Audrey Hepburn, one of the Hollywood greats, Oscar-winner renowned for Roman Holiday, Funny Face and My Fair Lady, a film and fashion icon, is the subject of her son’s full biography of her, three decades after her death.
Elegant, beautiful, delicate, she radiated charm and vulnerability, though her life story was anything but cossetted. Intimate Audrey was co-written with former war correspondent Wendy Holden, since as her son said “My mother’s life begins with war and ends with war.”
She was born 4 May 1929 3am Ixelles, Belgium, with an aristocratic Dutch mother and a British father, both Hitler supporters, and was pulled out of a UK school when war broke out to live in the Netherlands. She and her family endured bombing raids and malnutrition. They subsisted on stale turnips and bread baked from tulip-bulb flour for long periods during the Nazi blockade; she witnessed endless acts of violence and saw Jews rounded up and taken away to the camps. While only a teenager, she performed dance recitals to raise funds for those in hiding and carried messages for the resistance. Her upright posture was a result of ballet lessons but also of a piece of shrapnel that landed in her neck during an air raid and permanently restricted her movement.
In later life she became a Unicef goodwill ambassador in the 1980s and 90s: missions to Ethiopia, Venezuela and Vietnam and was in Somalia surrounded by starving children four months before her death from cancer in 1993.
Fame came early in her twenties when she was discovered by the author Collette and appeared in her Broadway production of Gigi. Thence on to Roman Holiday for which she won an Oscar and the best leading actress Tony for Ondine, all at 24.
Her marital life was complicated, first with writer-producer Mel Ferrer, who was known to be controlling and was married five times in all. Then with Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti who was “unreliable” (= unfaithful) and later the Dutch actor Robert Wolders, “adorable but a doormat”.
For one so dainty, partly the result of her wartime starvation she was a Sun Jupiter North Node in Taurus; with a charismatic 5th house Pluto conjunct Mars on the cusp of the hard-working 6th. Her Pluto was square Uranus, indicative of a generation who lived through considerable turmoil. Her dutiful 10th house Saturn in Capricorn was on the apex of a yod inconjunct Mars sextile Mercury hinting at a life requiring maturity and perseverance. Her Neptune on the Descendant would attract her to partners who were uncommitted or evasive in some way; and her Sun/Moon midpoint was conjunct her Uranus which equally would make for revolving doors on the partnership front.
When the Second World War broke out tr Uranus was exactly conjunct her Taurus North Node and conjunct her Solar Arc Sun for probably the defining moment of her life; with tr Pluto moving into her 6th house of health. As peace was declared in 1945 tr Uranus was crossing her IC as freedom dawned.
She evidently gave up filming when the children were born to give them a family life – and Sean, Mel Ferrer’s son, 17 July 1960, has spent his life making a legacy of her career and achievements.
Theirs was a tight but not altogether easy bond. He did have his Mars and Moon in Taurus conjunct her Jupiter Sun; and his Cancer Moon conjunct her Mars. Both were Earth/Water which would bring an understanding. But his Uranus was square her Sun Jupiter and his intense Pluto sat in her 7th – so it would be a complex, push and pull association. His Jupiter in her 10th would give him the desire to make the most of her celebrity and success.
Their relationship chart echoed the synastry with a composite Sun, Uranus, Venus and Mars conjunction – affectionate, high-vitality but also needing individual space. There was also a yod of Saturn sextile Jupiter inconjunct Pluto and another yod of Pluto sextile Neptune inconjunct Jupiter – tying their destinies together more tightly than most.
A remarkable woman.
The likes of Audrey didn’t come
that often, if at all.