Audrey Hepburn was one of the best actresses in Hollywood, especially during the 50s, and she will always be remembered for her elegance and simplicity.
However, there are other aspects of her life that some people seem to ignore which made her who she was, someone incredibly humble but at the same time, influential and successful.
Curiosities of a diva's life
Audrey Kathleen Ruston, better known as Audrey Hepburn, was born in 1929, the same year than Anna Frank was born. It also happened to be the same year that the Black Thursday (24/10/1929) took place, or that France denied the politic asylum to Leon Trotsky.
She was born in Belgium, to a British father, who happened to be a nazi militant and a Dutch mother.
During the Second World War, Audrey would live in different parts of The Netherlands, trying to escape from the nazis, and she had to adopt some measures to survive, like speaking only Dutch or changing her name to her mother's name, Edda van Heemstra, to avoid showing her English heritage.
Did you know for example that she could speak perfect English, French, Dutch, Italian and a bit of Spanish? Simply amazing.
She suffered from anaemia due to the lack of nutrients during the war, as the nazis confiscated the food and the combustibles and people died of hunger and cold, but that didn't stop her from painting, dancing and acting.
On the top of that, Audrey was incredibly intelligent and was always interested in culture. Proof of that is that she firstly appeared as an actress in an educative film: Dutch language in seven lessons.
About her filmography
Nobody can imagine her most significant plays without her image on the screen but the truth is that there were a few occasions in which she could not have got those roles.
For example, the producers were going to choose Elisabeth Taylor for the film Holidays in Rome, but the director chose Audrey, and something similar happened with her role in Breakfast in Tiffany´s was thought to be for Marilyn Monroe.
How many of you knew that there is a street with her name in The Netherlands or that, in 1991, the then mayor of Forth Worth, Texas, proclaimed the 28th of February as the "Audrey Hepburn´s Day"?!
