Audrey Hepburn is unquestionably one of the most influential women in pop culture and the world. With her effortless style and elegant demeanour, she is said to have the ability to charm a snake for she was the definition of grace. The scale of her impact branches out to the world of fashion, beauty as well as Hollywood.
Audrey Hepburn was born in Brussels, Belgium on the 4th of May in 1929. She had the ability to speak six languages, and that included English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Audrey Hepburn was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend in Golden Age Hollywood, and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame due to her classy and unique style that influenced many.
The world currently knows her for her iconic roles in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Roman Holiday or Sabrina, but that was not how Audrey Hepburn initially started. She first started as a volunteer nurse in a Dutch hospital during the WWII at the age of sixteen. Hepburn's original dream was to become a prima-ballerina and pursued it by training hard in different ballet schools. Despite that, she suffered from malnutrition and depression from her time in the war and ended up being incapable for her ambition. Later on, Hepburn started modelling to make a living for herself and also debuted in High Button Shoes as a chorus girl. Soon enough, she began to play a few small roles in movies like Wild Oat and Young Wives' Tale. Eventually, she was recognised for her talents and passion in her roles and was invited to join her first Broadway Musical, Gigi.
Throughout her life, Audrey Hepburn has always been humble, no matter what position she was in. Her most astounding roles in legendary films such as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Roman Holiday deemed her a Hollywood luminary and even landed her an Oscar for best actress in 1954. Despite that, she was still modest in front of others and kept striving for bigger things. Aside from humble, she was extremely compassionate and strong. Having suffered miscarriages, she used her grief to discover her love for children and subsequently drove her to be engaged with humanitarian work and started working with UNICEF. During this time, Hepburn was less involved with films and began rejecting scripts so she can focus more on her work with UNICEF. From 1988 to 1993, she spent time with Dutch actor Robert Wolders who was her accompaniment for her mission trips, and claimed those years to be some of the happiest years of her life. Unfortunately, she discovered she had colon cancer after returning from her trip to Somalia and passed away in the early part of 1993.
Audrey Hepburn is seen as a timeless beauty icon by people around the world but she herself has never thought much when she looked into the mirror. Everyone has insecurities, and that included Hepburn herself. Her height as well as body disabled her from pursuing her dreams of becoming a prima-ballerina, yet that opened up opportunities for her and allowed her to express herself in new and different ways.
Hepburn once said: “For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode, but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives and the passion that she shows.” Anastasia Sufian