOLLYWOOD (AFP) — Quality not quantity has been the dominant theme for Daniel Day-Lewis during a career that has seen him carve out a reputation as one of the finest actors of his generation.

Day-Lewis, who won the best actor Oscar Sunday for playing a tyrannical oil prospector in "There Will Be Blood," is renowned for the selectiveness and intense research with which approaches each of his roles.

The 50-year-old actor has made only eight films in the nearly 20 years since he gained international stardom for his astonishing Oscar-winning performance as a man born with cerebral palsy in "My Left Foot."

Without exception, however, Day-Lewis has immersed himself in each of his film roles to a degree that has become legendary.

Often during films Day-Lewis chooses to remain in character off-set, living and breathing the part of his on-screen persona 24 hours a day.

For 1989's "My Left Foot" he insisted on staying in his character's wheelchair during the shoot to the consternation of crew members forced to carry him above or around camera cables and lighting.

In 1992's historical epic "Last of the Mohicans", Day-Lewis buffed up and learnt to live off the land as his character had done.

For Martin Scorsese's period drama "The Age of Innocence," Day-Lewis reportedly donned 1870s garb and spent several weeks wandering around New York to get into character.

Also in 1993, Day-Lewis shed several pounds to play an Irishman wrongfully convicted of an IRA pub bombing in "In The Name of the Father."

Day-Lewis ordered crew members to verbally abuse him and throw cold water over him during the making of the film.

Day-Lewis, who rarely gives interviews and generally eschews the trappings of celebrity, is reluctant to talk about the madness in his method.

"Considering the way that I work very often, I do feel I've been soundly misrepresented so many times that there's almost no point in even talking about it," he said in a recent interview.

"But people tend to focus on the details of the preparation -- the practical details in this clinic or that prison and so on and so forth.

"For me, as much as that work is a vital part of it and always fuel to one's fascination, one's curiosity, the principal work is always in the imagination."

During the making of his next film, 1996's adaptation of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible", Day-Lewis met his wife, Rebecca Miller, the daughter of the legendary late American playwright.
Day-Lewis was to make one more film -- 1997's "The Boxer" -- before retreating into a mysterious five-year break from acting that has been the subject of intense speculation.
The most widely reported version of events is that Day-Lewis spent part of the period living in Italy learning to become shoemaker in exchange for teaching a cobbler how to act. Whatever the truth, Day-Lewis has studiously avoided talking about the period.

Once asked what he had done during those years, Day-Lewis replied: "Different things. Some of which I've resolutely chosen not to speak about."

Day-Lewis returned with a vengeance in 2002, teaming with Scorsese once again to play the murderous Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting in "Gangs of New York," a role that earned him his third Oscar nomination.

A further appearance in the drama "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" in which he was directed by his wife, came in 2005, before Day-Lewis re-emerged to link with director Paul Thomas Anderson in "There Will Be Blood."

Day-Lewis was born in 1957 to Cecil Day-Lewis, then Britain's poet laureate, and Jill Balcon, an actress whose father Sir Michael Balcon ran London's legendary Ealing film studios.
He dropped out of school at 13 for his first film, an uncredited bit part in "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," then began to seriously hone his acting skills -- first at the Bristol Old Vic, then with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

In 1982 he reappeared on the silver screen in the epic "Gandhi," but he really made his name three years later in two very different films: "My Beautiful Laundrette" and "A Room with a View."

In the low-budget "Laundrette," he played a gay punk in Thatcher-era south London who goes into the coin-wash business with his Pakistani boyfriend.

In the Merchant-Ivory "A Room with a View," he portrayed a hopelessly proper fiance in early 20th century Edwardian England.

In 1987 he clinched his first starring role opposite French actress Juliette Binoche in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," director Philip Kaufman's adaptation of the Milan Kundera novel.

(Less is More for Acting Legend Daniel Day-Lewis)

Here are the theatrical trailers for There Will Be Blood and The Ballad of Jack and Rose

(thanks to afp.google.com for the picutre)

Next up: Focus on "Juno" and teen pregnancy