Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Kathleen Hepburn-Ruston (née Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognised as a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend from the Golden Age of Hollywood. She was inducted into the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame and is one of only a few entertainers who have won competitive Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards.

Born into an aristocratic family in Ixelles, Brussels, Hepburn spent parts of her childhood in Belgium, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. She attended boarding school in Kent from 1936 to 1939. Hepburn returned to the Netherlands at the outbreak of the Second World War. She studied ballet at the Arnhem Conservatory during the war. By 1944, Hepburn was performing ballet to raise money to support the resistance. She studied with Sonia Gaskell in Amsterdam from 1945 to 1948 and then with Marie Rambert in London.

Hepburn began performing as a chorus girl in West End musicals and later made minor appearances in several films. She rose to stardom in the romantic comedy Roman Holiday (1953) alongside Gregory Peck, for which she became the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for the same performance. The same year, Hepburn won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her performance in Ondine. She went on to star in a number of successful films, such as Sabrina (1954), with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden; Funny Face (1957), a musical with Fred Astaire in which she sang her own parts; the drama The Nun's Story (1959); the romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961); the thriller-romance Charade (1963), opposite Cary Grant; and the musical My Fair Lady (1964).