Interesting Facts About Audrey Hepburn's Life You Probably Never Knew

Audrey Hepburn is quite possibly one of Hollywood's most timeless stars. Born in Belgium in 1929, Audrey Hepburn went on to become an actress, model, dancer, and humanitarian, as well as a beauty and fashion legend. Her style and movies stood the test of time, revered decades after she passed away in 1993. But there are plenty of things about Audrey Hepburn's life most people don't know. Despite being a beloved Hollywood starlet, her life wasn't all roses.

Away from the camera, she faced struggles and triumphs. There are plenty amazing facts about Audrey Hepburn that go beyond her movies. Dysfunctional parents, two high profile, failed marriages, and a lifetime of medical issues and poor health were also part of the reality behind the public facade. Here are some of the things you probably didn't know about Audrey Hepburn.

Hepburn worked closely with the designer Hubert de Givenchy. In 1961, he designed what was actually a prototype of the black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany's. The bottom part of this dress would be redesigned by Paramount's designer Edith Head, chiefly to remove the long leg slit that was considered too revealing. Following the film's production, the dresses worn by Hepburn in the film were destroyed. Givenchy retained three copies of his original design, one of which was given to a friend, author Dominic Lapierre, to auction off to benefit the City of Joy Foundation, a charity based in Calcutta, India. Christie's auctioned this dress for close to a million dollars in December 2006. However, this and two other dresses purported to be from the film were never worn in Breakfast At Tiffany's.

In 1948, Hepburn's mother, who was quite ambitious about her daughter's show business career, moved both of them to London. As the family fortune was completely depleted by the war, she supported both Hepburn and herself as a cook and menial worker, quite a comedown for such an aristocrat.

Audrey initially got small parts as a chorus girl and bit film parts until she was cast in the title role of the 1951 play Gigi on Broadway, quite a step up from previous casting. Her first starring role in a Hollywood film was the 1953 movie Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck, a performance that won her the Academy Award. Her performance as a princess wanting to see the sights of Rome on her own made her an international star. In addition to her best actress Oscar, she won the BAFTA award for Best British actress and the Golden Globe, the first time an actress won all three awards for a single performance.

Hepburn's remarkably slender and delicate physique has been perceived as the height of natural, elegant beauty. Unfortunately, this body type resulted from the extreme deprivation she experienced during World War II. As the war progressed and the situation for the occupying Nazis grew bleaker, they punished the Dutch population by limiting already scarce food supplies. By the winter of 1944, Heburn recalls her family attempting to survive by boiling grass, nettles and tulip bulbs. She also suffered from asthma, jaundice, and anemia. By the end of the war, Hepburn - who stood at 5-feet seven-inches tall - weighed 88 pounds.

When Warner Brothers decided to produce My Fair Lady, they determined Julie Andrews was not big enough of a star to carry the lead female role of Eliza Doolittle. But casting Hepburn instead left the studio with another problem. Hepburn just didn't have the vocal ability required for such a demanding musical. Instead, all of her singing would be dubbed by Marnie Nixon, a gifted soprano who also dubbed in vocals for Natalie Wood In West Side Story and Deborah Kerr in The King and I. Although this sleight of hand was kept from the public, stories that this was done secretly without Hepburn's knowledge are untrue. You can compare the two vocalists' rendition of "I Could have Danced All Night," here.

Hepburn's father, Joseph, was a British ex-pat born in the present day Czech Republic and her mother, Ella, was born in the Netherlands as a Baroness in an aristocratic family. Both of Hepburn's parents were enthusiastic about and raised funds for the British Union of Fascists, an anti-Semitic British political party popular in Britain in the mid-30s that quickly lost credibility as Nazi Germany and Great Britain verged on open warfare.

Joseph abruptly left his family in 1935 to move to London, and became even more deeply involved with the British Union of Fascists. Meanwhile, Ella attended the Nuremberg rallies with British fascist Unity Mitford. In June of 1940, when war broke out, Hepburn's father was interned on the Isle of Man and considered "an enemy of the state."

Hepburn's mother made the erroneous assumption the Netherlands would be able to remain neutral, as the country had done during World War I, and relocated with her daughter to Arnhem, where her father was the former mayor. This would prove to be a fateful decision, as the Nazis quickly overran the country in 1940. Much has been written about Hepburn's alleged work with the Dutch resistance and personal experiences witnessing Nazi atrocities, however this seems to be the work of numerous Hollywood press agents, possibly compensating for Hepburn's parents ties to fascism. 

Hepburn began smoking when she was a teenager. For the rest of her life she smoked heavily, upwards of two to three packs a day. Such an addiction seems out of place for the seemingly naive and doe-like actress. She even smoked during breaks in her performance during The Nun's Story, secreting cigarettes in her nun's habit. Even as society grew more conscious of the dangers of tobacco, she continued the habit. "I have some sins," was her witty rationalization of the vice that would ultimately have dire consequences.

Hepburn essentially retired after her 1967 film Wait Until Dark, despite receiving her fifth and final Oscar nomination. Although she would eventually return to the screen on a few occasions, she was determined to work on humanitarian efforts involving children. She became so involved with UNICEF, the United Nations children's organization she was named UNICEF's Goodwill ambassador in 1988. She would spend the last years of her life on the ground in such places as Somalia, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, providing aid and raising awareness. Hepburn maintained that, following World War II, it was the efforts of UN relief organizations that greatly helped her and other children in the Netherlands, and she wished to repay this debt of gratitude.

After Hepburn's death, her sons - Luca Dotti and Sean Ferrer - waged a legal battle against one another for rights over her belongings. In 2015, they entered a court battle over a slew of her items - including her clothes, jewelry, scripts, costumes, and awards. A judge stepped in to divide the assets, but again in 2017 the brothers were at war with one another in court. 

Both brothers were on the board of Hepburn's Children's Fund board, but in 2008 the elder son Ferrer resigned. He later tried to block Dotti from exhibiting Hepburn's effects and using her likeness. Dotti accused Ferrer of trying to overrun him and edge him out of Hepburn's estate despite Ferrer leaving the board of her charity. As of May 2017, the case has not been resolved. 

After a fairly serious affair with the married William Holden while filming Sabrina, Hepburn moved on after discovering Holden had undergone a vasectomy. She then met and married Mel Ferrer. She had two miscarriages before giving birth to a boy, Sean Ferrer, in 1960. After two more miscarriages and mutual infidelity, the couple would divorce in 1968. Despite her connection with Ferrer through her son, Hepburn would only speak with him two more times for the rest of her life. She quickly remarried an Italian psychologist, Andrea Dotti, and had another son, Lucca Dotti, in 1970. This marriage would last until a divorce in 1982. Hepburn would never remarry, but would become involved with actor Robert Wolders (pictured above), a relationship which lasted until her death in 1993. 

Hepburn is one of a handful of performers who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award - also known as an EGOT. Within a year of winning the Oscar for Roman Holiday, she won an Emmy in 1954, for her performance in the play Ondine. Her 1994 Grammy was awarded posthumously not for her singing, which was regarded as thin, but for the 1992 spoken word children's album, Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales. Her Emmy was for the 1993 Gardens of the World With Audrey Hepburn. Her Oscar win was no fluke, she would be nominated on four other occasions, including Breakfast At Tiffany's and Sabrina.