Audrey Hepburn: Then, Now and Forever
Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
"Audrey Hepburn: Then, Now and Forever" is the title of the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art film series that kicks off this evening with a double bill: Roman Holiday (1953, right), the film that both made Audrey Hepburn a star — in her first leading role — and earned the actress her only Academy Award, and Peter Bogdanovich’s little-seen They All Laughed (1981), Hepburn’s last starring role in a feature film. Bogdanovich will introduce the screening.
Classy without being aloof; alluring without being vulgar; sophisticated without being snotty. That pretty much would summarize Audrey Hepburn’s screen presence. She could be hilarious, e.g., doing her best to seduce Cary Grant in Charade (1963); she could be moving, e.g., as the nun who discovers that her true vocation lies outside convent walls in The Nun’s Story (1959); she could be ethereal, e.g., singing (well, with Marni Nixon’s voice) in the Oscar-winning My Fair Lady (1964).
"She was like velvet to work with," Robert Wagner is quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times. She also sounded like velvet, and looked good whether in velvet, satin, or silk. In fact, she’d have been ideal in the Anne Hathaway role in The Devil Wears Prada. I could also picture her in the Meryl Streep role as well, which says quite a bit about the potential range of Hepburn’s talents, which remained mostly underused during her years as a star. (Several quotes in the Times piece make Hepburn sound like someone about ready to be canonized. Personally, I find it hard not to believe that in real life she was much more complex than her bowdlerized Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, her runaway princess in Roman Holiday, or her chauffeur’s daughter in Sabrina.)
Considering how well known she remains today, the Belgian-born actress (May 4, 1929, to Anglo-Dutch parents) had a relatively brief stardom — fifteen years, from 1953-1967. For a couple of years before that period, she could be spotted in bit parts and a supporting role or two in British films (e.g., The Lavender Hill Mob, Laughter in Paradise); after 1967, she all but retired from films, making only sporadic appearances every few years or so, none of which were box-office successes — looking much changed in Robin and Marian in 1976; in the much-panned Bloodline in 1979; They All Laughed in 1981; the TV movie Love Among Thieves in 1987; and a supporting role as an angel in Steven Spielberg’s Always in 1989, her last film role.
One thing that I find curious about Hepburn’s career is that her gamine charms often resulted in her being paired with men old enough to be — at least — her father, e.g., Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina (above), Henry Fonda in War and Peace, Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon, Fred Astaire in Funny Face, Cary Grant in Charade, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.
Even Gregory Peck (Roman Holiday), William Holden (both Sabrina and Paris When It Sizzles), and Burt Lancaster (The Unforgiven) were more than a decade older than their leading lady.
Kind kinky if you think about it; it’s as if those guys wanted to both adopt her and make love to her. But then again, Hepburn’s characters were never shy wallflowers, passively waiting to be plucked. Indeed, in Charade she does a beautiful job as the sexual "aggressor" — I’m using the term in honor of those who can only think of sex in terms of predator/prey — hounding Cary Grant until he finally (sorta) gives in.
Most of the aforementioned films will be screened in LACMA’s "Audrey Hepburn: Then, Now and Forever" series.
Not to be missed is one of Hepburn’s lesser-known efforts, Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road (1967, right), which pairs the actress with Albert Finney in this comedy-drama about the evolving (or perhaps devolving) marriage of a British couple. She may be a "bitch"; he may be a "bastard"; the institution of marriage may not be all it’s cracked up to be — but Two for the Road is a delight. Frederic Raphael’s witty screenplay was deservedly nominated for an Academy Award.
Two Hepburn vehicles that should be seen on the big screen are King Vidor’s mammoth War and Peace (1956) and George Cukor’s My Fair Lady.
War and Peace, which earned the director an Academy Award nomination, has both its fans and its detractors. This film adaptation of Tolstoy’s much-admired (and much-meandering) classic looks gorgeous even on the small screen; I’m assuming it’ll look jaw-droppingly beautiful on the big screen. Hepburn is a good Natasha Rostova and Mel Ferrer (Hepburn’s then-husband) is a believable Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, but Henry Fonda as Prince Bezukhov was a big, big mistake. Wasn’t Robert Morley available?
In recent years, My Fair Lady has been (in my view, unfairly) downgraded from classic to bloated musical. Perhaps those people have watched it only on the small screen (or youtube), with commercials. I did see this one on the big screen, in a brand new print, and it was a great experience — and this from someone who’s hardly what you’d call a fan of ’60s musicals. In fact, I find the vast majority of them big, bland, and boring. (The Sound of Music, Oliver!, and Hello, Dolly! come immediately to mind.) But My Fair Lady is different. There are the songs by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe; the presence of Hepburn, Oscar winner Rex Harrison, Oscar nominees Gladys Cooper and Stanley Holloway, and Jeremy Brett singing "On the Street Where You Live"; cinematography by Harry Stradling Sr; editing by William H. Ziegler. Check it out.
I’ve never watched Terence Young’s Wait Until Dark (1967, right) on the big screen — perhaps I should. Plot holes aside, it may be a treat. I remember a friend telling me that when he saw it at a revival house a number of years ago, just about every audience member screamed when Alan Arkin … well, never mind. Go see it.
I didn’t scream when I watched it on TV, but I did feel my body going abruptly up in the air at that very moment. A hiccup, I like to tell myself. Hepburn, as a blind girl with a heroin-stuffed doll in her house (she doesn’t know about the goodies, poor thing), was nominated for that year’s best actress Oscar for her troubles. (She lost out to another Hepburn, Katharine, in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.)
At the 1993 Oscar ceremony, Audrey Hepburn won the Jean Hersholt Award for her work as a special UNICEF ambassador. She had died of cancer earlier in the year; one of her sons accepted the award.
"My career is a complete mystery to me," Hepburn is quoted as saying on LACMA’s website. "I never thought I was going to be an actress; I never thought I was going to be in movies. I never thought it would all happen the way it did."
Well, the movies are richer because it all did happen the way it did.
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Tags: Audrey Hepburn, Charade, Classic Movies, LACMA, Los Angeles Screenings, My Fair Lady, Roman Holiday, Two for the Road, Wait Until Dark, War and Peace
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