Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn in “Sabrina” (1954).

iconic Audrey from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961).

Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) was a Hollywood actress who was at the height of her powers in the 1950s and 1960s. A month older than Anne Frank, she too lived in the Netherlands under Nazi rule. But she was not Jewish and lived, going on to become a beauty and fashion icon of the 1900s. According to this blog, she is the ninth most beautiful White woman.

Some of her films:

• 1953: Roman Holiday – with Gregory Peck. Made her name. Won an Oscar for Best Actress.
• 1954: Sabrina – with Humphrey Bogart.
• 1957: Funny Face – with Fred Astaire.
• 1961: Breakfast at Tiffany’s – her most iconic film, based on a Truman Capote book. Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe for the lead. Monroe turned it down as too immoral. For Hepburn they sanitized it. The Library of Congress says the film is “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” – yellowface and all!
• 1963: Charade – with Cary Grant. Accidentally not copyrighted!
• 1964: My Fair Lady – with Rex Harrison (and Marni Nixon singing her parts). Beat out Julie Andrews for the lead. No matter: Andrews went on to win Best Actress anyway, for “Mary Poppins” (1964).
• 1967: Two for the Road

After that she pretty much retired from acting to bring up her sons. In 1988 she became a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, now known as the United Nations Children’s Fund.

She played pretty much the same person in her most famous films: beautiful, charming, elegant, yet modest. Unworldly yet somehow worldly.

children in a Nazi cattle car, 1940.

She was the daughter of a Dutch baroness and an Irish father. The Nazis took two uncles away and shot them. Her mother was afraid they would take her too – her boarding-school English (and terrible Dutch) made her seem foreign. Seeing the cattle trains of full of Jews was burnt into her brain. The last winter of the war they did not have enough to eat. After the war, what would become UNICEF helped to feed her. But, as she would later learn, her health was already ruined, dooming her girlhood dream of becoming a ballerina.

She did not think she was beautiful. Because all she saw were her imperfections: her big nose, big feet, small breasts, and thin figure. In the 1950s the hourglass figure was the beauty standard: Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, etc. Part of why she looks beautiful now is because she helped shape the beauty standard.

in “Charade” (1963), dressed in Givenchy.

Givenchy: She met Givenchy, the fashion designer, in Paris in 1953 when they were young, in their middle 20s. She became his muse. His clothes looked so great on her that it helped to make them both way more famous than they already were.

Female gaze: If Marilyn Monroe was made for men to look at, then Audrey Hepburn was made for women to look at. Hers was a beauty more women could or would want to achieve. They did not need large breasts, show much skin, or wear much jewellery. And while middle-class women could not afford Givenchy, his fashions were minimalistic enough that they could afford reasonable approximations. Elements of her fashion are still in fashion two generations later, like the little black dress (LBD) and ballet flats – from her lost ballerina dream.

– Abagond, 2022.

See also:

• Welcome to White History Month 2022 – it was last month, but close enough!
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s:
  • Henry Mancini: Moon River – the opening scene
  • yellowface
• White women:
  • The most beautiful white women – she is #9.
  • The eyes of black women and white women – mentions her.
  • white beauty: a brief history
    • Marilyn Monroe
    • Elizabeth Taylor
    • Sophia Loren
    • Brigitte Bardot
      • Bette Midler: Mambo Italiano – the video features Bardot at her height.
    • Twiggy
    • Pamela Anderson
    • Kim Kardashian
• Sade – who she most reminds me of.
• Nazi Germany
  • Anne Frank
  • The Holocaust

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