The actress never anticipated her fame and handled it very differently than many of her famous peers
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NEED TO KNOW
- Audrey Hepburn became admired by millions as a star of the screen, but her grace and elegance elevated her to icon status
- Hepburn left behind a legacy not only of unforgettable roles and still-emulated style, but of humanitarian work, fierce love of family and a determination to live life on her own terms
- In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, Audrey Hepburn’s sons, Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Luca Dotti, open up about their mother’s legacy
Audrey Hepburn lived life on her own terms.
The actress was a young girl chasing her dream of being a ballerina when World War II halted her plans in their tracks. Lucky to survive the atrocities that occurred, Hepburn carried the experience through her life and it influenced how she handled every area of it.
PEOPLE spoke with the actress’ two sons, Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Luca Dotti, for this week’s cover story, with the two opening up about how the star’s past influenced her unapologetic devotion to her own wellbeing.
“Her life was ‘pick yourself up and start from nothing,’ sort of a phoenix rising from the ashes,” Ferrer tells PEOPLE, adding, “First from World War II, and then from three lost pregnancies and two marriages that went bad. But she was always someone who continued to believe in humanity, maybe not as much in society, but certainly in humanity.”
When it came to her acting career, Hepburn spent much of it in disbelief of the success she found. As Ferrer says, “I guess she never really expected it to happen the way it did. She always said, ‘I was not a professional actress and I got a great part.’ ”
Ferrer and Intimate Audrey coauthor Wendy Holden delve into how the star found immense success in films like Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Funny Face and more in their biography, released earlier this year. Ferrer’s memories are colored by Hepburn’s decision to walk away from the industry at the height of her Hollywood fame to focus on motherhood, a goal she’d given so much toward achieving.
“I was insulated away from the whole Hollywood thing. That’s actually one of the greatest gifts she gave us. She stopped her career at the top of her game to become a full-time mom and be there and pick me up at school and get up in the morning, make breakfast,” he says.
“She wanted kids and she said, ‘I’m going to be a mom.’ As I grew up, people would tell me, ‘Look, it’s your mother on TV.’ At first, I didn’t realize how much influence she had. Then with time, I realized how good she was and how much she had touched her public.”
Hepburn’s younger son echoed the sentiment, noting, “She said, ‘Am I going to be a present or a distant mother?’ And she chose to be a present mother for my brother and myself. And she knew she was lucky. She said, ‘I’m lucky enough to have had a very difficult youth, then a fantastic career. Why continue doing something that would take me away from my family?’ ”
Credit: Globe Photos/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
After 1967, Hepburn acted only occasionally. Her family life was focused on her children, though Hepburn was no stranger to love. After an affair with Sabrina costar William Holden and two marriages and divorces — with actor Mel Ferrer (Sean’s father) and Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti (Luca’s father) — she found lasting love with Dutch actor Robert Wolders, though they never wed. Says Luca Dotti, “My mother was very much in love with both her husbands and Robert Wolders at the end. The first two were, in different ways, not so perfect in the equation. My mother was very much in love with the men she loved. I don’t know if she was, quality-wise, loved back in the same manner. Certainly by Robert Wolders, she was, because he was the one who suffered least from her stardom.”
Pamela Keough, author of Audrey Style, tells PEOPLE the mystery behind Hepburn’s love life is what made her “cool.” “She had a big passionate thing with William Holden, but nobody really knew about it. Mel was a great husband for her at the beginning, but then Audrey just blew up and became the star, and he became sort of Mr. Audrey Hepburn. With Andrea Dotti, they fell in love quickly and madly and they got married quickly. Finally, with Rob, she met someone whose ego wasn’t fighting hers and whose objective really was to make her happy.”
Wolders, who dated Hepburn from 1980 until her death in 1993, once told PEOPLE that the courtship between them was “wonderful the way it was,” and they didn’t want to mess with that.
“When Audrey would be asked, she’d also say, ‘Why mess with a good thing?’ I remember her saying to one interviewer it’s more romantic this way because it’s not another piece of paper, but out of loyalty to each other that binds us together,” he shared, adding, “Had we been younger and wanted to have children, it might have been different, but that’s just not the case.”
Credit: Courtesy Sean Ferrer & Luca Dotti
The two brothers also explain the significance of her dedication to humanitarian work later in life. While some might have returned to Hollywood after raising their children, Hepburn was aware of how the industry treated its aging stars.
Hepburn wasn’t interested in plastic surgery, famously celebrating that she ‘“earned” her wrinkles. Keogh notes, “Audrey never touched her face. In those days, there was no Botox. She would have had to have a facelift. Audrey never, ever did a thing.”
“She always used to say, ‘I’m too old to be the love interest and too young to be the grandmother.’ She felt that in Hollywood. That’s ingrained in the 40s and 50s,” Ferrer says.
That said, she didn’t judge other women who chose plastic surgery, Dotti shared. “She wasn’t against plastic surgery. She said, ‘If you really are unhappy about a feature about yourself that really depresses you… A woman should be free to indulge in whatever she pleases.’ She didn’t have a mantra that was for anybody else.”
Hepburn herself loved to indulge, especially in food. Her love of the simple delights made her a good chef and a great baker, treating her family to something special each holiday season.
“Whenever we came home for Christmas, she always made her version of a pavlova. It was something that lasted through the dinner and up until midnight of that night, because we’d all sneak into the cold room in the back of our kitchen in Switzerland and by the next morning, it was gone,” Ferrer recalls.
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“She was a wonderful baker, a very simple cook, but she loved simple things. She hated to go to those nouvelle cuisine restaurants. She’d rather have a plate of spaghetti pomodoro, very simple, with a little basil and Parmesan cheese, and a salad, and she was happy,” he added.
Keogh also notes that Hepburn was very much a product of the environment she grew up in, pointing out, “Audrey grew up at a time there was very little processed food. And most of her food was grown in her own garden in Switzerland. She ate three meals a day. She didn’t snack.”
“She liked really dark chocolate or ice cream as a snack, but she wasn’t grazing every 15 minutes. She was very European,” she continued. “If she had pasta, you know, it was beautifully made pasta. Her metabolism also was disrupted during the war after starving for nearly two years, and that definitely affected her.”
Appreciating life for its big luxuries and small ones gave Hepburn a “full life” that Dotti points out meant more to her than anything fame could provide.
“She was pretty happy about getting older. What age gave her was more time for her family, more time for her home, her dogs. Unfortunately, she didn’t get that old because she died at 63,” he says.
It also gave her more time to give back. Dotti notes, “She really thought that everything was a circle, so after she did her job as a mom with us, she went on with her UNICEF career.”
Her family had mixed feelings about the toll of her UNICEF work, Dotti explains. “At the beginning, it was easier because there was much more hope. There was more of a feeling that she was, and UNICEF especially was, making a difference. But she came back from seeing so much devastation in the last years that really affected her.”
“We were worried,” he admits. “The UNICEF missions she accepted, the ones she actually was looking for, were more and more dangerous, and she came back seeing too much. But there was no way to stop her. She started as a goodwill ambassador, using her face and her voice and her fame. But the more she learned and the more she experienced, it took a toll and we were worried.”
Ferrer says, “The humanitarian legacy that she left behind was built so elegantly and gracefully. She used to call it her second and most important career. It was that piece, in the end, where we realized that what she was leaving was something indelible.”
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