• Anniversary Audrey's eternal longing

TWENTY BIG FILMS

Days of classic cinema is bringing us in La 2, without the pretext of an ephemeris, an unexpected mini-cycle of films by Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993). After Charada (1963) and Sabrina (1954) - seen by more than 800,000 and 700,000 spectators, respectively, which is a lot - tomorrow at 10 pm La 2 will broadcast Breakfast with Diamonds (1961). To the joy of seeing the charismatic and very unique actress in action is added, of course, the gift of being able to see without cuts -and, if desired, in original subtitled version- movies signed by comedy masters such as Stanley Donen, Billy Wilder and Blake Edwards, which represents a program in which the public network should persevere. At the same time, Filmin can see nine films by the actress and five on Movistar. Among those only on Filmin, Ariane (Billy Wilder, 1957), the drama La

slander (William Wyler, 1961) and the apparently minor How to Steal a Million and ... (William Wyler, 1965). Among the Movistar exclusives, we have the opportunity to look back at the resplendent start to its stardom with Vacations in Rome (William Wyler, 1953) and its twilight moment - although also bright - with Robin and Marian (Richard Lester, 1976), shot in Navarra . From such a short filmography, with only twenty titles as the protagonist, and developed in a substantial way in a strikingly short period of time (1953-1967), what important milestones would we miss? Taking into account that both platforms offer us the very modern and insurmountable Two on the Road (Stanley Donen, 1966) and forced to abbreviate, I name four: Angel Face (Stanley Donen, 1957), the origin of his "angelic" myth; Story of a Nun (Fred Zinnemann, 1959), a dramatic introspection in the field of consciousness; My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964), the popular and universal hit musical, and, of course, Alone in the Dark (Terence Young, 1967), a criminal "thriller" from

overwhelming atmosphere that no one can forget. I ask myself to add an imperfect personal weakness: the romantic, detective and also twilight Everyone laughed (Peter Bogdanovich, 1981).

CHARISMATIC AND SINGULAR

Beyond information and guidance, what use can the perhaps somewhat arid earlier tour of Audrey Hepburn's filmography be? I have the impression, perhaps unfounded, that, enjoying the general admiration, the Belgian actress, unlike her pseudotocaya Katharine Hepburn - she had to go out! -, always appears in our memories associated with three, four, five important films , but that it costs us a little to realize that his tight filmography was huge and versatile and that it was in the hands of many of the most valuable directors of several generations, that I have not quoted his films with John Huston, King Vidor, Richard Quine or Steven Spielberg, who was in Forever, four years before his death, its last director. Charismatic and unique, I said. His charisma was of a singularity that made him, at the same time, attractive

and elusive. With a fragile aspect, quite androgynous at the same time as very feminine, elegant, with fine manners, a very private personality despite her projection and her public appearances, with a very little sexual image - especially when compared to the blondes and non-blondes of years 50-60-, she was and was not a star (like the others), she had a charm as worth admiring as it was difficult to incorporate into the personal dreams of her admirers, who could see her as close as inaccessible, too restrained despite having shown on the screen so many signs of grace and mischief, as if it were something old despite having exhibited more than enough signs of being modern. Anyway, a little look at me and don't touch me, more sister than lover. It is not like this? Well, I'll be wrong. And also if I say that, despite everything, it is as if I had not had a biography, as if I were not haunted by a personal mythology that allowed the transmission of something like a legend to the young and less young spectators of today. This is anomalous, since, among the

Classical / modern, Audrey Hepburn has something rabidly current.

SEVERE FAMILY TURBULENCES

Biography? To give and take. We are not talking about their two marriages and divorces (with the actor Mel Ferrer and the psychiatrist Andrea Dotti, parents of their two children), nor about their lovers (who had them: William Holden, Albert Finney, Ben Gazzara ...). Everything (as always) comes from childhood and youth. Her English father, a dodgy businessman and a dissipated alcoholic, left home when she was six years old. Her aristocratic Dutch mother went from opulence to misery, but she did her best to give her daughter an exquisite education in music, ballet and languages ​​between Belgium, Holland and England. Polyglot (six languages), Hepburn made her way as a dancer, model and actress. But he had been hungry, he had become ill and he had had a break in the normal development of his body: extreme thinness, anorexia ... He was ten years old when World War II broke out and he had a great time. Only his experiences during the conflict have led to a book. The fattest,

What has become known little by little, is that his father, Joseph Ruston, was an outspoken fascist, a follower in England of Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, and ended up being imprisoned for his undemocratic activities. And his mother, Baroness Ella van Heemstra, was a lost Nazi, an unconditional admirer of Hitler, whom she got to know personally in the company of her close friend Unity Mitford, the most Nazi and craziest of the Mitford sisters, said to be without prejudice to Diana. Mitford, who married Mosley himself no less than at Joseph Goebbels' house.

A ROLLER COASTER

Biography, then? Audrey Hepburn already had it, and very intense, at only 16 years old, at the end of World War II, after having lived the roller coaster of a happy and comfortable early childhood, a family break, a pilgrimage through three countries (Belgium, Holland and England), the abyss of poverty and hunger, knowing that her mother - who always took care of her - had come to scrub floors to

pay for his music and dance studies with the best teachers, the concern for a stepbrother in the Dutch Resistance, captured and confined by the Nazis and, finally, the knowledge (when he had it) that his parents had played on the side wrong and defeated. For this reason, when at 22 years old, filming in Montecarlo her sixth small and almost anonymous role in an English film, the French writer Colette takes notice of her, let's say she "discovers" her and manages to impose her as the protagonist of the musical version of her Gigi's novel to be made in New York, the life of Audrey Hepburn took a great turn of the bell towards a horizon that more than once seemed unreachable and that crossed when chosen by William Wyler for Vacations in Rome, Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe for her with her first American film, her first leading role and 24 years. Later, we already know what came. Tomorrow we will see her - despite Truman Capote, who preferred her friend Marilyn Monroe - in front of Tiffany's jewelry store, at the beginning of Breakfast with Diamonds, with that already

Iconic black dress by Hubert de Givenchy, the disciple of Balenciaga who marked with his simple and elegant classicism the image of Hepburn, from Sabrina, in eight films and also, with or without a hat or headscarf, off screen. And we can remember that his untimely death at 63, from intestinal cancer, in the very small Swiss town that had long since become his retirement base camp, was precipitated by a reckless and exhausting trip to Somalia. After experiencing so many hardships in a stretch of her childhood, Audrey Hepburn dedicated years and years to helping raise funds and visiting with all kinds of donations and resources to poor and conflict children on various continents. No, it wasn't a pose or something for a while in the company of a photographer. It was a delivery of years that took him to Somalia when he was already very ill and should have stayed at home.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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