Audrey Hepburn was one of the beauties of Hollywood, and when she was asked to reveal the secrets of her beauty, she said these words, which were placed next to her body before was buried: “To have attractive lips, say kind words. To have beautiful eyes, look at the beauty of people. To stay thin, share your meals with hungry people. For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it every day. For a fit body, walk knowing that you will never be alone, because those who you love, love you and accompany you. As you get older, you will realize that you have two hands, one to help yourself, and the other to help those in need. A woman’s beauty is not in her clothes, her face, or the way she styles her hair. A woman’s beauty appears in her eyes, as it is the open door to her heart, the source of his love.
These are among her other sayings: “I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it. I don’t want to live alone, but I want to leave the world alone. We can learn more about a person by what he/(she) says about others than we can by what others say about him/(her).
Audrey Hepburn (1926-1993) was born in Belgium, of British origins, and made her way to stardom through her portrayal of the title role in the film “Roman Holiday” in 1953, which gave her the title of the first actress to win three international awards: an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a British Film Academy.
At an early stage, Audrey devoted her life to charity work, and from 1954, at the height of her fame, she gave her time to the UNICEF agency, which deals with children, and cared for the children of poor communities in Africa, South America, and Asia, and she did not stop doing so until a few months before her death, in her early sixties.
She was fluent in speaking in several languages, including English, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, and German, and she was honored, as a goodwill ambassador, by President George H.W. Bush, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also awarded her the Jean Hersglot Humanitarian Award posthumously. At the special session of the United Nations in 2002, her humanitarian work was honored by unveiling the “Spirit of Audrey” statue in New York.
On the evening of January 20, 1993, Hepburn died in her sleep, and upon hearing the news, international actor Gregory Peck turned to the cameras, his eyes filled with tears, and recited her favorite poem “Eternal Love” by Rabindranath Tagore.
Her funeral was solemn among those who were keen to attend. Her honor did not stop after her death, and continued for a period of time from respected international bodies, including the Jean Herslot Humanitarian Award, and the Grammy and Emmy Awards.
She has also been the subject of several biographies since her death, as well as the 2000 drama The Life Story of Audrey Hepburn. Hepburn’s image was used in many advertising campaigns in all countries of the world. On May 4, 2014, the search engine Google launched a festive graphic on its home page to commemorate Audrey Hepburn’s eighty-fifth birthday.
Sean Freer established the Audrey Hepburn Childhood Fund in memory of his mother shortly after her death. The US Fund for UNICEF also established the Audrey Hepburn Foundation, headed by Luca Dotti, to celebrate major donors to UNICEF, which has raised nearly $1 billion.
I, and millions of others, got to know Hepburn through her film roles in the international films “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “My Fair Lady,” and “Two for the Road,” which entered my life forever. My wife and I watched it in 1976, and it is a romantic comedy-drama British film. The name of the heroine of the film was “Joanna,” so we chose it as a name for our daughter, and thus Audrey, without knowing it, became a part of our lives.
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By Ahmad alsarraf
