Hollywood icon Audrey Hepburn was a world renowned actress with an extensive acting career spanning over four decades and upon retirement turned her focus to charity and aid work.
She starred in critically acclaimed films such as Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady, winning many awards and accolades which led her to become the first actress ever to win an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for a single performance.
After her glittering and successful career, Hepburn became devoted to her passion for charity work and worked closely with UNICEF as a Goodwill Ambassador. She worked in Africa, Asia and South Africa before her death in 1993.
Hepburn once said: “The ‘Third World’ is a term I don’t like very much, because we’re all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering.”
(Image: Bettmann Archive)
UN Photographer John Isaac once commented on Audrey’s attitude towards the children she helped: “Often the kids would have flies all over them, but she would just go hug them. I had never seen that.”
“Other people had a certain amount of hesitation, but she would just grab them. Children would just come up to hold her hand, touch her. She was like the Pied Piper.”
(Image: Getty Images)
After Hepburn arrived back from a humanitarian trip to Somalia in 1992, she went for testing after complaints due to abdominal pain. The results concluded that she had a rare form of abdominal cancer for which she was treated and underwent chemotherapy.
Due to her illness she was not allowed to fly commercially to Switzerland, where her family wanted to celebrate what would be her last Christmas.
Her friend, fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, quickly arranged for a private jet to fly her from Los Angeles to Geneva.
(Image: Getty Images)
She died in her sleep at home on the evening of 20 January 1993 and her legacy has carried on ever since.
Her long term partner Robert Wolders said: “The doctors gave her three months to live. She acknowledged being afraid of the pain but not being afraid of dying.”
He recalled the time the family spent together during Audrey’s precious last few weeks: “On the last Christmas, she asked a friend to buy three special winter coats: for Givenchy, [her son] Sean and me.”
(Image: Moviepix)
“She said, ‘Please think of me when you wear them.’ Later on, when we went to bed, she said, ‘It was the most beautiful Christmas I ever had.’”
Adored, admired and loved by fans of her work and the lives that she touched, Audrey led a peaceful and fulfilling life before her death at 63 years old. She was posthumously awarded humanitarian medals and honoured with a statue at the UNICEF headquarters in 2002.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
