REMEMBERING AUDREY HEPBURN

  At this moment I'm watching my favorite all-time actress in one of my favorite films - Audrey Hepburn in THE NUN'S STORY (1959).  In any other year, the film may have taken the Oscar for best picture, but it lost out to
the juggernaut, BEN-HUR which took home 11 Oscars that year.
  Hepburn, who won an Oscar for her first American film, ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953), should have won another for her portrayal of Sister Luke in THE NUN'S STORY, but she lost out to Simone Signoret (ROOM AT THE TOP).
  A mere teenager, I fell in love with Hepburn the first time I laid eyes on
her in ROMAN HOLIDAY.  Then there was SABRINA (1954) and she stole my heart again.  She followed that up with FUNNY FACE (1957), playing
opposite Fred Astaire who was old enough to be her father, but Hepburn
was often cast in films with actors much older than her.
  Her most famous role was as Holly Golightly in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (1961).  Oscar nominated again, she lost out that year to
Sophia Loren (TWO WOMEN).  Truman Capote, who wrote the short novel on which the film was based, was very vocal about his feelings that Hepburn was miscast as Holly but filmgoers didn't seem to mind.  The
film was one of the most successful films of that year. 
  In 1963 she starred opposite Cary Grant in CHARADE.  The following year Jack Warner (whose studio had the film rights) cast her instead of Julie Andrews to portray Eliza Doolittle in the film adaptation of the
smash Broadway hit, MY FAIR LADY. 
  Critics weren't kind to her when the film opened in 1964, citing her less than stellar cockney accent that she had to use before her transformation in the second half of the film.  I thought her cockney was perfectly adequate.  But what I remember most of all is the moment when Hepburn as Doolittle stands at the top of the stairs in a magnificent white empire gown before she leaves for the ball with Rex Harrison.
  I was a senior at GWU when the film opened at the Warner Theatre in
D.C. with 2 showings daily.  I skipped classes 5 days in a row to catch the 2pm matinee performance so I could sit in the dark and watch
Hepburn walk down the stairway and fantasize that I was accompanying
her to the ball.
  Her performance was overlooked by Academy members mostly out of
spite.  MY FAIR LADY won the Oscar for best picture; Rex Harrison took home the Oscar for best actor and George Cukor won for best director.
And guess who gave out the Oscar for best actress to Julie Andrews for her less than memorable performance in MARY POPPINS?
  Yup.  Audrey Hepburn.  Talk about class. 
  Three years later she was nominated again for best actress for her performance in WAIT UNTIL DARK (1967).  But I preferred her performance in another film (TWO FOR THE ROAD opposite Albert
Finney) she made that same year.
  The following year Hepburn announced she was going to take a
sabbatical from films and concentrate on raising her son (by Mel Ferrer).
She had a second son in 1971.
  In putting her film career on hold, we, her ardent fans, lost out on seeing her in the following films that she was offered to appear in:
GOODBYE, MR CHIPS (1969), NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA(1971),
THE EXORCIST (1973), ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)
and THE TURNING POINT (1968).  I would love to have seen her in the latter film which starred Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft.  She had the background since she studied dance and starred in the Broadway production of GIGI before she turned to Hollywood and film work.
(She also turned down the role of GIGI in the film version which starred
Leslie Caron (who was wonderful in the role).
  In 1988 Hepburn was appointed Special Ambassador to United Nations
UNICEF, travelling extensively throughout Latin America and Africa to help raise funds and awareness of the thousands of children living in poverty. 
  Her last film performance was a cameo in ALWAYS (1989).  She was diagnosed with Cancer in 1991 and died on January 23, 1993.  I remember the day vividly because I shed a lot of tears on hearing the news of her death.
  I adored Audrey Hepburn.  I often fantasized that I would meet her one day and tell her how much enjoyment she had given me thru the years in all her films.  It never happened but I did meet her son (by Mel Ferrer)
who was taking a meeting at Paramount (where I worked for 26 years)
in the mid 90s and was planning to make a documentary about his mother.  I waited in the lobby of the Administration Bldg. where Ferrer was meeting with one of the VPs and approached him as he was leaving the building.  I introduced myself and proceeded to tell him how much
I admired his mother, both as an actress and as a humanitarian.  He
seemed pleased and on leaving thanked me for my kind words and shook my hand.
  I almost burst into tears.  I'll never forget that moment and I will
always treasure the joy that Audrey Hepburn has given me through the
years.
  One of a kind.  They don't make them like her anymore.