Trivia of Audrey Hepburn

Trivia of Audrey Hepburn

*During the battle of Arnhem, 16-year-old Audrey was a volunteer nurse in a Dutch hospital. The hospital received many wounded Allied soldiers, one of whom young Audrey helped nurse back to health was a young British paratrooper - and future director - named Terence Young. More than 20 years later, Young directed Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (1967).

*Was fluent in English, Dutch, Spanish, French, and Italian. She was raised bilingually; speaking English and Dutch (resulting in her unique accent). Throughout her life, she used multilingualism to great advantage with international press in both her careers as an actress and humanitarian.

*Henry Mancini said of her: "'Moon River' was written for her. No one else had ever understood it so completely. There have been more than a thousand versions of 'Moon River', but hers is inquestionably the greatest".

*Truman Capote famously hated her as Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany's).Blake Edwards’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s may be one of the most iconic films in Hollywood history, but it’s a miracle that the film ever got made at all. Particularly if you listened to Truman Capote, who wrote the novella upon which it was based, and saw only one actress in the lead: Marilyn Monroe. When asked what he thought was wrong with the film, which downplayed the more tawdry aspects of the fact that Ms. Golightly makes her living as a call girl (Hepburn had told the producers, “I can’t play a hooker”), Capote replied, “Oh, God, just everything. It was the most miscast film I’ve ever seen. It made me want to throw up.”

*One year after Monroe’s sultry birthday serenade to John F. Kennedy in 1962, Hepburn paid a musical tribute to the president at a private party in 1963, on what would be his final birthday.

*She's a member of the EGOT club. One of 14 people in the world, she's won an Emmy (hosting Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn), a Grammy (spoken word album Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales), an Oscar (best actress in Roman Holiday), and a Tony (best actress in Ondine).

*Art was one of her longtime hobbies, she drew pictures of stories when she was a child to distract herself from chronic hunger pains during WWII. As an adult, she took up painting to pass time while pregnant with her son, Luca. Samples of her work can be seen in the book "Audrey Hepburn: An Elegant Spirit".