Product Description

The most ambitious and personal account ever written about Hollywood's most gracious star-Audrey Hepburn by Barry Paris is a "moving portrayal" (The New York Times Book Review) that truly captures the woman who captured our hearts...

With the insights of family and friends who never before spoke to a Hepburn biographer-and never-before-published photographs-Paris has created an in-depth portrait of the actress, from her childhood in Nazi-occupied Europe, through her legendary career, and into her UN ambassadorship.

"Rich and definitive...fascinating." (*Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

"Illuminates the complex inner life of the highest-paid actress of her time." (San Francisco Chronicle)

"Certainly [Paris's] account seems more personal than other recent biographies of Hepburn have been. In part, this may be because Paris had better access to family and friends, but he is also a very good writer, and his mix of anecdote and observation is just right." (Booklist)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #134733 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .1 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

From Amazon.com
Barry Paris loves Audrey Hepburn, and who can blame him? His exuberant profile of the movie star traces Hepburn's life from her childhood in the Netherlands (where she aided the Dutch resistence) through her Hollywood career (from her Oscar-winning performance in Roman Holiday to Steven Spielberg's Always). Paris, a veteran of Hollywood biography books, wants to free his readers of any false impressions that might sully the late star's reputation. The impression that Hepburn was a snob, he persuades us, was the result of an introverted character formed by her experiences during the war. This wartime experience both fed Hepburn's love of the spotlight and inspired a concern for the poor and powerless that compelled her to campaign for UNICEF from 1988 until her death in 1993. Some of the most fascinating material in this delightfully readable volume concerns the impact the ever-elegant Audrey Hepburn had on women's style and self-conception. If you don't already love her, Paris's book will at the least evoke admiration of her, if not enlist you in a movement for her beatification.

From Publishers Weekly
The life of beloved actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) is stylishly explored in this lively, at times even frothy, biography from Paris (Louise Brooks; Garbo). Paris goes a long way toward explaining Hepburn's gamine appeal with his account of her hardscrabble, often terrifying childhood during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. For the rest of her life, he shows, Hepburn had a former refugee's infectious love of the limelight and the good life but also a charmingly modest understanding that most people suffer more than movie stars do. Hepburn's personal and professional relationships with her leading men?William Holden, Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant?are presented in gossipy detail, as is her often difficult marriage with actor Mel Ferrer. There are also informative accounts of the making of her films, with special emphasis on the controversy surrounding the casting of Hepburn rather than Julie Andrews as Eliza in the film version of My Fair Lady. Paris presents some new material from Ferrer, and some very witty new remarks by composer Andre Previn about the struggle over whether to dub Hepburn's singing voice in My Fair Lady, but for the most part this biography is a pastiche of earlier articles, interviews and biographies. Even so, it's the very model of a celebrity biography?a little breathless, a little prurient, with just enough fiber in the way of psychological insight to make reading it a slightly more substantial experience than gobbling chocolates. Photos and filmography not seen by PW. BOMC selection; first serial rights to Vanity Fair.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Paris, author of acclaimed books on Greta Garbo (Garbo, LJ 1/95) and Louise Brooks (Louise Brooks, Doubleday 1990), now recounts the life of everyone's favorite gamine. Audrey Hepburn had little acting experience or unique talent, but her enormous doe eyes and ladylike demeanor made her irresistible to moviegoers of the 1950s and 1960s. Born into an impoverished aristocratic Dutch family, Hepburn spent much of her early life hiding from the Nazis. Her father abandoned the family when Audrey was six, and she began acting as a means of support, quickly rising through the ranks to major stardom. Ultimately, although Paris offers a vivid and well-documented assessment of both her films and her private life, Hepburn's story isn't on a par with the treatment accorded it. She emerges as a nice, rather ordinary woman who just happened to have the right look at the right time. For public libraries.?Cynthia Ward Cooper, Carrollton Lib., Tex.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.