Audrey Hepburn (27 page)
Authors: Barry Paris
“I think that was just good luck. I did it once and didn't break my leg. Lynn Fontanne once said to me, âMy dear, whenever you walk downstairs, never look down and don't hold your skirt.' So everything you try to do to save your life, you're not allowed to do. You just hope to God you don't trip.”
73
73
In Funny Face, said Janet Maslin, Audrey became what she would forever be best: “a perfectly balanced mixture of intelligence and froth.”
74
74
Less complimentary things were said about Fred Astaire. The
Harvard
Lampoon named
Funny Face
one of the Ten Worst Films of 1957 and gave Astaire the award for “Most Appalling Example of the Inadequacy of Our Present Social Security Program.” Among others who disliked the film, albeit more tactfully, is composer-conductor André Previn:
Harvard
Lampoon named
Funny Face
one of the Ten Worst Films of 1957 and gave Astaire the award for “Most Appalling Example of the Inadequacy of Our Present Social Security Program.” Among others who disliked the film, albeit more tactfully, is composer-conductor André Previn:
“It rubbed me the wrong way. I loved Audrey, but I thought the Kay Thompson business was hard to take, and the beatnik thing is so dated. Audrey and Fred by the edge of the riverâyou can't get any better than that. But it was just too chic. I didn't think it had any muscle in it. It made me a little edgy. It was all so precious.”
75
75
Funny Face,
at $3 million, wasn't horribly expensive to make. But it was the first of Hepburn's American films not to be among the top ten moneymakers of its year. Its retro-raves, however, are legion.
American Film
put it “among the most lushly gorgeous Technicolor films ever produced.”
76
Douglas McVay in
The Musical Film
called it “arguably the most pictorially ravishing of all American pictures.” Rex Reed hailed it as “the best fashion show ever recorded on film,” and Stanley Donen drew a final, further conclusion: “Audrey was always more about fashion than movies or acting.”
77
at $3 million, wasn't horribly expensive to make. But it was the first of Hepburn's American films not to be among the top ten moneymakers of its year. Its retro-raves, however, are legion.
American Film
put it “among the most lushly gorgeous Technicolor films ever produced.”
76
Douglas McVay in
The Musical Film
called it “arguably the most pictorially ravishing of all American pictures.” Rex Reed hailed it as “the best fashion show ever recorded on film,” and Stanley Donen drew a final, further conclusion: “Audrey was always more about fashion than movies or acting.”
77
Â
Â
IN THE FASHION REALM, Givenchy was her indisputable guide. As Avedon was to give
Funny Face
the photographic look of
Vogue,
it was preordained that Givenchy would provide the actual high-fashion wardrobe, and that he and Audrey would spend countless hours together in the fittings.
Funny Face
the photographic look of
Vogue,
it was preordained that Givenchy would provide the actual high-fashion wardrobe, and that he and Audrey would spend countless hours together in the fittings.
From now on, her contracts contained a standard clause stipulating that Givenchy would design her film clothes, while his designs for her private use propelled her onto every best-dressed list in the world. “His are the only clothes in which I am myself,” she said in 1956, full devoted by then to his spare, simple lines and dominant blacks and whites. Like his mentor Balenciaga, Givenchy heralded the minimalist designs of the sixties. Women who admired “The Hepburn Look” now flocked to his salon, and his sales soared, while the personal bond between him and Audrey became ever more intense.
“I depend on Givenchy in the same way that American women depend on their psychiatrists,” she said. “There are few people I love more. He is the single person I know with the greatest integrity.”
Long after, Givenchy recalls, “She told me something so touching that I will always remember it. She said, âWhen I wear a white blouse or little suit that you create for me, I have the feeling of being protected by that blouse or suitâand this protection is very important to me.”'
78
78
Givenchy was humble. “All the responsibility for the way Audrey looked is hers,” he says. “She made the selections. I [just] helped her.”
79
Clothes made the woman, but even her most beloved designers said she made herselfâand perhaps
them,
too. Ralph Lauren, whose designs she often wore in later years, says, “She did more for the designer than the designer did for her.”
80
79
Clothes made the woman, but even her most beloved designers said she made herselfâand perhaps
them,
too. Ralph Lauren, whose designs she often wore in later years, says, “She did more for the designer than the designer did for her.”
80
Leslie Caron believes Hepburn was the first great fashion example of “less is more”:
“Simplicity was her trademark. She had the originality never to wear any jewelry, and this at the time of double rows of pearls, little earrings, lots of âlittle' everything.... And then suddenly she would appear at a premiere wearing earrings that reached all the way down to her shoulders. Really daring!”
81
81
In the anything-goes era of makeup and beauty today, it is hard to grasp how revolutionary Hepburn's look in the fifties really was. It represented “the feminine edge of androgyny,” says designer Isaac Mizrahiâ“the wonderful things about women that are not just tits or ass ... the other side of Marilyn Monroe. [Her] sexiness enters through your heart not through your groin.” Mizrahi says her erotic fashion appeal was epitomized by the hooded parka, black turtleneck and tight black pants she wore in
Funny Face
â“the perfect American look.”
82
Funny Face
â“the perfect American look.”
82
Yet she
wasn't
American, and both she and her films had a different impact abroad. “For me,” said Elizabeth Wilson in Britain's
Sight and Sound,
“her charm lay not in the androgyny of simple hair and a boyish figure, but in a style that seemed the embodiment of sophisticated, existential Europe as opposed to the overripe artificiality of Hollywood.”
83
On both sides of the Atlantic, her look in
Funny Face
was a kind of quantum leap.
wasn't
American, and both she and her films had a different impact abroad. “For me,” said Elizabeth Wilson in Britain's
Sight and Sound,
“her charm lay not in the androgyny of simple hair and a boyish figure, but in a style that seemed the embodiment of sophisticated, existential Europe as opposed to the overripe artificiality of Hollywood.”
83
On both sides of the Atlantic, her look in
Funny Face
was a kind of quantum leap.
“Audrey was the first actress to play a fashion model on screen who really could have been one off screen,” says Lenny Gershe. “It was always a joke when someone like Lana Turner in
A Life
of Her
Own
[1950] or Ava Gardner played a modelâwomen who would never have made the cover of Vogue because they were too voluptuous. Today it's different. Now they're all bizarreânot Harper's
Bazaar,
just
bizarre.
For high fashion in the fifties, you had to be skinny. You had to look like Audrey Hepburn or Dovima or Suzy Parker. But Audrey was the first one to do it on screen. The audience bought that she could be this creature.”
84
A Life
of Her
Own
[1950] or Ava Gardner played a modelâwomen who would never have made the cover of Vogue because they were too voluptuous. Today it's different. Now they're all bizarreânot Harper's
Bazaar,
just
bizarre.
For high fashion in the fifties, you had to be skinny. You had to look like Audrey Hepburn or Dovima or Suzy Parker. But Audrey was the first one to do it on screen. The audience bought that she could be this creature.”
84
Some thought Funny Face had changed her personality as well as her image, making her more confident and solid. Others attributed that not to the movie but to marriageâas if she had finally made the passage from girl to woman. “Two years ago,” said a friend, “she was a pixie. ”You didn't know but what she'd suddenly climb a tree or hurdle a hedge or just vanish in a spiral of smoke. Now you're reasonably sure she'll eat a ham sandwich and go to a ball game, or whatever.“
85
85
Her husband could certainly be sure of her devotion. One illustration concerned those fifty pieces of luggage with which they traveled: She almost always supervised the packing herself, but once when someone else did it for them, Mel was unable to locate his cuff links upon their arrival. Audrey ransacked six trunks before finding them and, in servile fashion, laid the blame on herself: “I didn't think this was fair to Mel. I considered it my responsibility not to let it happen again.”
86
86
Despite all dire predictions, her marriage had confounded the critics. She and Mel appeared to enjoy working together as well as being together. Prior to their wedding, her happiness seemed exclusively centered on her work. “I don't think now that I was a whole woman then,” she said. “No woman is, without love.... I'm not alone anymore. Don't make that sound pathetic. I never minded being alone. But I'd mind it now.”
87
87
The Ferrers' union had no greater admirer than Sophia Loren, who rented a neighboring chalet in Burgenstock and knew them there from 1957 during her own “convulsive marriage situation” with Carlo Ponti. “When the law in Italy was persecuting Carlo and me as criminals guilty of bigamy,” recalls Loren today, “the marriage of Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer seemed to me like a dreamâfar away and unreachable.... In those days, she was so happy, she inspired my dream [of the same].”
88
88
Audrey's view of marriage was traditional to the point of subservience, as paradigmatic of the “good” fifties woman as her look and fashion statements were not.
“He is a protective husband, and I like it,” she said. “Most women do.... It's so nice being a wife and having your husband take over your worries for you. American women have a tendency to take over too much, and in that way they miss out on a lot of fun that their European sisters have.”
89
89
That seemed to contradict her professed love of independent decision-makingâand perhaps to suggest she was still trying get a firm handle on her lingering anxieties:
I have often thought of myself as quite ugly. In fact, I used to have quite a complex about it. To be frank, I've often been depressed and deeply disappointed in myself. You can even say that I hated myself at certain periods. I was too fat, or maybe too tall, or just plain too ugly. I couldn't seem to handle any of my problems or cope with people I met. If you want to get psychological, you can say my definiteness stems from underlying feelings of insecurity and inferiority. I couldn't conquer these feelings by acting indecisive. I found the only way to get the better of them was ... by adopting a forceful, concentrated drive.
90
90
“Getting psychological” about her might begin with two quotations, the first from Audrey:
“My greatest asset is my discontent.”
The second from an anonymous friend of hers:
“Discontent is her greatest personal liability.”
91
91
In career terms, she said, “Sometimes I think the more successful you become the less secure you feel. [Originally,] I didn't have the drive because I had the luxury of not needing it. After Roman Holiday, the offers came in. It was not in my nature to be terribly ambitious or driven because I didn't have the confidence. My confidence came and went with each movie; once I'd finished one, I didn't know if I'd ever work again.”
92
92
Chief among her weapons for combatting that insecurity was her intense power of concentration. “In talking about herselfâor any subject from artichokes to zebrasâshe takes up one point at a time, never skips or flashes back,” said a
Cosmopolitan
reporter. “When she reads, she reads; when she fits, she fits; when she talks clothes, she talks clothes; when she sits under a drier, she simply sits and dries. âShe is the only actress I've ever had who doesn't gab, read, knit, wriggle, pick her teeth, or eat a lettuce and tomato sandwich,' says her hairdresser.”
93
Cosmopolitan
reporter. “When she reads, she reads; when she fits, she fits; when she talks clothes, she talks clothes; when she sits under a drier, she simply sits and dries. âShe is the only actress I've ever had who doesn't gab, read, knit, wriggle, pick her teeth, or eat a lettuce and tomato sandwich,' says her hairdresser.”
93
Equally remarked upon were her gentility and courtesy. She was both the delight and the despair of her publicistsâ“our nicest and most difficult client,” said one of them. “She has politely turned down more than ninety percent of the publicity ideas we've dreamed up for her.”
The normally bland
Good Housekeeping,
for one, was a little suspicious: “Can anybody really be so noble, so thoughtful, so perennially âgood'”?
94
She seemed a little too cool and aloof.
Good Housekeeping,
for one, was a little suspicious: “Can anybody really be so noble, so thoughtful, so perennially âgood'”?
94
She seemed a little too cool and aloof.
“Today I'm having lunch in my dressing room alone,” she told a reporter around this time. “I usually do. Being alone, I recharge my batteries. Anyway, I thought I was being a good girl, giving my all to the picture this way. But then one of the columnistsâone I thought I got along withâwrote, âWhat goes with snooty Audrey Hepburn, not eating in the commissary.' So now do I have to begin eating in the commissary just to pacify this columnist? I'm afraid it would be cowardly of me. He's committed me to a course of action.”
95
95
Her comments to and about the press were getting sharper, and she was letting some of her hostilities out. She was asked, “If Mel wished it, would you forsake your career?”
“If you'll forgive me,” she replied coldly, “it's not a fair question.”
96
96
She had an outburst now and then, but few doubted her tenderness and warmth. One day during
Funny Face,
the cast and crew were having a press luncheon on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower when a little French girl, one of the extras, burst into tears from fear of the popping flashbulbs and klieg lights that were blinding her. The empathetic young woman who got up to dry her tears and comfort her was Audrey.
Funny Face,
the cast and crew were having a press luncheon on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower when a little French girl, one of the extras, burst into tears from fear of the popping flashbulbs and klieg lights that were blinding her. The empathetic young woman who got up to dry her tears and comfort her was Audrey.
She had become a grown-up version of that little girl:
“Now and then it staggers you. So many people pointing cameras, especially in Europe. Now and then, you find yourself out of your depth. The questionsâall the way from what do I think of love or how does it feel to be a star, to enormous ones, even political, with as many prongs as a pitchfork. Here I am, an innocent little actress trying to do a job, and it seems that my opinion on policy in the Middle East is worth something. I don't say I don't have an opinion, but I doubt its worth.”
97
97
For now. One day, her opinions on such matters would be worth a lot.
Â
Â
AFTER
FUNNY FACE,
Audrey returned to Bürgenstock for four weeks' rest before her happy reunion and second film with Billy Wilder, whose much-delayed
Ariane
finally began shooting in August 1956. Based on a popular novel by Claude Anet set in pre-Bolshevik Russia, the story had the ring of
Gigi
and
Sabrina:
sophisticated Don Juan falls for innocent young beauty.
FUNNY FACE,
Audrey returned to Bürgenstock for four weeks' rest before her happy reunion and second film with Billy Wilder, whose much-delayed
Ariane
finally began shooting in August 1956. Based on a popular novel by Claude Anet set in pre-Bolshevik Russia, the story had the ring of
Gigi
and
Sabrina:
sophisticated Don Juan falls for innocent young beauty.
It was reworked by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamondâthe first of their legendary script collaborationsâto make the playboy even more cynical and the girl even more naive: Ariane became the cellist-daughter of a private detective and would fall in love with the rich libertine being investigated by her father for marital infidelity. The mise-en-scène was shifted from Russia to Paris, and the title spiced up to
Love in the Afternoon.
But when the male lead was announced, wags said a better name might be Beauty
and the Beast.
ak
Love in the Afternoon.
But when the male lead was announced, wags said a better name might be Beauty
and the Beast.
ak
Cary Grant had been Wilder's first choice. He was almost
always
Wilder's first choice, and always unavailable. This time, Grant demurred on the grounds that, at fifty-two, he was too old to romance twenty-seven-year-old Audrey Hepburn on screen. So the part went instead to an even older manâGary Cooper, fifty-five.
always
Wilder's first choice, and always unavailable. This time, Grant demurred on the grounds that, at fifty-two, he was too old to romance twenty-seven-year-old Audrey Hepburn on screen. So the part went instead to an even older manâGary Cooper, fifty-five.
Other books
Lights Out! by Laura Dower
Only the Gallant by Kerry Newcomb
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
Hard as You Can by Laura Kaye
The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman
New Sight by Jo Schneider
Legally Bound 2: Against The Law by Blue Saffire
The Silencing by Kirsten Powers
Johannes Cabal The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard
Chasing Carolyn by Viola Grace