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Audrey Hepburn Facts & Worksheets

Audrey Hepburn was a British actress, dancer, model, and humanitarian who became a Hollywood star in the 1950s and 60s.

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Audrey Hepburn was a British actress, dancer, model, and humanitarian who became a Hollywood star in the 1950s and 60s. Her sophisticated style, radiant beauty, and iconic acting have earned her the American Film Institute ranking of third greatest female screen legend in Hollywood’s Golden Age.

See the fact file below for more information on the Audrey Hepburn or alternatively, you can download our 21-page Audrey Hepburn worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Early Life

  • Edda Kathleen Hepburn Ruston, more popularly known as Audrey Hepburn, was born on May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium.
  • She was born to Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, an Englishman, and Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch noblewoman.
  • Even though she was born in Belgium, Hepburn was a British citizen and studied in England when she was young.
  • Hepburn’s parents divorced when she was six years old.

Life during the World War II

  • At the start of World War II in 1939, she and her mother moved to the Netherlands thinking that it was safer to live there, away from Nazi occupation.
  • In 1940, however, the Netherlands fell into Nazi occupation.
  • Hepburn experienced hardships while living in the Netherlands. throughout World War II.
  • She was still able to study in the Arnhem conservatory where she also took ballet lessons.
  • It was said that she used her dancing in fundraising for the underground movement during the Nazi occupation.
  • Audrey’s horrific experiences during the war, such as seeing her uncle shot by Germans and seeing a trainload of Jewish kids being transported via cattle trucks, led her to become a humanitarian later on in her life.

Acting Beginnings

  • When the war was over, she continued to practice ballet in Amsterdam and in London.
  • Her malnutrition and height due to the war left her unable to become a great ballerina so she pursued acting instead.
  • She then studied acting in her early 20s.
  • While she began to get small film roles, she also worked as a model and dancer.
  • After her minor film appearances, she was selected to star as Gigi in a West End play of the same title which opened in Broadway in 1951.
  • In 1953, she was chosen in her first major supporting role in Thorold Dickinson’s The Secret People, as a prodigy ballerina.

Rise to Stardom

  • Also in 1953, Hepburn was cast in her first starring role in major American film Roman Holiday.
  • The film had box office success and Hepburn received multiple awards for her acting: Academy Award for Best Actress, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama, and a BAFTA Award for Best British Actress in a Leading Role.
  • Roman Holiday established Hepburn’s place in the acting industry and among Hollywood’s best.
  • Hepburn was featured on the cover of TIME magazine in September 1953.
  • She then starred in romantic comedy Sabrina (1954) with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden.
  • Her performance in Sabrina earned her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
  • Also in 1954, she returned to Broadway and starred as a water nymph in Ondine, with Mel Ferrer as co-star, whom she married later that year.
  • She won a Tony Award for her performance in Ondine.
  • Hepburn became a Hollywood box office favorite and continued to starred in films War and Peace (1956), Funny Face (1957), Love in the Afternoon (1957), The Nun’s Story (1959), Green Mansions (1959), and The Unforgiven (1960).

Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady

  • In 1961, Hepburn starred in one of her most popular films: Blake Edwards’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a film loosely based on the novella of the same name by Truman Capote.
  • In Breakfast at Tiffany’s, she portrayed New Yorker Holly Golightly, a defining role for Hepburn and an iconic character in Hollywood cinema.
  • For her performance, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
  • Her success continued as she acted in film Charade (1963) where she earned her third and final BAFTA award.
  • In 1964, she acted in her most controversial film My Fair Lady.
  • The film sparked controversy when Hepburn’s role was believed to belong to Julie Andrews who originally starred in the stage show of My Fair Lady.
  • According to critics, Hepburn still gave a stellar performance in My Fair Lady despite not earning nominations for acting awards.

Semi-retirement and Divorce

  • After acting in her 1967 films Wait Until Dark and Two for the Road, Hepburn began her semi-retirement and acted only occasionally.
  • Hepburn and Mel Ferrer divorced in 1968.
  • She hosted a 1990s documentary series entitled Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn, which began airing the day after her death in January 1993 and earned her a posthumous Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement – Informational Programming in 1993.
  • She also recorded a spoken word album, Audrey Hepburn’s Enchanted Tales, which earned her a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children.

Humanitarian Work

  • In 1988, she became a special goodwill ambassador for United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
  • In 1992, US president George H. W. Bush presented Hepburn with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work with UNICEF.

Death

  • After returning from Somalia in 1992, Audrey Hepburn developed colon cancer.
  • At 63 years old, she died in Switzerland in January 1993.

Audrey Hepburn Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Audrey Hepburn across 21 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Audrey Hepburn worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Audrey Hepburn who was a British actress, dancer, model, and humanitarian who became a Hollywood star in the 1950s and 60s. Her sophisticated style, radiant beauty, and iconic acting have earned her the American Film Institute ranking of third greatest female screen legend in Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Audrey Hepburn Facts
  • Audrey’s Biography
  • A Brief History
  • Multiple Choice
  • Movie Match
  • Film Posters
  • Audrey’s Awards
  • Outside Acting
  • Golden Age Actresses
  • Appreciating Audrey
  • My Film Script

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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