Title: Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Kathleen Hepburn-Ruston or as we all know her as Audrey Hepburn was born on 4th May 1929 in Brussels. She was the only child of Victor HepburnRuston and Ella van Heemstra. She has two half-brothers by her mothers first marriage to a Dutch nobleman. Audrey Hepburn is famous for having the reputation of being humble, kind and charming. Throughout her life, she lived by the philosophy of putting others before herself.

During her childhood, she attended private schools in England and Netherland. In 1935, her parents got divorced so she lived with her mother during the World War II in Netherlands. At that time, Netherland was invaded by German, so life was hard for her and her mother. During the Dutch famine over the winter of 1944, Audrey was suffering from malnutrition because of the limited stock of foods. She also developed acute anaemia because of the malnutrition. In order to survive, Audrey danced ballet to collect money to buy foods and she had to eat tulip bulbs.

After the war, Ella Van Heemstra brought her daughter to London. There, Audrey studied ballet and worked as a model. She worked because she didnt want her mother to work menial jobs to support them. Audrey won critical acclaim for her talent in acting and ballet ability. Her talent was noticed by a film director and in 1951, she was taken as a support actress and from there, Audreys kept rising.

Audreys first significant film role was in 1952 where she acted as a prodigious ballerina in The secret people. Audrey stunned many other film directors and big movie stars that she was taken to star the film Roman Holiday in 1953. The

movie was acclaimed by Audrey Hepburn as her dearest film because its the movie that made her famous. In 1959, she acted in the movie war and peace and won a golden-globe award. Audrey is also well-known for her character in My Fair Lady in which she played as Eliza Doolittle which was released in 1964 and Breakfast at Tiffanys in 1961 where she acted as Holly Golightly.

In the early 1950s, Audrey was engaged to James Hanson but later decided that the marriage wont work. She did marry, twice. She married Mel Ferrer on 25th of September 1954 and had a son called Sean. After 14 years of marriage with Ferrer, they got divorced Audrey found out that her husband had a mistress. On 18th January 1959, Audrey got married again with an Italian psychologist, Andrea Dotti. They also had a son called Luca. However, they split up after 13 years of marriage because it turned out that Dotti had affairs with younger women. At the time of Audreys death, she had a companion named Robert Walders. They did not get married but they have lived together for 9 years and Audrey said that those was the happiest years of her life and took her long enough to find it.

After her final film role, she was appointed as special ambassador to UNICEF. She dedicated herself to spread awareness of the conditions in Africa and South Asia. Audrey worked tirelessly for UNICEF and other various causes in Africa and also South Asian countries. In 1992, she was presented with the presidential medal of freedom by President George Bush and also rewarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award.

In late 1992, Audrey started to felt pains in her stomach which turned out to be a cancer in her appendix. She did have surgery to remove her appendix but the cancer had already spread and she refused chemotheraphy. On 20th January 1993, Audrey died of colorectal cancer in Tolechenaz, Vaud at the age of 63 and she was interred there.

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