Audrey Hepburn Biography and Profile

Biography

Nama : Audrey Hepburn
Birth Name : Audrey Kathleen Ruston
Birth Date : 05/04/1929
Birth Place : Brussels, Belgium
Height : 5' 7"
Sex : F
Nationality : Belgian
Occupation : Actress
Father : Joseph Anthony Ruston
Mother : Ella van Heemstra
Spouse : Mel Ferrer (actor, Sept 25, 1954 - Dec 5, 1968), Dr. Andrea Dotti (psychiatrist, Jan 18, 1969 - 1982)
Relation : Albert Finney (actor), William Holden (actor), Ben Gazzara (actor), James Hanson (engaged), Robert Wolders (actor, 1980-1993)
Claim Fame : As Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961)

Audrey Hepburn (May 4, 1929 - January 20, 1993) was a Belgian-born actress. Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston in Brussels she was the daughter of Joseph Anthony Ruston, a British banker, and Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch aristocrat descended from French and English kings. Her father appended the name Hepburn to his surname, and Audrey became Audrey Hepburn-Ruston at the same time. She had two half-brothers, Alexander, and Ian Quarles van Ufford, by her mother's first marriage to a Dutch nobleman.

After the war, Hepburn and her mother moved to London where she studied ballet, worked as a model, and in 1951 began acting in films, mostly in minor or supporting roles; her first major performance was in the 1951 film The Secret People. After being chosen to play the lead character in the Broadway play Gigi (opened on November 24, 1951), and after a successful six-month run in New York, she was offered a starring role in the Hollywood motion picture Roman Holiday, co-starring Gregory Peck. For her performance in this movie she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and over her illustrious career she would be nominated for best actress four more times. In the film Funny Face, Hepburn's mother appeared as the patron of a sidewalk caf�. Her performance as Holly Golightly in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's resulted in the creation of one of the most iconic characters in 20th Century American cinema. Having become one of Hollywood's most popular box-office attractions, Hepburn co-starred with other major actors
such as Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, Peter O'Toole, and Sean Connery.

From 1967 onward, after fifteen highly successful years in film, Hepburn acted only occasionally and her last role was filmed in 1988 just before she was appointed a special ambassador to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Grateful for her own good fortune after being a victim of Nazi atrocities as a child, she dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished children in the world's poorest nations. In 1992, President George Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work with UNICEF. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded her The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contribution to humanity, and her son accepted the award shortly after her death. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1652 Vine Street.

Hepburn married twice, to actor Mel Ferrer and to Italian doctor Andrea Dotti, and had two sons. At the time of her death she was the companion of Robert Wolders, a Dutch actor who was the widower of film star Merle Oberon. Hepburn died of colon cancer on January 20, 1993, in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland at the age of 63, and was interred there.