There are movie stars and then there are movie stars -- performers who have such a unique and often indescribable quality that their very name connotes the magic of the cinema. Audrey Hepburn Movies Collection was definitely a movie star.
"Everybody loves Hepburn," says Ian Birnie, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's film department. "No one ever looked or sounded like Audrey Hepburn Movies Collection -- not even remotely. She stood in complete opposition to the '50s bombshell women -- the Marilyns, the Jane Russells and Janet Leighs."
Audrey Hepburn Movies Collection has remained timeless. Her characters, her look and her persona seem as contemporary today as they did nearly six decades ago.
Beginning Friday, LACMA is saluting the actress with its series "Audrey Hepburn Movies Collection: Then, Now and Forever." The event begins with a double bill of 1953's "Roman Holiday" and the 1981 comedy "They All Laughed," directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who will introduce the screening. On tap for Saturday is her Oscar-nominated turn as Holly Golightly in 1961's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and 1967's marvelous romantic comedy "Two for the Road," in which she's paired with Albert Finney. The series continues through Nov. 13.
The tall, gamin and sophisticated Belgian actress appeared on Broadway in 1950's "Gigi" and had made a few films in England, including a tiny part in 1951's "The Lavender Hill Mob," but she was still unknown to most of the American public until she turned up in William Wyler's "Roman Holiday," for which she won a lead actress Oscar as a princess on tour in Rome who decides to take a "holiday" from her duties and travel around the Eternal City incognito.
Audrey Hepburn worked steadily for the next 15 years in such beloved films as 1954's "Sabrina," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," 1964's "My Fair Lady" and 1967's "Wait Until Dark." Then she took a nearly decade-long break from cinema, returning in 1976's "Robin and Marian" opposite Sean Connery. She only worked occasionally thereafter, however, preferring to spend most of her time with her family and working as a special UNICEF ambassador.
When she died of cancer in 1993 at the age of 63, the world mourned.
Several people who worked with Audrey Hepburn, as well as film professor Rick Jewell, discussed the Audrey Hepburn magic.
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