MAY 2019 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 93
REAR VIEW
AUDREY HEPBURN OUR FAIR LADY
By ANNIE WILKINSON
When Audrey Hepburn filmed
Sabrina in 1953, she was a bona fide
movie star starring with Humphrey
Bogart and William Holden in tony
Glen Cove on the fabled Gold Coast.
Wearing the timeless designs of
couturier Hubert de Givenchy and
legendary designer Edith Head, she
was surrounded by lavish wealth
and would become wealthy herself as
the highest-paid actress in the world,
earning $750,000 per film.
But just seven years earlier, in 1946,
she was a child living through Europe’s
post-World War II famine.
What must she have thought of the
excesses around her, this talented yet
secretive actress who had survived
being abandoned in wartime?
DUMPED
Life started out well in Brussels, Belgium
for Audrey Hepburn Kathleen
Ruston, born into semi-royalty on
May 4, 1929. Her mother was Dutch
noblewoman Baroness Ella Van
Heemstra; her English-Austrian
father Joseph Victor Anthony Hepburn
Ruston was a Bohemian banker.
But by the mid-1930s, the British Union
of Fascists was popular in England.
Hepburn’s parents sympathized with
and met fascist leader Adolf Hitler;
Hepburn’s mother bragged that Hitler
kissed her hand and she published a
pro-Nazi article. When anti-Semitic
ideology spread, though, Hepburn’s
mother distanced herself — but her
husband joined an extreme splinter
group and abandoned his family.
After Hepburn’s parents’ divorce, she
was sent to a London boarding school.
She “was dumped,” she said later.
Her mother moved their family to the
Netherlands, which was safe until
the 1940 Nazi occupation. Hepburn
remembered watching trainloads
of Jewish families being deported to
concentration camps.
Her father had left his family with
no money. Meals consisted of bread
made from beans, or broth and a
potato — or no food for days.
Hepburn supported the Dutch
pushback against Nazi occupation,
stuffing resistance newspapers into
her woolen socks and wooden shoes
and delivering messages and food
to downed Allied pilots. Her secret
efforts included ballet performances
to raise money for the cause. The
shy child became a brave, expressive
young woman.
After the “Hunger Winter” of 1944-
1945, living without electricity or
water, the family survived on endive
and tulip bulbs. After the Germans
blockaded food imports, Hepburn
suffered from severe malnutrition,
weighing 88 pounds. She developed
anemia and jaundice.
STAR POWER
To quiet her hunger pangs, Hepburn
read books and continued her ballet
lessons. In 1946, agents of the United
Nations International Children's
Emergency Fund (UNICEF) rescued
her from the famine.
She dreamed of becoming a ballerina.
But at 5 feet 7 inches, she was too
tall. She moved to London, modeling
and acting in revues and cabarets to
support herself and her mother and
training to become a dental assistant.
In 1951, entranced by the actress’
distinguished bearing and elfin-like
innocence, the French writer Colette
cast Hepburn to star in the stage
production of her novel Gigi.
Hepburn starred opposite Gregory
Peck in her first American-made
movie, as a runaway princess in
Roman Holiday in 1953, one of many
stylish romantic comedies she would
make. She won an Oscar and a Golden
Globe for Best Actress.
That year, the Sabrina cast and crew
filmed at Kiluna Farm, the estate of
CBS creator William S. Paley. Once a
working farm, it is now the luxury
development Stone Hill Manhasset
off Shelter Rock Road.
In autumn of 1953 the Long Island Rail
Road’s Glen Cove station hosted real
royalty when Hepburn was filmed
and photographed there, “looking
devastatingly chic in her Givenchy
suit and hat,” according to VanityFair.
com. Formerly called Nassau station,
it was built in 1895 to provide a dignified
station for local millionaires such
as J.P. Morgan.
HUMAN KINDNESS
Audiences worldwide loved her and
she earned numerous awards. But at
heart she was the mother of two sons,
who described “being miserable”
when she was away from them. So in
1966, she walked away from acting to
stay home to raise her children.
She never forgot how UNICEF saved
her. In 1989, after her children were
grown, she was appointed UNICEF’s
Goodwill Ambassador. Advocating
for children’s rights, Hepburn visited
drought-ravaged villages and
met with members of Congress. Her
granddaughter Emma Kathleen Hepburn
Ferrer said her mother would
not just say hello to the children: “She
would really pick them up and cradle
them and kiss the mothers' hands.”
In her final film Hepburn appeared
in a cameo as a graceful, serene
angel in Steven Spielberg's Always.
She worked with UNICEF until 1993,
when she passed away from appendicular
cancer.
Audrey Hepburn and William Holden in Sabrina (1954).
“Sabrina cast and crew filmed at Kiluna Farm,
the estate of CBS creator William S. Paley. Once
a working farm, it is now the luxury development
Stone Hill Manhasset off Shelter Rock Road.”
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