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 ... (read more )