The Audrey Hepburn look is admired today just as much as when the young star first stepped into her first big stage role as Gigi, with her cropped hair, perfect features, huge eyes and tall slim figure. Following the war years, when the young teenage girl lived precariously with her mother in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, Hepburn came to England to train as a ballet dancer and was spotted by the French novelist Colette, who was writing a stage version of her best-selling novel Gigi. Audrey knew her own style even before she turned 20, and would remain faithful to that image, even in her later years when she had given up acting and dedicated her life to UNICEF and the plight of dispossessed children. Once she became a star, Hepburn imposed a contractual clause on her Hollywood producers that allowed her to choose her own wardrobe. The designer Hubert Givenchy, who became a friend, had an unerring understanding of the looks that would dazzle the public, yet allowed Audrey's personality to shine through. In the 1950s Hepburn's mixture of sophistication and naiveté was in contrast to the seductive sirens of the era, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. When Audrey arrived in Hollywood, she caught the eye of celebrity photographer Richard Avedon, who created the ubiquitous hand-on-chin pose. Audrey with a neckerchief riding her Vespa became an iconic image of Roman Holiday with Gregeory Peck, a role which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1954. Around this time Audrey met her first husband, Mel Ferrer. Both of Hepburn's husbands were unfaithful playboys, but she kept her private life well away from the gossip columns. The film Sabrina saw her starring with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, and this above all was the film that made the public want to look like Hepburn. Funny Face, The Nun's Story and Breakfast at Tiffany's catapulted her to even greater heights, and the photos in this book are a cavalcade of elegance, including gorgeous studies of Hepburn in My Fair Lady by the photographer Cecil Beaton. 23.4 x 27.5cm, 224pp, photos on every double spread in black and white and colour.
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