On Audrey Hepburn

Abstract Why should Audrey Hepburn still matter today? This book revises the contemporary view of Hepburn that sees her primarily as a fashion icon and style guru. It argues that her films, more than her biography or her likeness, are essential to understanding both her importance as one of the all-time major stars to emerge in Hollywood after World War II and her lasting popularity. On Audrey Hepburn examines her screen presence and persona while at the same time emphasizing her skill as an actress. While cognizant of the many contradictions inhering in her films, the book examines the liminality she represented in her comedies and musicals, demonstrating how her characters’ desiring and intelligence supply the primary motors of the plots, resist the films’ patriarchal template, and complicate her asymmetrical casting opposite older male stars. Moreover, Hepburn’s close relation with designer Hubert de Givenchy, which established her identification with haute couture, enabled her characters’ movement on-screen and was a basis for understanding transformation through fashion as a turning-point event in the narrative. This forged a pathway through spectacle for viewer identification with Hepburn’s difference, as symbolized by her unorthodox body, which the clothes did not disguise but amplified. On Audrey Hepburn, finally, examines her skillful performances in thrillers and dramas, studying her expert timing and use of props, her expressive face as it revealed interior emotions and thinking, her interaction with other actors in an ensemble, and the overall nuance with which she developed complex characterizations.