by Kim Everett

Created on: September 17, 2008

Audrey Hepburn, the American Film Institute's third ranked actress of all time, was born May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium. She began life as Audrey Kathleen Ruston and was the only child of Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston and former Baroness Ella Van Heemstra. Hepburn was the surname of her father's maternal grandmother.

Hepburn studied ballet early in life, but after the Germans invaded The Netherlands in 1940, her life was filled with tragedy and horror. She saw family members killed, and she witnessed Jews being taken away to death camps. She also endured famine and malnutrition. She often danced to raise money for the Dutch Resistance.

When the war was over, she continued to study ballet, but would never become a prima ballerina because of poor nutrition during the war, along with the fact that she had grown too tall. She began to pursue a career in acting when she realized that her dance career was coming to an end.

Her first feature film role was in "One Wild Oat," and she had minor roles in several other films. It was while filming one of those, "Monte Carlo Baby," that she was recruited for the Broadway production of "Gigi." Hepburn's first American film role was in "Roman Holiday" with Gregory Peck, who insisted that she be given top billing. She won an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her performance. She would go on to star in classics like "Sabrina," "Funny Face," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "My Fair Lady," and "Charade" with a list of leading men including film greats Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Cary Grant, and Humphrey Bogart.

Hepburn married Mel Ferrer in 1954, and they had one son, Sean. She met Ferrer at a party hosted by her good friend, Gregory Peck. Ferrer was rumored to have a bad temper and a controlling personality, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1968. In 1969, she married psychiatrist Andrea Dotti with whom she also had a son, Luca. He reportedly had several affairs with younger women, and that marriage also ended in divorce. For the last years of her life, she enjoyed a close relationship with Robert Wolders and said that her years with him had been the happiest of her life.

As important as her film career was, her role as Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, an organization for which she traveled all over the world to fight hunger and poverty, was closest to her heart. She regarded this work as her most meaningful, and was tireless in her efforts. None of her many acting awards could ever have been as rewarding as her work as a humanitarian.

Hepburn won many awards over the years and is on a very short list of individuals to win all the major awards, an Academy Award, Grammy Award, Emmy Award, and Tony Award. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992.

She was a woman of true substance who possessed not only a gift for acting, but a warm and generous heart to help others. She was arguably one of the most beautiful women of all time, but instead of being pretentious, she had an endearing practicality about her. Cancer claimed her life in 1993 at the early age of 63, but she will be remembered forever.

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