Happy Birthday, Audrey

Audrey Hepburn-Ruston is born on this day in 1929 near Brussels. She dropped the "Ruston" from her name when she started acting.

Hepburn's father, an English banker, left Hepburn and her mother, a Dutch baroness, when Hepburn was six. Hepburn attended school in England, but when World War II erupted, her mother brought her to Holland, thinking her daughter would be safer there. During the war, the Nazis occupied Holland. Delicate-looking Audrey continued to attend school and study ballet-while reportedly smuggling messages to the Resistance in her ballet shoes.

After the war, Hepburn studied ballet in Amsterdam and London, and went on to study acting. She played bit parts on stage and screen until 1951, when she met the French writer Colette. Colette insisted Hepburn be cast in the title role of the Broadway version of her novelGigi. Hepburn's Broadway debut in 1951 brought her enormous attention, and she was cast as the lead in Roman Holiday (1953), co-starring with Gregory Peck. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. She continued to win lead roles in strong films, including Sabrina (1951), opposite Humphrey Bogart, Funny Face (1957), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and My Fair Lady (1964).

Hepburn married actor and director Mel Ferrer in 1954, and he produced her Oscar-nominated 1967 film, Wait Until Dark. The couple divorced in 1968, and she married an Italian psychiatrist in 1969. The couple moved to Europe, and Hepburn largely retired from Hollywood, devoting her time to charitable causes. She became a special ambassador for UNICEF in the 1970s.

In 1976, after a nine-year hiatus, Hepburn appeared as a middle-aged Maid Marian in Robin and Marian, opposite Sean Connery. She made a handful of film appearances in the 1970s and 1980s, including one as an angel in Always (1989), her final film appearance. Hepburn continued to work for charitable causes until her death in 1993.