A Tribute To Children Audrey Hepburn, In Town For A Fund-raiser, Tours Broward General.

FORT LAUDERDALE -- The gesture was so simple, yet elegant; so unexpected, yet natural; so Audrey Hepburn.

When all the cameras had turned away Wednesday, when people had stopped looking in her direction, Hepburn walked into the room of a sick grandmother in the hospice care unit at Broward General Medical Center and laid a bouquet of white lilies, tulips and roses on the table next to the sleeping woman`s bed.

The bouquet had been given to Hepburn as she toured the hospital moments earlier, but she wanted someone else to have it.

Those who know Hepburn, in town for Friday`s UNICEF production, A Tribute to the World`s Children, said the action is typical of the well-known actress and even better-known humanitarian.

``So often, with celebrities, there`s a public persona and a private persona,`` said Lawrence E. Bruce Jr., president of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF who recruited Hepburn as a Good Will Ambassador for the agency in 1988. ``With Audrey, what you see is what you get -- a caring, loving, gentle human being.``

Hepburn toured Broward General with an entourage of local volunteers, who devoted a year to planning Friday`s fund-raiser, because a yet-to-be built pediatric intensive care unit and the hospice care unit at the hospital will receive proceeds from the benefit. UNICEF will receive most of the proceeds, but 13 charities in Broward County have been promised 10 percent.

Visitors and hospital workers watched in awe as Hepburn toured the hospital, talking to people, shaking hands, hugging some and painting with children.

She sat at a small, round table with two little girls and a boy and helped them paint T-shirts. They didn`t know who she was. They`d never seen one of her most famous films, My Fair Lady. But before she left, they shouted, ``You`re special.``

In the neonatal intensive care unit, Hepburn was amazed as doctors showed her 1-pound newborns expected to live normal lives thanks to medical technology.

Not all children get that attention, Hepburn said, noting that 40,000 children die every day in the developing world from preventable illnesses and poverty.

The Brussels-born actress, 62, who grew up in Holland during the Nazi occupation, knows what it`s like to go hungry. She was undernourished, anemic and asthmatic as a child. But, she said, her house was full of life and love.

She said the hardest thing to accept in her UNICEF travels across the world is seeing ``a child whose eyes no longer reflect life and who can no longer give or accept affection`` because of the life that child has led.

Hepburn, who is paid $1 a year for her work with UNICEF, said this country doesn`t do as much as it should for children.

``This country needs to put children at the top of the priority list,`` she said. ``In good times and bad times and in times of campaigning.``

IF YOU GO

Tickets still are available for the fund-raising production of A Tribute to the World`s Children:

-- WHEN: 8 p.m. on Friday.

-- WHERE: Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

-- WHO: Performances by Audrey Hepburn, Liza Minnelli and 450 children from Broward, Palm Beach and Dade counties.

-- TICKETS: From $60 to $1,000. They will be available at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts box office until the show begins.

7 Things You Might Not Know About Audrey Hepburn

Though she’ll always be known as the little-black-dress-wearing big-screen incarnation of Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, there’s probably a lot you don’t know about Audrey Hepburn, who would have been 86 years old today.

1. HER FIRST ROLE WAS IN AN EDUCATIONAL FILM.

Though 1948’s Dutch in Seven Lessons is classified as a “documentary” on IMDb, it’s really more of an educational travel film, in which Hepburn appears as an airline attendant. If you don’t speak Dutch, it might not make a whole lot of sense to you, but you can watch it here.

2. GREGORY PECK WAS AFRAID SHE’D MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE A JERK.

Hepburn was an unknown actress when she was handed the starring role of Princess Ann opposite Gregory Peck in 1953’s Roman Holiday. As such, Peck was going to be the only star listed, with Hepburn relegated to a smaller font and an “introducing” credit. But Peck insisted, “You've got to change that because she'll be a big star and I'll look like a big jerk.” Hepburn ended up winning her first and only Oscar for the role (Peck wasn’t even nominated).

3. SHE’S AN EGOT.

In 1954, the same year she won the Oscar for Roman Holiday, Hepburn accepted a Tony Award for her title role in Ondine on Broadway. Hepburn is one of only 12 EGOTs, meaning that she has won all of the four major creative awards: an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Unfortunately, the honor came to Hepburn posthumously; her 1994 Grammy for the children’s album Audrey Hepburn’s Enchanted Tales and her 1993 Emmy for Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn were both awarded following her passing in early 1993.

4. TRUMAN CAPOTE HATED HER AS HOLLY GOLIGHTLY.

Blake Edwards’ Breakfast at Tiffany’s may be one of the most iconic films in Hollywood history, but it’s a miracle that the film ever got made at all. Particularly if you listened to Truman Capote, who wrote the novella upon which it was based, and saw only one actress in the lead: Marilyn Monroe. When asked what he thought was wrong with the film, which downplayed the more tawdry aspects of the fact that Ms. Golightly makes her living as a call girl (Hepburn had told the producers, “I can’t play a hooker”), Capote replied, “Oh, God, just everything. It was the most miscast film I’ve ever seen. It made me want to throw up.”

5. HOLLY GOLIGHTLY’S LITTLE BLACK DRESS SOLD FOR NEARLY $1 MILLION.

In 2006, Christie’s auctioned off the iconic Givenchy-designed little black dress that Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s for a whopping $923,187 (pre-auction numbers estimated that it would go for between $98,800 and $138,320). It was a record-setting amount at the time, until Marilyn Monroe’s white “subway dress” from The Seven Year Itch sold for $5.6 million in 2006.

6. SHE SANG “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” TO JFK IN 1963.

One year after Marilyn Monroe’s sultry birthday serenade to John F. Kennedy in 1962, Hepburn paid a musical tribute to the President at a private party in 1963, on what would be his final birthday.

7. THERE’S A RARE TULIP NAMED AFTER HER.

In 1990, a rare white tulip hybrid was named after the actress and humanitarian, and dedicated to her at her family’s former estate in Holland.

At UNICEF, The Spirit of Audrey Hepburn Lives On

Bronze Sculpture in Her Honour To Be Unveiled May 7th in Star-Studded Celebration

NEW YORK, 1 May 2002 - Audrey Hepburn, the beloved actress whose second career as a global ambassador for UNICEF brought joy to hundreds of thousands of children, will be celebrated with the unveiling of a major new sculpture in the public plaza adjacent to UNICEF headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

In September 1992 in Somalia, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Audrey Hepburn sits amidst some of the 300 children being cared for by Help the Orphans and Blind, a UNICEF-assisted local NGO.

The unveiling, on 7 May, takes place on the eve of a three-day global summit on children at the United Nations. Several UNICEF celebrities will actively participate in the May 8-10 UN General Assembly Special Session on Children. A follow-up to the 1990 World Summit for Children, the meeting will review progress made for young people in the last decade and recommit countries to concrete action for improving the lives of children. The conference embodies UNICEF's position that investing in children is essential to overcoming poverty - an ideal Ms. Hepburn was deeply committed to.

The seven-foot tall bronze sculpture honouring Ms. Hepburn, entitled The Spirit of Audrey, seeks to convey the unique bond between an adult and a child.

The unveiling will feature many of the extraordinary celebrities who have followed in Ms. Hepburn's footsteps as special representatives of UNICEF around the world. Actor Roger Moore will serve as Master of Ceremonies; singer Harry Belafonte will unveil the statue; the stars Mia Farrow and Isabella Rossellini will be present, and Nane Annan, wife of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, will be a featured speaker.

Ms. Hepburn served as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador from 1988 until her death in 1993.

The sculpture is the creation of renowned artist and sculptor John Kennedy. He was commissioned by Ms. Hepburn's long-time companion, Robert Wolders, who donated the work to UNICEF.

"All of us who loved Audrey are thrilled that this beautiful piece of art will be on permanent display in New York City, a place she cherished, and particularly that its home will be outside UNICEF, the organization to which she devoted so much of her energy and compassion," Mr. Wolders said. "Audrey personified the spirit of UNICEF, and we hope those who see this statue will be inspired by her efforts on behalf of children."

A Tradition of Goodwill

"This ceremony and this beautiful gift give us an opportunity to remember Audrey Hepburn's wonderful way with children, and the commitment she brought to the cause," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. "She had a great career as an actress, but I think she will be remembered just as much as a humanitarian," Bellamy said. "And that's the beauty of her years with UNICEF: She was an inspiration, she brought enormous world attention to children, she raised the profile of the challenges they face. That's a legacy that lives on in the wonderful ambassadors that UNICEF now has the honour of working with."

Mr. Kennedy's interpretative portrait of Ms. Hepburn reflects the sculptor's lyrical style, which Mr. Wolders said "is particularly well-suited for expressing Ms. Hepburn's grace and gentle nature."

The Spirit of Audrey was originally set to be unveiled last October, but the ceremony was postponed after the September 11 attacks. It is now scheduled for Tuesday, May 7th at 6:30 pm, on the eve of UN General Assembly Special Session on Children. The conference will draw an estimated 70 heads of state or government and 170 national delegations in an international commitment to improving the health, education and protection of children.

UNICEF has a long tradition of working with internationally known personalities, starting with Danny Kaye in the 1950s. They have raised awareness of the many pressing issues concerning children through their media interviews, personal connections and participation in high-profile campaigns. UNICEF works with 17 international and more than 100 national and regional ambassadors.

The role of these representatives has evolved over the years. For example, the latest appointment is renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado, who uses his photography to help UNICEF's advocacy efforts.

Many representatives have become specialists on specific subjects, such as Roger Moore on iodine deficiency disorder, Harry Belafonte on HIV/AIDS and Mia Farrow on polio.

The 'Spirit of Audrey' will be unveiled at a ceremony on May 7 from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm, at UNICEF House, 3 UN Plaza, New York City (44th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue).

Audrey Hepburn Teaches Economics

If only the men who write our musicals would write our labor laws. Not only would they be more entertaining, they would likely be more practical.

Take Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady.” In her role as Eliza Doolittle, she not only turned in a wonderful performance but also delivered a lesson about upward mobility that is particularly timely today in light of the latest war of modern progressivism: on nail salons.

It started, as these things often do, with a two-part exposé in the New York Times, one focusing on the lousy pay and the other on the health threats. This provoked howls of outrage, and was in turn followed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo invoking “emergency measures,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) citing federal legislation on product safety she’s introduced and of course New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio presiding over a “day of action.” The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute declares nail salon abuses a function of “national policy failures.”

Enter Audrey Hepburn. In her opening scene, her Eliza Doolittle is selling flowers on the street when she realizes someone is taking down every word she says. She confronts him, insisting she’s a “respectable girl” who is doing nothing illegal. It turns out the man—played by Rex Harrison—isn’t a copper but a professor of phonetics.

In the discussion that follows, Professor Higgins notes that it is Eliza’s “curbstone English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days.” He boasts that with a few months under his instruction, she could get a job “as a lady’s maid or a shop’s assistant.”

The next morning, Eliza appears at Professor Higgins’s doorstep to hire him to teach her English because she wants to be “a lady in a flow’r shop, ’stead of sellin’ at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.” He accepts.

Note the assumptions. Eliza didn’t place her hope in new regulations for street-side flower mongering. For Eliza, upward mobility was about acquiring the skills she needed to get ahead, in this case proper English and the manners that went with it.

How different this is to the approach to nail salons now being worked out in New York and Washington. Like so many other bursts of progressive passion, chances are that while their bid for more government will make the pols and activists feel better about themselves, it will do little to improve the lives of these women.

That’s because most of what they propose does nothing to resolve the fundamental issues the Times rightly identifies as making these women workers vulnerable to abusive bosses: They don’t speak English, they don’t have skills, and about a quarter of them are here illegally. All this greatly limits their job opportunities.

To put it another way, will a crackdown on licensing really help women who will need to complete the 250 hours of study for a New York state license? What about closing down the salon of a rotten employer because he doesn’t pay the women sick leave?

In a 2001 column, no less than Paul Krugman noted a similar case of good intentions that had terrible unintended consequences, citing a bill proposed in the 1990s by Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) to outlaw child labor in products made overseas. The threat of the legislation succeeded in the sense that some companies in Bangladesh stopped hiring children.

But Mr. Krugman noted that follow-up research by Oxfam found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets—and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.

Whether by minimum-wage boosts that make them more expensive to hire, licensing requirements that make it more difficult to get a job, or other forms of regulation that will likely mean fewer nail salons and fewer jobs, it’s not hard to imagine displaced nail salon workers in America driven more deeply down into the black market, or into something worse, such as prostitution.

By contrast, wouldn’t a simple guest worker program help those here illegally more than a higher minimum wage? Likewise, wouldn’t a concerted effort that helped these women learn English do more for their opportunities in life than enforcing paid sick leave? Come to think of it, wouldn’t a rapidly growing economy creating jobs give them more avenues of escape from an abusive boss than piling more regulations onto an already sluggish economy?

In the end, the only real leverage a worker has over a boss is her ability to tell him where to get off—secure in the knowledge that she has other opportunities. Which is exactly what Eliza Doolittle does at the end, when she’s acquired the English and manners that mean she no longer has to put up with the bullying of Professor Henry Higgins.

Audrey Hepburn born

On this day in 1929, Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston–who will one day be better known to legions of film fans as Audrey Hepburn–is born near Brussels, Belgium.

The daughter of an English banker and a Dutch baroness, Hepburn was attending school in London when World War II erupted in Europe. During the war, the Nazis occupied Holland, where the young Audrey and her mother were staying, and the family suffered many hardships. Hepburn continued to pursue her ballet studies, and at war’s end, she returned to London, where she modeled and began acting in small parts on stage and screen. In 1951, Hepburn was “discovered” by the French writer Colette while in Monaco shooting a film. Colette insisted Hepburn be cast in the title role of the Broadway version of her novel Gigi, and the young actress made her Broadway debut that same year.

Hepburn’s success in Gigi led directly to her being cast as the lead in the 1953 filmRoman Holiday. For her portrayal of a headstrong young princess who falls in love with a journalist (played by Gregory Peck) while on the loose in Rome, Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She won a Tony Award for Best Actress the same year, for her starring turn in Ondine. Over the next decade, Hepburn proved herself more than a match for Hollywood’s top leading men in such hits asSabrina (1954, with William Holden and Humphrey Bogart), Funny Face (1957, with Fred Astaire) and Love in the Afternoon (1957, with Gary Cooper).

As the inimitable Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Hepburn earned her fourth Oscar nod for Best Actress (she was also nominated for Sabrina and 1959’s A Nun’s Story). She sparked a controversy when she was picked to star as Eliza Doolittle in the film version of the musical My Fair Lady (1964), beating out Julie Andrews, who had originated the role on Broadway. Three years later, Hepburn scored a fifth Academy Award nomination for Wait Until Dark, a film that was produced by her then-husband, Mel Ferrer (they married in 1954). She left full-time acting shortly thereafter (though she would continue to appear sporadically in movies, notably as Maid Marian opposite Sean Connery’s Robin Hood in 1976’s Robin and Marian) and spent most of her time at her home in Switzerland. Hepburn and Ferrer, who had two sons, divorced in 1968, and Hepburn married Andrea Dotti, an Italian psychiatrist, the following year; they had one son together. After divorcing Dotti, Hepburn began a relationship with Robert Wolders, a Dutch actor, in 1980.

In her semi-retirement from acting, Hepburn devoted most of her energy to charitable causes, most notably UNICEF, the United Nation’s children’s fund, for which she was named a special ambassador in 1988. Hepburn’s field trips for UNICEF took her around the globe, from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador, to Turkey, Thailand, Bangladesh and Sudan. She was also an eloquent public voice for the organization, helping to raise money and awareness for its work by speaking before the U.S. Congress, among other venues. In 1992, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Hepburn made her final film appearance in Steven Spielberg’s film Always (1989), in which she played an angel. In 1992, shortly after returning from a UNICEF trip to Somalia, Hepburn was diagnosed with colon cancer. After undergoing surgery that November, she died on January 20, 1993, at her home near Lausanne, Switzerland, at the age of 63.

Audrey Hepburn Biography

Actress Audrey Hepburn, star of Breakfast at Tiffany's, remains one of Hollywood's greatest style icons and one of the world's most successful actresses.

IN THESE GROUPS

• FAMOUS EMMY WINNERS
• FAMOUS GRAMMY WINNERS
• FAMOUS PEOPLE BORN ON MAY 4
• FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO DIED IN 1993

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QUOTES

“I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it.”

—Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn - Mini Biography (TV-PG; 03:21) Audrey Hepburn won an Oscar for her performance in "Roman Holiday" and starred as the iconic Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Later in her life, she focused less on her film career and more on humanitarian work.

Synopsis

Actress, fashion icon, and philanthropist Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929, in Brussels, Belgium. At age 22, she starred in the Broadway production of Gigi. Two years later, she starred in the film Roman Holiday(1953) with Gregory Peck. In 1961, she set new fashion standards as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Hepburn is one of the few actresses to win an Emmy, Tony, Grammy, and Academy Award. In her later years, acting took a back seat to her work on behalf of children.

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Background

Born on May 4, 1929, in Brussels, Belgium, Audrey Hepburn was a talented performer known for her beauty, elegance and grace. Often imitated, she remains one of Hollywood's greatest style icons. A native of Brussels, Hepburn spent part of her youth in England at a boarding school there. During much of World War II, she studied at the Arnhem Conservatory in The Netherlands. After the Nazis invaded the country, Hepburn and her mother struggled to survive. She reportedly helped the resistance movement by delivering messages, according to an article in The New York Times.

After the war, Hepburn continued to pursue an interest in dance. She studied ballet in Amsterdam and later in London. In 1948, Hepburn made her stage debut as a chorus girl in the musical High Button Shoes in London. More small parts on the British stage followed. She was a chorus girl in Sauce Tartare (1949), but was moved to a featured player in Sauce Piquante (1950).

That same year, Hepburn made her feature film debut in 1951's One Wild Oat, in an uncredited role. She went on to parts in such films as Young Wives' Tales (1951) and The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), starring Alec Guiness. Her next project on the New York stage introduced her to American audiences.

On Broadway

At the age of 22, Audrey Hepburn went to New York to star in the Broadway production of Gigi, based on the book by the French writer Colette. Set in Paris around 1900, the comedy focuses on the title character, a young teenage girl on the brink of adulthood. Her relatives try to teach her ways of being a courtesan, to enjoy the benefits of being with a wealthy man without having to marry. They try to get a friend of the family, Gaston, to become her patron, but the young couple has other ideas.

Only a few weeks after the play premiered, news reports indicated that Hepburn was being wooed by Hollywood. Only two years later, she took the world by storm in the film Roman Holiday (1953) with Gregory Peck. Audiences and critics alike were wowed by her portrayal of Princess Ann, the royal who escapes the constrictions of her title for a short time. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this performance.

The next year Hepburn returned to the Broadway stage to star in Ondine with Mel Ferrer. A fantasy, the play told the story of a water nymph who falls in love with a human played by Ferrer. With her lithe and lean frame, Hepburn made a convincing sprite in this sad story about love found and lost. She won the 1954 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance. While the leading characters in the play grew apart, the actors found themselves becoming closer. The two also made a dynamic pair off stage and Hepburn and Ferrer got married on September 25, 1954, in Switzerland.

Film Star

Back on the big screen, Hepburn made another award worthy performance inSabrina (1954) as the title character, the daughter of a wealthy family's driver. Sabrina returned home after spending time in Paris as a beautiful and sophisticated woman. The family's two sons, Linus and David, played by Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, never paid her much mind until her transformation. Pursuing her onetime crush David, Sabrina unexpectedly found happiness with his older brother Linus. Hepburn earned her an Academy Award nomination for her work on this bittersweet romantic comedy.

Showcasing her dancing abilities, Hepburn starred opposite Fred Astaire in the musical Funny Face (1957). This film featured Hepburn undergoing another transformation. This time, she played a beatnik bookstore clerk who gets discovered by a fashion photographer played by Astaire. Lured by a free trip to Paris, the clerk becomes a beautiful model. Hepburn’s clothes for the film were designed by Hubert de Givenchy, one of her close friends.

Stepping away from lighthearted fare, Hepburn co-starred in the film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace with her husband, Mel Ferrer, and Henry Fonda in 1956. Three years later, she played Sister Luke in The Nun's Story (1959), which earned her an Academy Award nomination. The film focused on her character's struggle to succeed as a nun. A review in Variety said "Audrey Hepburn has her most demanding film role, and she gives her finest performance." Following that stellar performance, she went on to star in the John Huston-directed western The Unforgiven (1960) with Burt Lancaster. That same year, her first child, a son named Sean, was born.

Returning to her glamorous roots, Hepburn set new fashion standards as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), which was based on a novella by Truman Capote. She played a seemingly lighthearted, but ultimately troubled New York City party girl who gets involved with a struggling writer played by George Peppard. Hepburn received her fourth Academy Award nomination for her work on the film.

Later Work

For the rest of the 1960s, Hepburn took on a variety of roles. She starred with Cary Grant in the romantic thriller Charade (1963). Playing the lead in the film version of the popular musical My Fair Lady (1964), she went through one of the most famous metamorphoses of all time. As Eliza Doolittle, she played an English flower girl who becomes a high society lady. Taking on more dramatic fare, she starred a blind woman in the suspenseful tale Wait Until Dark (1967) opposite Alan Arkin. Her character used her wits to overcome the criminals that were harassing her. This film brought her a fifth Academy Award nomination. That same year, Hepburn and her husband separated and later divorced. She married Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969, and the couple had a son, Luca, in 1970.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Hepburn worked sporadically. She starred opposite Sean Connery in Robin and Marian (1976), a look at the central figures of the Robin Hood saga in their later years. In 1979, Hepburn co-starred with Ben Gazzara in the crime thriller Bloodline. Hepburn and Gazzara teamed up again for the 1981 comedy They All Laughed, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Her last screen role was in Always (1989) directed by Steven Spielberg.

Legacy

In her later years, acting took a back seat to her work on behalf of children. She became a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF in the late 1980s. Traveling the world, Hepburn tried to raise awareness about children in need. She understood too well what it was like to go hungry from her days in The Netherlands during the German Occupation. Making more than 50 trips, Hepburn visited UNICEF projects in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. She won a special Academy Award for her humanitarian work in 1993, but she did not live long enough to receive it. Hepburn died on January 20, 1993, at her home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland after a battle with colon cancer.

Her work to help children around the world continues. Her sons, Sean Ferrer and Luca Dotti, along with her companion Robert Wolders, established the Audrey Hepburn Memorial Fund to continue Hepburn's humanitarian work in 1994. It is now known as the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund.