Posted on 04/03/2019 1:11:41 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The world fell in love with her doe-eyed beauty and stylish perfection in such films as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sabrina, but Audrey Hepburn‘s real-life story was always far more complicated.
“When my mother told us about her life, she never talked about Hollywood or her films,” says her younger son Luca Dotti, 49. “She would tell us stories about the war. And she spoke about good and evil.”
Even as a young boy he says, “I knew from her eyes, her expressions, and her shaky hands that there was more to the story.”
26 years after her death, a new book, Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II, by historian and biographer Robert Matzen, excerpted in this week’s PEOPLE, tells the harrowing tale that Hepburn long kept hidden.
How she barely survived Germany’s five year occupation of Holland, and how she risked her life secretly working for the Dutch Resistance to help fight the Nazis.
According to Matzen, Hepburn was a young girl of 14 when she was asked to help the Resistance.
“Audrey once said that one of her jobs was ‘running around with food for the pilots,” he notes, referring to the American and British fliers shot down over Holland. “As a fluent English speaker, she could communicate with the pilots, tell them where to go and who would help them,” he says.
On one occasion, when she saw the German police approaching, Matzen describes how she kept her wits about her and began picking wildflowers as a diversion tactic.
“When the Germans…reached her,” he writes, “she remained silent and sweetly presented her flowers to them. After a check of her identity card, she was allowed to pass.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
A brave and classy woman.
Thanks,
L
And we thought we loved Audrey, already? WOW!
Another favorite book recommendation in the same vein is:
“In My Hands’ by Irene Gut Opdyke. Similar heroine (Polish Jew) who hid people in the basement of a home she shared with her Nazi officer ‘boyfriend!’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Gut_Opdyke
I’m fond of Hedy.....Beauty and brains....
At the beginning of World War II, she and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers.[6] Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s,[7] the principles of their work are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of CDMA and Wi-Fi.[8][9][10] This work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.[6][11]
She was a delicate flower.
Too bad today Hollywood is filled with communists and degenerates.
beautiful, tough and smart. That’s why Spielberg said she was the only actress he had to beg just for a role in Always..
I read recently that eating tulips helped her not to starve to death. Amazing & elegant woman......
Quite a contrast between Hepburn and Soros during that era.
Indeed.
What an amazing creature.
Fell in love with her in “War and Peace” and went absolutely bonkers over her in “Two for the Road” (which I think was her best film)
Is that Hedley? Or Hedy?
WHEN HOLLYWOOD WAS MADE OF STERNER STUFF!
It’s often been noted that the problem with Hollywood is the inbred nepotism that promotes family members of existing big shots rather than bringing in real people with real lives outside of tinsel town. Compare today’s deracinated personalities with the authentic and rooted men and woman of the past like Audrey Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart and so many others who lived real lives and could bring that emotional connection to their work.
The Nazis basically tried to starve the Dutch population in the winter of 1944, The Netherlands wasn’t totally liberated until VE Day.
Fat little thing, huh?
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