0:01

I'm on thirty fourth Street in Manhattan, outside

0:03

Macy's at Harold Square. I

0:05

worked here more than twenty five years

0:07

ago, and on one faithful day

0:10

as a twenty three year old, I came face to

0:12

face with bona fide

0:14

old time Hollywood stardom,

0:17

sort of face to face. Let's go inside.

0:26

Macy's was my first job. When I arrived

0:28

in New York. I worked behind the

0:30

counter as a fragrant specialist for

0:33

Channel. I was not a spritzer.

0:35

Spritzer's were the male models in front of

0:37

the counter debait to lure customers

0:40

so that I could dazzle them with my knowledge of the

0:42

product line. Can

0:46

I help you, ma'am?

0:48

H Channel number nineteen. You do know who

0:50

wears number twenty two? The Queen Mother.

0:53

I hear she smells great. You're a French

0:55

teacher, Well you have no choice. You have to wear Chanelle

0:57

number five, Coco or

1:00

the Divarsay looking to get her groove back.

1:02

Yes, it's an ou de toilette. No,

1:05

it's not literally toilet water. Most

1:07

people run screaming when they see anybody standing

1:10

there with a fragrance bottle, and they didn't when

1:12

they saw you. That's my former supervisor

1:14

Javen Bunch. God, I cannot

1:17

believe this. In that

1:19

man shouting in disbelief is salesman

1:22

Park Salons and my former colleague

1:24

Raymond Ramirez, and I've been

1:26

wishing to know since nineteen eighty eight. You were

1:28

like the cal Ripken of Chanel at

1:31

Macy's Baseball Reverence. So

1:34

one of the things I remember is that

1:36

occasionally celebrity

1:38

stars would walk through. I got to see Share

1:41

the opera diva Jess Norman, before

1:44

you is Elizabeth Taylor. I got to see Lena

1:46

Horn. But for me, the

1:48

one truly magical moment

1:50

took place in April of nineteen ninety

1:53

two during the annual Flower Show.

1:59

I was right behind the counter,

2:01

yes right, yes, when when

2:03

she and by she I mean Audrey

2:05

Hepburn walked floated

2:08

by my counter. Yes,

2:15

Audrey Hepburn. I will cherish

2:17

my visit here in memory

2:21

as long as I live. When I

2:23

say she floated by, I'm not

2:25

just talking about her impossibly perfect

2:28

posture, which indeed made it seem like she was

2:30

being pulled by a string. It

2:32

was more than that. I've met a lot

2:34

of stars, and most of them

2:36

kind of disappoint She didn't

2:39

more than gracefulness. She

2:42

exuded grace. I

2:45

do remember that day. What do you remember, Oh my

2:47

god, I remember that, the excitement, I

2:50

remember the sack excitement.

2:52

Sure, but the floor became very

2:55

quiet when she floated through, like

2:57

the world came to a stop. There was this

3:00

reverence among everybody

3:02

on the floor. No one would have tried to get

3:04

that right. And that's a difference

3:06

too. Even if selfie's existed a smartphones,

3:09

you never would have thought to like wrap your arm around

3:11

her and put your shove your hand in front of her face.

3:13

He wouldn't go near miss Heathburn. And

3:15

that's who she would have been more

3:22

than a quarter century after her

3:24

passing. Yes, it's been that long.

3:26

The image of Hepburn in a black dress

3:28

and sunglasses having breakfast

3:31

outside Tiffany's is as identifiable

3:33

as Marilyn Monroe standing above a subway

3:36

grate or James Dean in his red

3:38

jacket. But our attachment

3:40

to Audrey feels special,

3:43

more intimate. Let's find

3:45

out why. Along

3:47

the way, I'll take you to some unusual places

3:50

and we'll cross paths or some unexpected

3:52

people, like say a former

3:54

president of the United States. Were

3:56

you aware that the day of your inauguration,

3:59

Audrey Hepburn died. No,

4:02

you didn't know that. No,

4:06

I'm Mo Rocca, and this is mobituaries.

4:16

This mobid the timeless

4:18

Audrey Hepburn January

4:21

twentieth, nineteen ninety three, Death

4:24

of an icon. When

4:43

I started on this podcast, I kind

4:45

of made a promise to myself that I wouldn't get

4:47

too gushy or hagiographic about

4:49

any of the people I was profiling. But

4:52

I may have to make an exception because

4:55

we're talking about Audrey Hepburn. This

4:57

episode is going to be a little unconventional, more

5:00

a series of vignettes than a womb

5:02

to tomb biography. Now,

5:04

Like I said at the beginning, the connection

5:06

to Audrey is personal for people.

5:09

One day, not too long ago, I was

5:11

feeling especially reflective, and so

5:14

I tweeted, Because what's the point of reflecting

5:16

if you don't let your followers know it. I went

5:18

ahead and tweeted, how did we

5:21

drift so far from Audrey

5:23

Hepburn? Can we ever get back?

5:26

Quite The response? One person answered,

5:30

no way, there is no comparison.

5:32

Another wrote, she was not of

5:34

this world wer

5:40

than an I'm

5:44

than you in style she's

5:47

now been gone twenty five years. She's

5:49

become a legend. Sean Hepburn

5:51

Ferrer is Audrey Hepburn's older

5:53

son from her first marriage to actor

5:55

Melfarrere. Audrey Hepburn is not

5:58

the movie star from Hollywood. Audrey

6:01

Hepburn is the young girl from across

6:03

the landing who puts on a little

6:05

black dress and goes out into the world. And she

6:08

represents us, not them, and

6:11

we're rooting for her, and we do

6:13

root for her. Somehow she

6:15

manages to be both aspirational

6:18

and totally accessible, whether

6:21

she's the chauffeur's daughter who dazzles

6:24

the industry tycoon and his brother

6:26

in Sabrina or Sabrina or

6:28

Sabrina, Where have You've been? On My Life?

6:31

Right over the garage? Eliza

6:34

Doolittle in My Fair Lady. The difference

6:36

between a lady and a fogle is not how

6:38

she behaves, but how she's treated. Or

6:41

my personal favorite, the bohemian bookworm

6:44

turned fashion model in Funny Face?

6:47

How could I be a model? I

6:49

have no illusions about my looks. I think my

6:51

face is funny. No, she wasn't

6:53

a bombshell like Marilyn Monroe or

6:55

Elizabeth Taylor, but what may

6:57

have seemed funny to her was considered

7:00

an ideal to many. Oh

7:02

God, I didn't think I was ever going to look

7:05

like anyone in a movie. But of course

7:07

when I saw a Funny Face with Audrey

7:09

Hepfron, I definitely

7:12

wished I looked like her. In twenty

7:15

eleven, I interviewed the late great wit

7:17

Nora Ephron. She wrote, when Harry

7:19

met Sally and directed Sleepless in Seattle,

7:22

and had I known we were going to talk about this,

7:24

I would be wearing right now my black turtleneck

7:26

sweater, which almost

7:29

looks like the one she wore in Funny

7:31

Face. Nora went on to tell me this

7:33

terrific story. When she was sixteen,

7:36

she visited Edith Head, the great

7:38

costume designer of Hollywood's Golden

7:40

Age, and Edith Head

7:42

then took me to

7:44

see her famous dressing

7:47

room, which had

7:49

thirty six panels of mirror

7:52

for every ten degrees. It was a

7:54

completely circular room, and

7:57

she said that there was only

7:59

one person who can stand in

8:01

that room and look good in all

8:03

thirty six mirrors. Then it was Audrey Hepburn.

8:06

That is great. If

8:08

I were a geometry teacher. I would use that. Yes,

8:11

there was no one like her ever.

8:14

The charm was

8:17

who she was. I've never seen

8:19

anything like it. It's striking

8:21

that Nora Ephron, who had perfectly

8:24

articulated opinions about

8:26

pretty much everything, had trouble

8:29

describing what it was about Audrey hepburn

8:31

that was so captivating. Ditto

8:33

the normally unflappable Johnny Carson.

8:36

Audrey appeared on the Tonight Show in nineteen

8:38

seventy six, and it's kind of wild

8:41

watching Carson in his sidekick. Ed McMahon

8:43

reduced to anxious schoolboys

8:45

as they get ready to welcome her onto the show the

8:48

first time she's been on the show. And would

8:50

you believe I'm a little nervous really

8:53

what I had not to put you now all? I mean, I would

8:55

believe that because I would feel the sandwich. She's kind

8:57

of very, very special, special. She's

9:00

delicate, thank

9:03

you. Yes, that's the word I was going to use, delicate,

9:05

delicate? Would you walk in place, miss Audrey Hepburnie?

9:09

And as I always like to say, I

9:11

never really saw anyone truly misbehave

9:13

in front of her. How do you think

9:15

she felt about being called delicate

9:18

and She must have smirked because she knew

9:20

that she was not because of what she lived

9:22

through. And

9:28

Audrey Hepburn lived through

9:30

a lot. Maybe the reason

9:32

she pulled off all those Cinderella rolls so

9:34

beautifully was that her own early

9:37

life was something of a fairy tale.

9:39

And I don't mean the Disney kind. I'm

9:42

talking grim. I never led

9:44

what people sink is this glamorous life.

9:46

I've always been me. I've always

9:49

been aware of what

9:51

goes on in the world. And I suddenly grew up

9:53

in a war ravaged country,

9:55

and I've always known, you know that I

9:58

was privileged and NATO

10:00

always seeing suffering, known

10:02

about it. And that hasn't changed. So

10:04

it's still the same old old.

10:16

Audrey Hepburn was born in Brussels,

10:18

Belgium, on May fourth, nineteen

10:21

twenty nine. Her father was a banker

10:23

and her mother a Dutch aristocrat. She

10:26

spent some of her youth in the UK, where

10:28

she trained as a dancer and where

10:31

her parents were supporters of the Fascist

10:33

movement. After her father

10:35

abandoned the family and as war loomed,

10:38

Audrey moved with her mother to neutral

10:40

Holland. Soon

10:42

after the Nazis invaded

10:45

this is the Columbia Broadcasting

10:48

System. Hipler added

10:50

another to his bag of small nations today,

10:52

the fifth and fourteen months, when

10:54

the Dutch Army laid down its arms everywhere

10:57

except in the extreme southwestern part

10:59

of the country. In spite of her parents

11:01

pre war politics, Audrey,

11:03

as a young teenager, did what she

11:05

could to help the resistance, like

11:07

raising funds through secret dance performances.

11:11

The war was a lasting trauma

11:13

for her, as her hometown of Arnham

11:16

became a battlefield. As reported

11:18

here by Walter Cronkite,

11:21

the tragedy a resupply now

11:24

bassets Arnham brigades protecting

11:26

landing zones are under withering German

11:28

attack. Hepburn talked about her

11:30

wartime experience during her American

11:33

television debut in nineteen fifty

11:35

one on a show called We the

11:37

People. She was twenty two

11:39

years old, Ladies and gentlemen, telling

11:41

you her own story. Broadway's latest

11:44

star, Audrey Hepburn. It's her first

11:46

time on Broadway. She's starring in a play

11:48

called Gigi, the precursor to the musical,

11:51

and she's understandably excited. This

11:53

is a wonderful Christmas for me. Irreculusly

11:56

I'm in New York a Broadway.

11:59

But then the own shifts

12:01

as Hepburn begins to reenact

12:03

what happened to her during the war. The Christmas

12:06

I want to tell you about is the one

12:08

that took place here Arnum

12:11

Holland, seven years ago. It's

12:13

pretty surreal. Hepburn is

12:15

basically playing herself as a fifteen

12:18

year old. She talks about how

12:20

her uncle was executed by the Nazis

12:22

and how her family nearly starved.

12:25

And there was the morning of December twenty

12:27

fourth when finally my aunt told us

12:29

there wasn't a scrap of food left in the

12:31

house. Well, I'd

12:34

heard one could sleep and forget hunger. Perhaps

12:36

I could see ball through Christmas. I

12:39

try, But there's a Christmas

12:41

miracle when the Resistance sends

12:43

a delivery ten potatoes,

12:46

the most wonderful and most beautiful

12:48

thing I ever saw. It may sound

12:50

a bit melodramatic to you, but ten

12:53

potatoes would have been a prize. Hepburn

12:55

suffered severe malnourishment during

12:58

what was known as the Dutch Famine. Under

13:00

German occupation. Much of the populace had

13:02

reached the starvation level. The Nazis

13:05

blocked the food supply to over

13:07

four million civilians.

13:09

More than twenty thousand died the

13:11

lack of fulgum's day after day after

13:13

day, and it's

13:16

a long torture. Luca Dotty

13:18

is Hepburn's younger son from her second

13:20

marriage to Italian psychiatrist

13:22

Andrea Dotti. He says

13:24

that during the war, Audrey and her family

13:27

were so desperate for food they

13:29

had to make flower out of tulip bulbs.

13:32

By the time Holland was liberated, she

13:34

weighed only eighty eight pounds.

13:37

Did that stress stay

13:39

with her for the rest of her life? Obviously

13:42

yes, but she he did very well. All

13:44

her life was a search of stability.

13:47

That's why home it was very

13:49

important. Luca wrote a book

13:51

a few years back about their home life

13:54

and her favorite recipes, a surprise

13:56

best seller times and times over. People

13:58

were surprised that my

14:00

mother who actually they

14:02

were surprised by the fact that she actually atees.

14:05

I think Luca's half choking here a

14:07

nod to the speculation that his mother, who

14:10

was very thin, may have had an eating

14:12

disorder. But Luca swears

14:14

by her love of pasta and

14:16

chocolate, which she associated

14:18

with the Allied liberation of Holland.

14:20

My mother was then a survivor, and

14:23

when you are you always have this

14:25

duality. You know, you're happy you're

14:27

alive, but then you have this sense

14:29

of guilts because the person

14:32

next door didn't make it.

14:35

And for Hepburn, one of those people,

14:37

while not a literal next door neighbor, was

14:40

another Dutch girl. Audrey

14:45

Hepburn felt a special connection

14:47

to someone you wouldn't necessarily expect.

14:50

Are you speaking of An Frank. I'm speaking

14:53

of An Frank. You have an affinity for that story,

14:55

don't you. I do in

14:57

a way because we both

15:00

lived through the same war, exactly the

15:02

same age. I was born, the same year Anne Frank

15:04

was born. That's Audrey Hepburn speaking

15:07

to CBS in nineteen eighty nine. But

15:09

she became acquainted with the story of Anne

15:11

Frank far earlier, earlier

15:14

than almost anyone. I

15:16

read the diary in Dutch

15:18

in galiform when

15:20

it was still being edited, and

15:23

it was one of the most devastating

15:26

experiences I've ever had, because

15:28

more than just reading a book, it

15:31

was like having the whole war

15:33

played back to me. She

15:36

obviously was locked up inside.

15:39

I was outside, and here

15:41

was somebody who had been able to put on paper

15:44

everything I'd felt during those years, and

15:47

was it destroyed me. I must saying

15:49

it has stayed an extremely emotional experience

15:53

for me. Luca

15:59

calls mother and Anne Frank soul

16:01

sisters. And I had no idea

16:04

that Otto Frank, Anne's father actually

16:06

wanted Hepburn to play his daughter on screen.

16:09

He even visited her home in Switzerland

16:11

to try to persuade her. There's this

16:13

striking photo of Hepburn, Otto

16:16

Frank and his second wife posing

16:18

outside Hepburn's home. But

16:20

she said no to the role. Why did she

16:22

turn it down because it was much too

16:24

close to what she lived through. She

16:28

thought he would kill her. She actually believed that

16:30

it would somehow, you know, kill

16:33

her to do it, because

16:35

she felt so close to her and she was crushed that she

16:37

made it and Frank didn't. Both her

16:39

sons talked to me about the lifelong impact

16:42

of the war on their mother. My mother

16:44

once said, you know, if I get through this

16:47

alive, I will never ever complain anymore.

16:49

And this is something she actually

16:51

did. My mother was never complaining, even

16:53

in the worst situations,

16:56

and I think that this is one of the reasons why

16:58

she wanted to do then, is that she

17:01

remembered so vividly herself

17:03

and her emotions as a little girl and

17:06

living through the war, and so's

17:08

there's this empathy thing going on.

17:11

Long before Angelina, there was Audrey,

17:14

traveling the globe in the nineteen eighties and

17:16

nineties raising awareness about

17:18

the world's poorest, actively

17:20

lobbying governments to help children

17:22

in need. While she appeared

17:24

in a few films here and there, it

17:26

was her charitable work that defined

17:28

her later years as a good

17:30

will ambassador for Uni Seth. She really

17:33

was one of the world's most prominent celebrity

17:36

humanitarians. She never

17:38

forgot the relief that came at the end

17:40

of the war. Is there a point at which

17:42

our well of compassion might

17:45

run dry? Do you think never? I

17:48

don't think that's It's not

17:50

in human nature. Giving

17:53

is and giving is life living. I mean, if

17:55

you stopped wanting to give, I think it's

17:57

nothing more to live for. The

18:05

darkness of her wartime experience

18:07

may seem like the polar opposite of the

18:09

light she emits on screen. And

18:12

yet I'm wondering if this combination

18:15

of yearning and gratitude

18:18

is what still

18:21

draws us today, because those things really

18:23

seem to show up on screen, and

18:25

it did show. It did show through her eyes,

18:27

it did show in her genuinity

18:31

and simplicity, and

18:34

people realize it's true. So it's very hard

18:36

to define, but you define it very well.

18:40

After talking with Luca and Sean and

18:43

learning what her mother went through, I

18:45

went back and rewatched some of her movies

18:48

and now I see her story in those

18:50

performances as

18:53

the wound, did Holly go lightly looking

18:55

for a better life? I mean, that's horrible.

18:58

Suddenly you're afraid, you don't know what you're Freda

19:01

as Princess Anne, who feels a

19:03

genuine joy on her Roman holiday

19:06

and decide caffine looking

19:09

shop windows, look

19:11

in the rain. It's no coincidence

19:13

that in the screen test that launched her. You

19:15

can watch it yourself, it's on YouTube, she's

19:18

talking about the war,

19:21

the world, the

19:26

bed, and then we

19:28

weren't going to leave this out. There's wait

19:30

until Dark. Audrey Hepburn

19:33

the role you're going to remember whenever

19:36

you're alone. Hepburn plays

19:39

a blind woman who is terrorized

19:41

inside her home. Co star Alan

19:43

Arkin plays her tormentor and supposedly

19:46

hated doing the tormenting I

19:48

mean, who wants it to be mean to Audrey Eppburn. The

19:50

scenes were intense, and Audrey, quite

19:53

possibly channeling her wartime experience,

19:55

endures the struggle and survives.

20:00

Listen. There were plenty of other talented actresses

20:03

in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and they

20:05

were beautiful too. Some of them were supposed to

20:07

be the next Audrey Hepburn, Millie

20:09

Perkins, Maggie McNamara, Susan

20:11

Strasburg, but they hadn't

20:14

lived through what Audrey lived through. Peter

20:17

Bogdanovitch, who directed Hepburn, summed

20:20

up perfectly when he called her an

20:23

iron butterfly. All

20:29

this may go some way towards explaining Audrey

20:31

Hepburn's hold on us, but I think

20:33

there's more to the story. For that,

20:36

we'll head to where else, Japan.

20:39

But first we've made clear there

20:41

were no other Audrey Hepburn's,

20:44

but there was one other, very famous

20:46

Hepburn. So let's take a

20:48

moment to settle something. Audrey

20:51

Hepburn is not Katherine

20:54

Hepburn. It reminds me of that disambiguation

20:56

alert that you get on Wikipedia or Google. You

20:58

know, did you mean now

21:01

if you are one of those people who confuses Katherine

21:03

with Audrey, you probably stopped

21:05

listening to me ten minutes ago. Otherwise,

21:09

it's never too late to

21:12

disambiguate. Oh we're

21:14

going to talk about me. Good.

21:19

Are they related? No,

21:21

they are not sisters. They are not even third

21:23

cousins. Who was older Katherine

21:26

by twenty two years? But who

21:28

wore the pants? Well they both did,

21:31

and quite well, I should add. Then

21:33

there are the very distinctive Hepburn's speech

21:35

patterns. Guess who's coming to

21:38

dinner. If you've never heard Katherine's

21:40

mid Atlantic affect, you've

21:42

probably heard Martin Short doing Katherine

21:44

Hepburn's mid Atlantic affect. Well,

21:47

that kind of talk will get you. No, I

21:49

missed out. Now, Audrey's

21:52

accent was always a little harder to place.

21:55

Did I tell you how divinely and utterly

21:57

happy I am? I guess it was a

21:59

British, Dutch, American bland.

22:01

You know, I'd just like to hear her say things.

22:04

Why didn't you say something, Sarah

22:07

dipity right? Suddenly, not only would they

22:09

not be playing scrabble, it would also not be playing by

22:11

cheesy chicken stock plugs.

22:14

The Journey of Nattigan I'm

22:16

having much too much fun. We

22:18

hope you are to stay

22:20

tuned for more Audrey after this. Just

22:35

before my stint working at Macy's, I

22:37

was living in Japan, where I studied kabuki.

22:40

Yes really, I taught English

22:42

on the side. Because it was the early nineties, I

22:44

had no other income, and a cup of coffee in Tokyo

22:46

costs about twelve dollars. One

22:49

of my students, a very nice woman named

22:51

Ritzko, asked me out to a movie.

22:53

It may have been a date, I still don't know. We

22:56

ended up going to an Audrey Hepburn film

22:58

festival. We saw How to Steal

23:01

a Million co starring Peter O'Toole.

23:03

You went us in a big time paper heist.

23:09

A life sized cardboard cut out

23:11

of Audrey greeted us at the festival Entrance.

23:14

Fans post for pictures next to it. Now

23:16

we've talked about the personal attachment a lot

23:18

of fans have for her. Well, in

23:20

Japan, the Audrey love is

23:23

deep. There's this famous

23:25

all female theater troupe there called Takaraska.

23:29

They staged a musical version of

23:31

Roman Holidays.

23:39

And get this, Hepburn was ranked above

23:41

Gandhi in a Japanese poll on the most

23:43

well liked historical figures. What

23:46

is the deal with your mother and Japan?

23:48

The connection? It's intense,

23:51

It's very intense. Little by

23:53

little I understood there was a sincere

23:56

devotion. There's no other word for it, and

23:58

Luca would know. He told me that

24:00

it was through Japanese fan mail and small

24:03

tokens like origami that he first

24:05

began to grasp his mother's fame. During

24:08

his childhood in Rome, he would

24:10

watch Japanese tourists trying to follow

24:12

in his mother's film star footsteps.

24:15

Audrey Hepburn now welcomes

24:18

you to Rome as the captive princess

24:20

who goes out on the town to have some fun. And

24:22

they came to Rome to retrace

24:25

the Roman Holiday,

24:27

every scene you know, and the vise by and the

24:29

ice great and the fountain

24:31

and this sent deats in case you

24:33

haven't seen Roman Holiday, it's the movie

24:35

that won Hepburn her oscar. She plays

24:38

Princess Anne, who's visiting Rome

24:40

on a royal tour and ends up

24:42

playing hooky for the day while pretending

24:45

to be a commoner. She falls in love with an

24:47

American journalist played by Gregory

24:49

Peck I could do some things. I've always

24:51

wanted to blake what oh,

24:54

you can't imagine. I like to just

24:56

whatever. I like. Holiday

24:58

long. When

25:02

the Japanese saw Roman Holiday, it

25:05

was love at first sight. It

25:07

was nineteen fifty three, the war was

25:10

still a recent memory, and American

25:12

culture was really just starting to take root

25:14

in Japan. The Japanese

25:16

connection to the film may have something

25:18

to do with the importance of duty.

25:21

You see spoiler alert, Princess

25:23

Anne tearfully leaves her true

25:26

love to return to her royal world,

25:28

not a Hollywood ending. I

25:31

have to leave you now. I'm

25:34

going to that corner. That done.

25:40

You stay in the gun drive away. It

25:42

was very understandable

25:45

for Japanese. Taki Kato

25:47

lives in Japan and was a young girl

25:49

when Roman Holiday premiered, But Order

25:51

Helper we could identify with

25:54

how they say so charming,

25:57

so natural for

25:59

us, was so cute, and

26:02

the Japanese tend to like someone

26:04

who's cute. And

26:06

apparently the Japanese found Hepburn's

26:08

pixie haircut cuter than Hello

26:10

Kitty. Hepburn talked about it in

26:12

a Dutch TV interview in nineteen

26:14

eighty eight, and actually it caused a bit

26:17

of a fjor, especially in Japan, with

26:19

the film was an enormous success, still is today,

26:23

because they're all girls

26:25

have very long hair and it was part of the

26:27

tradition and they'll cut off their hair,

26:30

and I was held responsible.

26:33

Yes, that's very true. Taki

26:35

went on to become a show business coordinator

26:38

in Tokyo. She worked with a lot of

26:40

big names, Frank Snatche, Harry

26:42

Barafonte, Ringosta, and

26:44

as you may have guessed, miss Ldre Hepburn.

26:47

In a surprise move, Hepburn left Hollywood

26:49

when she was still very much in demand in the

26:52

late nineteen sixties to live abroad

26:54

and focus on motherhood. But in nineteen

26:56

seventy one, Taki helped negotiate

26:58

to get her back in of the camera, this

27:01

time for Japanese commercials.

27:03

It's that lost in translation thing where

27:05

Americans appeared in ads that were never

27:08

broadcast in the US, which was very

27:11

very sensational Hinchapan,

27:13

of course, and the commercials was very

27:15

fashionable. Incidentally, she was

27:17

advertising high end wigs. But

27:22

it wasn't until nineteen eighty three

27:24

that Audrey Hepburn actually went to

27:27

Japan. The occasion a

27:29

fashion show for her dear friend and designer

27:32

Hubert de Givanshi. Quick

27:34

side note, The Givanschi fashion show

27:36

in funny Face is a magical

27:38

sequence. When Hepburn

27:40

landed in Tokyo, it was like Princess

27:43

Anne from Roman Holiday had finally

27:45

arrived. Hepburn was naturally

27:47

exhausted after a very long flight, and

27:49

she worried that she might disappoint fans who

27:51

were accustomed to seeing her as a young woman

27:54

on screen. So she said to me, Taki,

27:58

I am very sad. If

28:00

the Japanese fans look at me in

28:02

that tired face, they

28:05

may not like me anymore. Talkie

28:07

told her friend not to worry, that Japanese

28:10

fans would always love her, and

28:12

she said, I still remember

28:14

her big smile. Taki. Okay,

28:17

you're right. Taki

28:19

and Audrey remained friends for years.

28:22

I have about thirty letters from her. This

28:25

must be in

28:28

nineteen eighty three, after she left

28:30

Japan. I think I have now

28:32

almost recovered from my jet

28:35

lag, but will never

28:37

get over Japan. Never,

28:40

she underlines, none

28:42

of us will ever

28:44

be the same again. Exclamation

28:47

mark three of them. She told

28:49

me, Taki, perhaps

28:53

in the past years in

28:55

the in my ancestor era. I

28:58

might have in a Japanese Hepburn

29:00

may have been joking here, but she understood

29:03

that there was a bond. So

29:05

to test this notion of devotion, we

29:07

sent a producer to this Audrey Hepburn

29:09

photo exhibition happening in a department

29:12

store just outside Tokyo, and

29:14

one of the women waiting in line likened

29:16

Hepburn to a goddess.

29:21

Another lady talked about a sense of elegance

29:24

and her quote straight spine

29:26

that goes like tis

29:29

a day and

29:32

you'll remember. That's what I remembered

29:34

from that day at Macy's when

29:43

I caught a glimpse of Audrey Hepburn

29:45

back in nineteen ninety two. I had

29:47

no way of knowing how little time she

29:49

had left. In September,

29:51

she was diagnosed with cancer of the appendix,

29:55

and she died on January twentieth,

29:57

nineteen ninety three. I

30:00

would have thought it would have been front page news. I

30:02

did front page, even above

30:04

the fold, yes, I still think in newspaper

30:07

terms. But someone else

30:09

was front and center that day. I William

30:12

Jefferson Clinton, who solemnly

30:15

swear that I will faithfully

30:17

execute the office President

30:19

of the United States. Yep,

30:21

Bill Clinton kind of stole her spotlight.

30:25

Were you aware that the day of your inauguration,

30:28

Audrey Hepburn died. No,

30:31

you didn't know that. No,

30:34

it didn't look I didn't. It

30:36

was a fairly busy time. I didn't sleep for two days.

30:39

Understandably, he'd been a little distracted.

30:41

So to jog his memory, I brought along

30:43

an old copy of The New York Times. She

30:45

was only sixty three. Yeah, I remember then. I remember

30:47

how young I thought she was. I

30:50

didn't think about it being my inaugural. They

30:52

yeah, she's like she they put her back here.

30:55

But it's a nice spread. She

30:59

was amazing. I loved her. I

31:03

love Roman Holiday, I love Funny Face,

31:06

I love

31:09

Sabrina. I like the remake because

31:12

I like the first one so much. That

31:14

may be pushing it. Oh that is yeah,

31:17

that's definitely a stretch. That's Karen

31:19

James. She's a culture critic and

31:21

on January twentieth, nineteen ninety three,

31:23

she was working for The New York Times when

31:25

she was assigned Audrey Hepburn's

31:28

obituary. So I'm

31:30

going to show you it's

31:32

been a long time since you've seen it. I haven't read

31:34

this obituary in years. I

31:37

glanced at it. What did I say? I

31:39

think? I said she was elegant and graceful.

31:41

You do use those words. Audiences were

31:43

enchanted by her combination of grace,

31:45

elegance, and high spirits, and

31:47

she won an Academy Award as Best Actress.

31:50

You were talking about Roman Holiday. There. In

31:52

a string of films that followed, she continued

31:54

to play the lie, the young thing with stars in

31:56

her eyes and the ability to make Cinderella

31:58

transformations. I stand by that.

32:00

But there's a whole story behind this obituary.

32:07

So Karen's in the news the day of the

32:09

inauguration, and at about five

32:11

in the afternoon, when all the top

32:13

editors were in the Page one meeting putting together

32:15

the front page, the deputy

32:17

Culture editor came running over to my desk

32:19

and said, thank goodness you're here. Katherine

32:22

Hepburn is dead and we have

32:24

a ten year old obituary. Can

32:27

you rewrite it? And they were tearing

32:29

apart in page one because

32:31

they thought Katherine Hepburn was dead. So

32:34

we walk over to the Culture news desk. You're

32:36

looking very mystified for a good reason. I really

32:38

am. We went to the news desk and

32:40

said, how do we know she's dead? And

32:42

someone said, oh, the Uwen called to tell

32:45

us, and it was like one of those cartoon

32:47

moments where you saw the lightbulbs

32:49

go on over everyone's head and

32:52

we realized it was Audrey, not

32:54

Katherine. Before

32:59

the world to knew the word disambiguation,

33:03

you experienced it, That's right, I

33:05

did firsthand. Did you mean

33:08

Audrey Hepburn or Katherine Hepburn.

33:10

That's right. They were so relieved

33:12

that they did not have to tear apart page one

33:15

for Audrey Hepburn's obituary

33:17

that Katherine Hepburn would have warranted

33:20

tearing apart a page one, even

33:23

though that page one was about a presidential inauguration

33:25

exactly. They would have found room for her on

33:27

page one, and they were doing it. But

33:30

when I heard it was Audrey, immediately what

33:32

they said to me was, oh,

33:34

can you write Audrey's obituary? I

33:36

feel like this is the kind of mistake that

33:39

Audrey Hepburn would have been really

33:41

gracious about. Katherine

33:44

Hepburn would not have been pleased about,

33:46

because Katherine Hepburn did not suffer fools.

33:48

No, she didn't well it's a lovely oh

33:50

bit, so it does. It doesn't seem like

33:52

a rush job. I mean, really, thank you.

33:55

I'm glad to hear that, because I felt bad

33:57

after that I didn't have time to give her, you

33:59

know, the atention I would have if I'd known.

34:01

And it's kind of remarkable when you read

34:03

your oh bed that her

34:05

career was basically fourteen

34:08

years long. I mean nineteen fifty three to nineteen

34:11

sixty seven. There was a little stuff before, a

34:13

little stuff afterward. I just have

34:15

the impression she wasn't one of those people who

34:17

had to act. There are people who

34:19

really feel like they have to do it

34:21

no matter what. And she had other things

34:24

to do. She had a family, she had her

34:26

un work. She really didn't

34:28

feel as driven to do

34:30

things that she wasn't really passionately

34:32

interested in doing. I remember how special

34:34

it felt to watch the Oscars, and

34:37

you know, in those days, right, and it was

34:39

an event that Audrey Hepburn would show up

34:41

and float across the stage to deliver

34:43

best costume or whatever, right, partly because

34:46

she wasn't on screen all the time, so

34:48

when she appeared, it really did seem like an

34:50

event. Why do you think people

34:52

still remember her so fondly.

34:55

I think there was great affection for her

34:57

at the time, and I think there's

35:00

but no one like her, since there

35:02

are maybe Audrey Hepburn types

35:04

there in there, but she was so special

35:07

and so graceful and so elegant

35:10

in a way that was distinctly hers.

35:15

You know, Karen's story is so great, and

35:17

she's not even an obituary writer. In

35:19

fact, she's only written two obits in

35:21

her life, Audrey Hepburn

35:24

and Katherine Hepburn. Maybe

35:27

it's weird to feel nostalgic for a

35:29

time you didn't live through. I

35:32

wasn't around during Audrey Hepburn's heyday.

35:35

And yet on those days when the news

35:37

is particularly dreary and

35:40

people are being especially awful,

35:42

and I'm flipping through the channels and

35:45

I land on one of her movies, I

35:47

can't help but wonder how

35:50

did we drift so far from Audrey

35:52

Hepburn. Can we ever get

35:54

back? One

35:57

can only hope

36:00

marcle Ary friend

36:10

and me next

36:18

time on mobituaries. He

36:21

did it all, Sammy

36:23

Davis Junior. He was everything.

36:25

I mean, he could play any instrument,

36:28

he could sing, he could dance

36:30

like a maniac. You were lovers, you were

36:32

boyfriend's friends. What was that like? It

36:34

was fabulous. He's as talented

36:36

in that area as he wasn't he

36:40

was otherwise. I certainly

36:42

hope you enjoyed this mobid be sure

36:44

to rate and review our podcast. You

36:46

can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook

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36:53

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36:55

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36:58

You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever

37:00

you get your podcasts. This episode

37:02

of Mobituaries was produced by Megan

37:05

Marcus. Our team of producers

37:07

also includes Gideon Evans, Kate

37:09

mccauliffe, Meghan Dietree, and me Mo

37:11

Rocca. It was edited by Ashley

37:14

Cleek and engineered by Dan Dzula.

37:17

Indispensable support from Genius

37:19

Daneski, Alison Stanley, David

37:22

Fox, Richard Roreer, everyone

37:24

at CBS News Radio, and special

37:26

thanks to Macy's Young and Rubicam

37:29

and the Paley Center for Media. Our

37:32

theme music is written by Daniel Hart

37:34

and as always, on Dying thanks

37:37

to Rand Morrison and John Carp

37:39

without whom Mobituaries couldn't

37:41

live. Hi,

37:57

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