From: hbaldwin@mizar.usc.edu (Harry Baldwin)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Audrey
Date: 25 Jan 1993 10:54:25 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

In article <C17tM0.6t0@cs.vu.nl> fjvwing@cs.vu.nl (FJ!!) writes:

>I'm not sure if we can call Audrey Hepburn a great actress, I think I
>can say that she was certainly adequate, and almost always a pleasant
>actress. `Roman Holiday' may be cotton-candy, but it feels like
>cotton-candy made with love.

Some thoughts on Audrey Hepburn:
  I feel her death as a personal loss, not only due to her wonderful
contribution to movies and her great work with UNICEF but also because
I in a sense grew up with her. The first film of hers I saw was Sabrina when 
I was 14 (and she was just 24).  I was so enchanted with her that I persuaded 
my mother to take me to see her on Broadway in 'Ondine,'(the first time I saw
'live' theater).  Although the sophistications of playwrite Jean Giradoux were
beyond me, and the production was apparently not very good (her husband at
that time and co-star, Mel Ferrer, was at his most wooden), and I was
unfamiliar with stage conventions of makeup and voice projection, etc., I never
forgot it or her.
  She certainly was one of a kind. She defied (like Grace Kelly) the trend at
that time for actresses who were little more than nuclear-warhead breasts and 
platinum blond, all dipped in lacquer.  She had e'lan, panache, whatever you 
wanted to call it, wore high-fashion as if she were born in it, tempered the
vulnerability of those incredible startled-doe eyes with the charm and good
humour of a hip gamin. As the LA Times said last week, no one could do that
'60s black boots, heavy eye-liner and huge dark glasses look like Audrey (I 
watched 'How to Steal a  Million' last Sat on cable and it's true.) 
  Was she a great actress? In the sense of a Duse, a Garbo, a Kim Stanley?
She herself would--and did say no.  Watch the interview with Dr. Richard Brown
on Bravo--it's one of the best interviews with anyone I've ever seen, thanks to
her articulation, honesty and strength of character. Listen to her talk about
her childhood in wartime Belgium and why she dedicated herself to helping
African children; it is more than talent, it is great character, without
affectation or false modesty, that shines through. When he tries to gush about
her acting ability, she corrects him politely and acutely and has valuable
things to say about actress-as-product.  Her perception about her career and
her gifts was something that many a movie star (Monroe comes to mind) could
have used but for whatever reason tragically did not have.
  I would count Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Funny Face, Charade, Two for the Road,
A Nun's Story as triumphs. (In Nun's Story I think she transcended her
limitations in serious roles; it's her finest dramatic performance). She
has her moments in My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany's, but I still persist
in thinking she was miscast in both.
 But she had star power. I remember reading Eric Bentley's review of 'Ondine.'
After expressing his reservations he ends it by writing: when people ask me
what theater is, I can point to her and say: she is. I'm only sorry that, like
Brando she gave up the stage completely after that but it all came through on
screen.  
 I will miss her....
  


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