Audrey Hepburn is one of the most iconic women ever to grace the silver screen and one of the best actresses ever produced by this country.As well as an Academy Award winning actress she was a style and fashion icon and a dedicated humanitarian.Born in 1929 she was the only child of Englishman Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston and Dutch aristocrat Baroness Ella van Heemstra.Between 1935 and 1938 the young Audrey attended a boarding school in Kent until her mother moved her to Arnhern in the Netherlands, after her parents divorced, because she thought the Netherlands would be safe from a German invasion.Audrey studied at the Arnhern Conservatory between 1939 and 1945 where she trained as a ballerina.When the Germans invaded the Netherlands she adopted a new name Edde van Heemstra, as her English sounding name was thought to be too dangerous.
After the war Audrey moved to Amsterdam to continue her ballet studies before moving on to London to have lessons with renowned dancer Marie Rambert.
But because of her height and her malnutrition due to the war Audrey Hepburn could not be a prima ballerina as she had dreamed.
Instead of dancing she decided to pursue an acting career.
Her first acting role was in an educational film Dutch in Seven Lessons were she was a stewardess. She went on to appear in a string of musical theatre shows including High Button Shoes and Sauce Pinquante.
She then landed several minor movie roles including The Lavender Hill Mob, Monte Carlo Baby and Secret People.
Her breakthrough role came in 1953 alongside Gregory Peck in the romantic comedy Roman Holiday.
Hepburn played Princess Ann who was on a well publicised tour of European capitals. While in Rome she leaves the security of her country's embassy to experience Rome on her own.
Whilst out and about in the city she meets American reporter Joe Bradley (Peck) and over the course of her stay in Rome they explore the city.
Audrey's debut performance received critical acclaim and Gregory Peck predicted that she would win the Academy Award. He was to be right when she picked up the Oscar for Best Actress in 1953.
After the success of Roman Holiday Hepburn was given a seven picture deal with Paramount.
She went on to star in Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, with whom she became romantically involved, before returning to the stage in the production of Ondine, for which she won a Tony Award.
She became one of the box office's biggest attractions starring in Funny Face, Charade, Paris When It Sizzles and War and Peace working with some of Hollywood's biggest names including Henry Fonda, Fred Astaire and Cary Grant.
By the mid fifties to the early sixties she had also become a fashion icon with her elfin appearance and chic style being imitated worldwide as she became the life long friend of Hubert de Givenchy.
In 1961 she took on her most recognised role as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
The film follows Holly, a young woman who is constantly on the run from herself until she meets her new neighbour Paul Varjak (George Peppard) and romance blossoms.
Audrey received her fourth Oscar nomination for the role after Roman Holiday, Sabrina and Nun's Story.
But her most controversial role came in 1964 when she was the surprise choice for the lead role in My Fair Lady, with many expecting the part of Eliza Doolittle to go to Julie Andrews, who had played her on Broadway.
Despite recording all the singing vocals that the role required a professional singing double Marni Nixon was used instead.
More controversy followed when Hepburn was not nominated for an Academy Award for her role, while Julie Andrews was for Mary Poppins.
The press speculated that there was animosity between the two women, rumours that both the actresses denied. Julie Andrews went on to win the award.
Audrey's final Oscar nomination came in 1967 for Wait Until Dark and her final film appearance came in 1988 in Stephen Spielberg's Always.
Soon after completing her final film role she became a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and for the rest of her life she dedicated herself to helping underprivileged children in the poorest countries in the world.
Her work took her to central and southern America, Somalia and Bangladesh. President George Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 in recognition for her humanitarian work.
But in that same year she was diagnosed with abdominal cancer which had spread from her appendix. After two operations doctors discovered that it had spread too far to be removed.
Audrey Hepburn died January 20, 1993 in Switzerland aged sixty three.
Now fifteen years after her death she is still a much celebrated actress whose movie are often counted as classics and the actress herself is quite often called one of the world's most beautiful women.
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