This Day in Indie History: Audrey Hepburn

by MovieMaker Staff | Published May 4, 2007

Brussels, Belgium welcomed beloved actress Audrey Hepburn as a newborn citizen this day in 1929. The would-be style icon made her first mark on the world in 1951, when she began a Broadway run in Gigi; by 1953 she had a leading role opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. Classic characters and charismatic leading men quickly followed with 1954’s Sabrina, opposite Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. In 1955 came War and Peace, followed by 1957’s Funny Face. By 1961 Hepburn had created some of Hollywood’s timeless individualsâ€”real and fictionalâ€”including Holly Golightly in the movie version of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Eliza Dolittle in George Cukor’s My Fair Lady. Her later years saw little in the way of screen roles, but as a UNICEF ambassador she received the President’s Medal of Freedom in 1992â€”just one year before she passed away from colon cancer.

Quotable: “I don’t want to own anything until I find a place where me and my things go together. I’m not sure where that is but I know what it is like. It’s like Tiffany’s.” â€”Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.