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Audrey Hepburn

Page 64

by Barry Paris


  van Ufford, Audrey Quarles (daughter of Ian)

  van Ufford, Evelyn Quarles (daughter of Alexander)

  van Ufford, Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles

  van Ufford, Ian Quarles; birth of ; and Hepburn’s funeral; in World War II

  van Ufford, Michael Quarles

  van Ufford, Michael Quarles (son of Alexander)

  van Ufford, Michael Quarles (son of Ian)

  van Ufford, Miep Quarles (wife of Alexander)

  van Ufford, Yvonne Quarles (wife of Ian)

  Van Vliet, Paul

  Van Wijk, Anneke

  Variety: and Wolders

  -reviews: Always; Bloodline; Green Mansions ; Love Among Thieves; My Fair Lady ; Ondine; Secret People; These Three ; They All Laughed

  Vendetta (film)

  Venezuela, UNICEF field-trip

  Ventura, Ray

  Verkade, Kees

  Vermonth, Patrick

  Vidor, King

  Viertel, Peter: and Ferrers’ marital problems

  Vietnam, UNICEF field-trip

  Vigili, Elizabeth

  Villa Beukenhof

  Villa-Lobos, Heitor

  The Vintage (film)

  Violence: Hepburn and

  -in Hepburn’s films; Bloodline; Wait Until Dark

  Viruly, A.

  Vista-Vision process

  Vogue magazine; interview with Hepburn

  Voice of Hepburn

  von Stade, Frederica

  Voute, Helena

  Vreeland, Diana

  Vroemen, Paul; and Battle of Arnhem ; and Hepburn’s wartime activities

  Vulnerability of Hepburn

  Waagemans, Tonny

  Wada, Emi

  Wagner, Robert (“R.J.”); and Capucine ; and Ferrers’ marital problems

  Wait Until Dark (film)

  Wald, Connie; and Baroness van Heemstra; and Hepburn’s illness

  Wald, Jerry

  Walk on the Wild Side (film)

  Wallach, Eli; and Hepburn’s marriage to Dotti

  Wallis, Hal

  Walters, Barbara; Hepburn and

  Walters, Charlesn

  Wang, Wayne

  War, Hepburn and

  War and Peace (film); Ferrer and

  Warhol, Andy

  Warner, Jack: Academy Awards; and dubbing and My Fair Lady; and The Nun’s Story

  Warner, Suzanne

  Warner Brothers: and Ferrer; and My Fair Lady ; and The Nun’s Story; and Wait Until Dark

  Washbourne, Mona

  Washington.C., UNICEF trip

  Wasserman, Lew

  Water systems, UNICEF and; Vietnam

  Watkin, David

  Watters, Jim

  Watts, Richard, Jr.

  Waxman, Franz

  Webb, Clifton

  Wedding Bells, Gershe

  Wedding plans, with Hanson

  Weight, Hepburn and

  Weiller, Paul-Louis

  Welles, Orson

  Welton, Helen

  Wensink, Carel Johan

  Werker, Alfred L.

  West, Mae

  Weston, Jack

  White, Gordon

  White, William L., Lost Boundaries

  Whitty, Stephen

  Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn? (film)

  Wilde, Oscar, The Importance of Being Earnest

  Wilder, Audrey; and Bogart; and Ferrers’ marital problems; and Hepburn’s appearance ; and Hepburn’s marriage to Dotti ; and Hepburn’s thinness; and Holdens; and Love in the Afternoon; and Two for the Road; and Wolders

  Wilder, Billy; American Film Institute and; and Ferrers’ marital problems; and Hepburn; and Hepburn’s illness; and Hepburn’s marriage to Dotti ; and Hepburn’s thinness; and Love in the Afternoon; and Sabrina; tribute to Hepburn; and Wyler

  Wilhelm, Kaiser

  Wilhelmina, Queen of The Netherlands

  Willems, Rose-Marie

  Williams, Andy

  Williams, Cara

  Williams, John (composer)

  Williams, John (UNICEF board)

  Williams, Tennessee

  Williamson, Nicol

  Willoughby, Bob

  Wilson, Elizabeth

  Winans, Mignon

  Winger, Debra

  Winkelman, H. G.

  Winnie the Pooh oratorio, Niel

  Winwood, Estelle

  Wolders, Cemelia

  Wolders, Robert ; Baroness van Heemstra and; and Breakfast at Tiffany’s; and Capucine; and Dotti; and Ferrers’ marital problems; finances of; and Finney; and The Nun’s Story; and public appearances; and Sean Ferrer; and Spielberg movie; and Switzerland; views of

  -and Hepburn ; Anne Frank performance; childhood of; death of; funeral of ; illness of; influence on others of; UNICEF work of

  Wolders family, Hepburn and

  Wolfe, Thomas, Look Homeward, Angel

  Women: Dotti and; Finch and ; Hepburn and; Holden and

  Wood, Kingsley

  Wood, Natalie; Sex and the Single Girl

  Woodward, Ian

  A World of Love (TV documentary)

  World Philharmonic Orchestra

  World War I

  World War II; Battle of Arnhem ; Dutch Resistance movement; end of ; films about; German atrocities ; Wolders in

  Wyatt, Jane

  Wyeth, Lynn

  Wyler, Cathy

  Wyler, William; and censorship ; and The Children’s Hour; and How to Steal a Million; and Roman Holiday ; and These Three

  Yerni, Lupua

  You’ll Never Know, Porter

  Young, Collyer

  Young, Roger

  Young, Terence; and Bloodline; and Ferrers’ marital problems; and Wait Until Dark

  Young Wives’ Tale (film)

  Zampi, Mario

  Zec, Donald

  Zefferelli, Franco

  Zegna, Donatella

  Zijpendaal Castle

  Zimbalist, Efrem. Jr.

  a Zijpendaal now houses the Foundation of Friends of the Geldersche Castles, dedicated to preserving the province’s twenty-one castles and their contents and gardens.

  b Native Indians and “Bush Negroes” (descendants of runaway slaves) inhabited the interior tropical rain forest, much of which has still not been explored. They were outnumbered by Creoles and Asians who came as plantation laborers from Java, India and Pakistan. The official language is Dutch, but the main Creole dialect—a pidgin English called Taki-Taki—is the lingua franca.

  c Ella and Heringa’s parents alternated as regular readers. Arnhem’s Christian Science Church was shut down early in the German occupation because of its “internationalism” and the suspected Jewish sympathies of its members.

  d The Sadler’s Wells tale is tangential to our own, but balletomanes must not be denied its conclusion: The next morning, with Rotterdam in flames in the distance, the Germans dropped pamphlets proclaiming, “The Hague is surrounded, it is useless to resist.” The dancers were taken to a temporary refuge near Velsen; forty-eight hours later, they boarded a cattle ship at Ijmuiden, arriving at Harwich the next day. Left behind in their flight were all sets, costumes and music for the ballets “Rake’s Progress,” “Checkmate,” “Dante Sonata,” “Façade,” “Les Patineurs” and “Horoscope”—lost forever in a van somewhere between Arnhem and Haarlem, where they were scheduled to perform the night after Audrey saw them.

  e The wartime account of this chapter owes much to Paul Vroemen, foremost Dutch military historian and author of seven books about Arnhem; and to The Lion Rampant: The Srory of Holland’s Resistance to the Nazis, by L. de Jong and Joseph W. F. Stoppelman.

  f Among the Rotterdam survivors were four-year-old Robert Wolders and family (see Chapter 9).

  g The Deane-Drummond events, unlike most Hepburn-related war stories, are recounted in A Bridge Too Far, Cornelius Ryan’s meticulously researched book on the Battle of Arnhem, and confirmed by Deane-Drummond in his own reliable book, Return Ticket.

  h Sonia Gaskell (1904—1974), a Lithu
anian Jew, danced with the Russian ballet of Serge Diaghilev from 1927—1929 and later had her own studio in Paris. In 1933, she followed her husband, Dutch interior architect Philip Aukens, to Amsterdam and taught ballet there until the German occupation, when she went into hiding. After the war, she immediately picked up where she left off.

  i Painful political baggage was attached to the Concertgebouw. In 1941, its famous conductor Willem Mengelberg had accepted a post on the Nazi “Culture Council” shunned by loyal Dutchmen. Throughout the war, many Dutch musicians displayed their anti-Nazi sentiment. The Nazi weekly De Misthoorn (The Foghorn) complained in 1942 that the Arnhem orchestra, for example, “took particular pleasure” in honoring Jewish musicians. After the war, Mengelberg was fired and exiled, and a cleansed Concertgebouw was under new management.

  j And it took another dozen years for the actual father-daughter reunion to take place. (See Chapter 5, p. 166.)

  k In the later fifties and sixties, Hanson, his brother, and their associate Gordon White gradually rebuilt the family businesses after the transport industry was de-nationalized by the second Churchill government. Today, more than half of Hanson PLC’s interests are in North America and Lord Hanson spends five months a year in Palm Springs.

  l Aside from those sequences, there was no incidental music in the film. But a nightclub scene between the unhappy lovers Cortesa and Reggiani called for a tango with French lyrics. The song was written by none other than Marcel le Bon, Audrey’s former boyfriend who had atmost—but not quite—disappeared forever from her life. He seems to have resurfaced once or twice in London, and she was evidently still kindly enough disposed to get him the job.

  m which she did. Sixteen years later, Young directed one of her finest films, Wait Until Dark.

  n The two Hepburns may have been distantly related: Both had a great-grandfather called James Hepburn, but that was a common name in Scotland, and no one has proven the genealogical connection.

  o There was a lot of nighttime activity at the Fulton during Gigi. The set designer was Lila de Nobilli, whose Paris Opera designs would become legends. But the backstage unions opposed the hiring of foreigners. Gottlieb used a well-known ploy: “He engaged an American stooge, whose name was on the program as set designer,” said Loos, “and Lila herself painted the scenery, sneaking into the theater after dark, mounting a stepladder and painting all night.”

  p Among intersecting ironies is the fact that, when 20th Century-Fox finally decided to film the Gertrude Lawrence story, Star! (1968), the Lawrence role was played by Julie Andrews.

  q Throughout the careers of Audrey Hepburn’s two most beloved directors, there was endless confusion between “Billy Wilder” and “Willie Wyler.” Wilder, who was slightly younger and more annoyed by the mistake, says Wyler “would put his arm around me and say, ‘Come on, now—Monet/Manet? What’s the difference?’”

  r In later years, Hepburn always spoke affectionately of Hanson. In 1959, he married Geraldine Kaelin, with whom he has remained happily for thirty-seven years. They have two sons and a daughter.

  s Auric—with Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre and Louis Durey—was one of France’s legendary “Les Six” composers. The brilliant Czech-born cameraman Franz Planer had recently filmed Max Ophuls’s Lerrer from an Unknown Woman (1948) and Death of a Salesman (1951). He became Audrey’s cinematographer of choice for many future films.

  t Ferrer played King Arthur opposite Ava Gardner’s Guinevere. Merlin was old Felix Aylmer—Audrey’s former acting coach.

  u José and Mel Ferrer are not related, though they have spent most of their professional lives being confused with one another. Further complicating the matter is that, in addition to his father, Mel’s brother was also named José Ferrer and was also a leading surgeon in New York (and later Dean of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University).

  v Eight years later, Lili became the first film musical to be converted into a stage musical, instead of the other way around: Carnival, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, had Anna Maria Alberghetti in Caron’s role and Jerry Orbach in Ferrer’s.

  w “I still get royalties from ‘Hi Lili,”’ says Ferrer, “and I hope Leslie does, too.”

  x Zsa Zsa was the Miss Hungary of 1936. Lili is, far and away, the highlight of her filmography.

  y Charles Walters (1911-1982) choreographed such MGM musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis and was Judy Garland’s favorite director. He made Easter Parade (1948), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) and Joan Crawford’s camp classic, Torch Song. “After a few days of shooting we all realized that Leslie was giving an extraordinary performance,” recalls Ferrer. Walters wanted to expand the numbers, increase the budget and make a typical MGM big musical, [but] Dore Schary ruled that the picture would stay in its small, modest, intimate form. How right he was.”

  z However shaky, the marriage of William and Ardis Holden lasted another twenty years, into the 1970s.

  aa Exactly a decade later, she amazed filmgoers with the same trick in My Fair Lady, jumping from a stand-up posture to a perfect sitting position on the bed during “I Could Have Danced All Night.”

  ab In addition to Hepburn, Kerr and Caron, the other nominees were Ava Gardner for Mogambo and Maggie McNamara for The Moon Is Blue. William Holden was named best actor for Stalag 17. Ian McLellan Hunter—Dalton Trumbo’s front—won the story-writing award for Roman Holiday. Forty years later, a posthumous Oscar was presented to Trumbo’s widow and children.

  ac Ellen Burstyn would do so again in 1974 for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Same Time Next Year.

  ad For the record, here are the slight variances. From William Fields, her Playwrights Company publicist (1953): height: 5’6 ¾”; weight: 110; dress size: 8; hat size: 21; shoe size: 8; waist: 20”; glove size: 6½”. The New York Post (1956) said 32½-20-35. Photoplay (1954) said 32-20½-34.

  ae Audiences are still casting their votes for Sabrina, remade in 1995 by Sidney Pollack, with Julia Ormond in Hepburn’s role and Harrison Ford in Bogart’s. Billy Wilder served as a consultant.

  af Hepburn was upset in later years by Fonda’s disdain for War and Peace and refusal to include it in retrospectives of his work. One indirect tribute to Audrey was Sergei Bondarchuk’s grand, eight-hour Soviet version of War and Peace (1966), in which he cast Ludmila Savetyeva—an Audrey Hepburn lookalike—as Natasha.

  ag The final rundown of Funny Face tunes and their authors:

  By George and Ira Gershwin: “Funny Face,” “He Loves and She Loves,” “Let’s Kiss and Make Up” and “’S Wonderful” from the original Funny Face (1927); “How Long Has This Been Going On?,” written for Funny Face but not used until Rosalie (1928); and “Clap Yo’ Hands” from Oh, Kay! (1926).

  By Roger Edens and Leonard Gershe: “Think Pink,” “On How To Be Lovely,” and “Basal Metabolism.” With Ira Gershwin’s permission, Edens and Gershe updated some of the Gershwin songs’ lyrics.

  ah Kay Thompson was also the creator of “Eloise,” that irrepressible little heroine of a whimsical book series on which millions of girls were raised in the fifties and sixties. In addition, Thompson was a vocal arranger for Judy Garland and the godmother of Liza Minnelli (one of the inspirations for Eloise), with whom the eighty-four-year-old Thompson now lives reclusively in New York.

  ai Donen, then just thirty-one, made his Broadway dance debut at sixteen in Pal Joey which began his long collaboration with Gene Kelly. They codirected On the Town (1949) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952). As solo director, Donen made such stunning film musicals as Give a Girl a Break (1953, with Marge and Gower Champion), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and later Pajama Game and Damn Yankees.

  aj Leslie Caron was then playing Gigi at the New Theatre in London “in order to warm myself up for the film.” One night she was visited in her dressing room by Baroness Ella van Heemstra. “She was very friendly,” Caron recalls, “and felt there was a tie between Audrey and me.”
Aside from Gigi, Caron and Hepburn often vied for the same parts. After Audrey played Ondine on Broadway, Caron played it with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. “When I did Fanny (1961) with Josh Logan,” says Caron, “it was a toss-up between the two of us.” They met frequently “and always we had this sibling recognition. But I was in awe of her, and there was a great deal of shyness on both our parts.”

  ak Ariane had been filmed three times before—once as a French silent and twice with Elisabeth Bergner, whose gamine qualities were similar to Audrey’s.

  al For more on the theory and practice of Hepburn’s “old men” in films, see Molly Haskell’s discussion in Chapter 5, pp. 165-66.

  am The persistent rumor that Audrey appeared as an extra in a Ben-Hur mob scene as a whimsical favor to director William Wyler is a myth, stemming from a visit that she and Patricia Bosworth made one day to watch the filming of the chariot scene. Hepburn took an interest in Bosworth, “maybe because it was my first big break in the movies [and] I was the youngest member of the cast,” she says. “During my big scenes, Audrey firmly advised me not to do anything—‘just react, don’t act’—and that’s what I did.”

  an That film didn’t materialize until 1966 and starred Audrey’s nemesis-to-be, Julie Andrews, when it did.

  ao John Huston, of course, was legendary for not taking things seriously. In his memoirs, he said his “one joyful memory” during Unforgiven shooting was when his friend Billy Pearson, a horse jockey and fellow prankster, came down to visit: “A new luxury golf club outside Durango was celebrating its opening with a major tournament, and an international cast of golfing celebrities was on hand for it. Billy and I ... bought 2,000 ping-pong balls and inscribed them with the most terrible things we could think of: ‘Go home, Yankee sons-of-bitches!’ ‘Fuck you, dirty Mexican cabrones!’ and similar sentiments. Then we rented a small airplane and dumped [them] on the fairway while play was under way. It was a triumph. Nobody could possibly locate a golf ball.... The tournament was canceled and everybody was furious—especially Burt Lancaster, who was one of the sponsors and took his golf quite seriously.”

 

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