Intimate Audrey: An Authorized Biography by Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Wendy Holden
Reading Intimate Audrey feels like cuddling into your favorite reading nook and wrapping yourself in a real-life fairy tale. In this book, Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Wendy Holden take you on a most personal journey into Audrey Hepburn’s life from her childhood to her death. Filled with stories of victory like being seen by Collette and declared the only person to play Gigi and tragedy like when her housekeeper revealed the extent of her husband’s affairs, this book shows a side of Audrey Hepburn that we never knew.
A Star Shaped by War and Wonder
But perhaps Audrey Hepburn is a new figure to you? After all, her most iconic film roles came in the 1950s and 60s in movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady, and Roman Holiday. In her later years, her love of children and drive to help them led her to serve as a Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF. Perhaps this need to help showed up as a way to give back after receiving international aid when she was a malnourished and traumatized child, recovering from the painful Nazi occupation of Holland during World War II.
The author, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, is Audrey Hepburn’s son from her marriage with Mel Ferrer. He has worked in every part of the entertainment industry and carries on with Audrey’s work through nonprofits and UNICEF. Wendy Holden joins him as co-author, a great choice, as she is a journalist, historian and novelist with a focus on World War II. Her bestselling titles include The Teacher of Auschwitz. She has also ghostwritten memoirs for public figures such as Goldie Hawn, Barbara Sinatra and Cher.
A Story Told Like Cinema
Each chapter begins with a quote from Audrey and a scene written as if in a screenplay. I didn’t think it would work when I opened the book. Would people get it? Would reading just dialogue and screen direction be effective? By the end of the first one, tears rolled down my cheeks as Hepburn struggled to be strong while experiencing the tragedy unfolding in a Somali refugee camp where children were dying from starvation. The technique enfolded me in the immediacy of each small scene and served as a wayfinder for my path through the book. Oh, this is the chapter about her parents’ relationship; this is the one where World War II destroys her dream of being a professional ballerina; this is the one where she finally has the child she so desperately wanted.
The stories revealed here are the ones that we’ve missed over the years. The ones about her childhood, her stern mother who found her lacking in almost every way, the terrible starvation that occurred during the war, the infidelity of husbands, and the way she cherished her children and the solace she found in the garden and her home in Switzerland.
And each of these stories leads us to the focus in her final years. We learn about the life of service she created in her later years with her dedication to the children of the world in her role as a goodwill ambassador of UNICEF. We marvel at the quiet star still leading the way in her final film role as Hap, or God, in Always. We discover the devoted gardener showing us her favorite flowers in her final passion project, Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn. We wept watching this singular human inviting all of her dearest friends to visit and receive gifts from her as she lay on her deathbed.
The Woman Behind the Legend
Being a movie star means dedicating yourself to your art and career. Being a devoted mother, in many ways, means leaving that mountain of your career behind. This is a woman who wanted to have it all, who wanted the nights in to read and play with her young son but also have a film career. Of course, to do that means to network, to promote and to make connections to continue her work, and so, instead of staying in, she walked out the door most evenings dressed for lavish parties. It all seems so glamorous until you see the yearning for those precious moments. Though through it all, her son, Sean, avers that he never felt neglected or a lack of love from his mother.
Being that iconic movie star and fashionista allowed her to have a life filled with purpose and love. This book is filled with so many wonderful moments, and I hate to spoil any of them, very much feeling like I’m spoiling a movie by relating scenes. I envy you reading this book for the first time, laughing and sobbing and being amazed at her ability to grasp each opportunity and make the most of it.
Perhaps this book is less like reading a fairy tale than watching a documentary, one where you can’t bear to leave the cinema and find yourself watching the credits while tears run down your face as you smile in the dark.
About the Authors:
Sean Hepburn Ferrer was born in Bürgenstock, Lucerne, Switzerland on July 17, 1960, to Audrey Kathleen Hepburn-Ferrer and Melchor Gaston Ferrer. For 40 years, Sean has worked in every aspect of the Entertainment industry and a series of nonprofits dedicated to continuing his mother’s humanitarian legacy as a UNICEF ambassador. He is the author of the New York Times best seller Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit. Sean, together with his wife Karin with whom he not only shares his life but also his day-to-day business, distilled Audrey’s rich life into this essential story in Little Audrey’s Daydream. They split their time between Florence, Italy, and Spain. They five respective children are all grown.
Wendy Holden
is a former war correspondent who has written dozens of biographies, memoirs, and a few novels, many of them bestsellers. She co-wrote Goldie Hawn’s memoir (A Lotus Grows in the Mud), Barbara Sinatra’s memoir (Lady Blue Eyes), and Patricia Gucci’s memoir (In the Name of Gucci), among many others. She also wrote the international bestseller Born Survivors, which tells the true story of three young mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis, and The Teacher of Auschwitz, her latest novel based upon a true character, which has brought readers around the world to tears.
