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.
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