Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929 - 20 January 1993) was an iconic Academy Award-winning actress, fashion model and humanitarian. Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston in Brussels, Belgium, she was the only child of John Victor Hepburn-Ruston, an Anglo Irish banker, and Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch aristocrat descended from French and English kings. Her father later appended the name Hepburn to his surname, and Audrey’s surname became Hepburn-Ruston. She had two half-brothers, Alexander and Ian Quarles van Ufford, by her mother’s first marriage to a Dutch nobleman.
Audrey had the reputation of being a humble, kind and charming person, who lived the philosophy of putting others before herself. She showed this side particularly towards the end of her life in her work for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). New Woman magazine called Audrey the most beautiful woman of all time, in a 2006 poll. She was ranked as the third greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.
Among her best-known films were Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), and Roman Holiday (1953). She won the best actress Oscar for the latter and was nominated for Oscars four other times: for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Nun’s Story (1959), Sabrina (1954, starring Humphrey Bogart), and Wait Until Dark (1967, with Alan Arkin).
In late 1992, Audrey began to feel pains in her stomach, which turned out to be a rare form of cancer that originated in the appendix. Audrey had surgery in a Los Angeles hospital, but the cancer continued to spread, and she apparently refused chemotherapy. Audrey died of colorectal cancer on 20 January 1993, in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland at the age of 63, and was interred there.
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