huckleberry friend
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Is there any way to talk about Audrey Hepburn without repeating the same adjectives that are in every mention of Audrey Hepburn? (What prompts this, you might ask. She passed away on January 20, 1993, which I remember because 1/20 my birthday, and I heard the news as I was planning an Inauguration party.) Elegant, winsome, stylish, enchanting-- the patron saint of fashion. (After many years of work at Condé Nast, I became convinced that every month at least one fashion magazine has to have a reference to, or photo of, her Divine Audreyness. It's an edict.)
OK, here's the music angle. She didn't sing much, though she did so with charm (of course) and verve in Funny Face. (She was dubbed, not entirely willingly, by Marni Nixon for My Fair Lady.) Nelson Riddle turned up a neat theme for Paris When It Sizzles and Henry Mancini a wistful one for Two for the Road.
My two favorite Audrey vocals, one a now-classic Mancini/Johnny Mercer collaboration, the other a recycled Gershwin tune, take place, respectively, on a Manhattan fire escape and in a Paris bookstore. How could you not love her?
Comments (11)
Well, she's no Jennifer Love Hewitt, but...
Uh, just joshin'. Though most "iconic" women generally left me indifferent, I always perked up in her presence. You sensed that her iconic status was something that embarrassed her. She didn't try too hard, like the others. In fact, it seemed as if she was trying to temper whatever it was that made her extraordinary. Which, of coyrse, only makes her more interesting....
Conde Nast, eh?
Bingo. Her modesty made her all the more charming. (Which is how she could pull off: "I've no illusions about my looks. I think my face is funny.")
Uh-huh, Condé Nast. But I'm one of the schleppy, not snippy, gals. (Did we cross paths somewhere?)
'Paris When It Sizzles' - what a bizarre, wonderful film. Forgottent hat she was in that, illuminating it as she does every film she's in. The 13 year old is being sucked into Audrey orbit right now - seduced by 'Roman Holiday' just last weekend. Turns out that Audrey is Belgian by birth, though grew up in Holland with her Dutch mother. There's lots of talk about charisma at the moment. This lady had it in spades, possibly because she never tried.
Conde Nast....where the staff wear either the latest fashions or party dresses. Whenever I went there to meet Vogue.com was the highlight of the day.
Jonh--Roman Hoilday is my favorite. It's a perfect movie. Paris When It Sizzles was written on the fly, and worked around Holden's liquor problems, hence its loopiness.
Conde Nast is its own world, but I have traveled in its workaday editorial hive, not the fashion end, which can be intense.
The13 yr old thought Roman Holiday was perfect too. :-) In Tokyo there's a constant Audrey Hepburn festival running in one of the city's art cinemas. Every city should, IMO. Paris When It Sizzles may be loopy but I love the way they're constantly referring to themselves. One of the first post-modern films? Tony Curtis is wonderful in it. ("No-one cares about you. You're a minor character.")
In the meetings with the editor of Vogue.com I was constantly amazed by how serious people on both sides of the screen took fashion. (And I like fashion.) The best bit was waiting for the elevator after the meetings. It was next door to a wedding magazine and everyone in there was dressed like they were going to a party. Leaving aside the knife-wielding that probably went on over sartorial faux-pas, the thought of getting into fancy dress to go to work seemed like a lot of fun. Actually, the meetings were pretty good too as they took place in the old photo studio. I kept thinking about Bailey shooting Shrimpton and Twiggy in this very room. But that's me....
It's unlikely that we ever crossed paths, sadly. Although I was almost hired there once, I made it kind of a point of pride to treat the entire organization as the Evil Empire. Lost of friends have ended up working there over the years, some of them still around. But the whole magazine business seems like a burning building these days. Hard to work up much hot-house enmity.
Jonh's comment reminded me of a lovely novel written by an American friend who spent several years in Japan in the Eighties. His name is Alan Brown, and the book is called "Audrey Hepburn's Neck." Its Japanese narrator develops a longing for Western women after seeing "Roman Holiday" as a child....
I read it a while back, but I remember it WAS lovely.
I see what you (both) mean about the Conde empire, but I suspect that's mostly in the fashion devil-wears-prada arena (sadly, not as fab and fun as "Think Pink!"), and maybe among the higher-profile writers and editors, whereas I was in a corner sharpening my pencils and fixing the dangling modifiers while the popular girls went to the dance. Good swag, though.
Jonh: Speaking of the Bailey/Shrimpton era, CN did some sort of photo retrospective/exhibit recently, and on our intranet site was a Blow-Up-era photo of Vanessa Redgrave. Wow. Those were the days, eh?
Great post and comments. Those YouTubes are perfect.
My friends by and large didn't/don't have much to do with fashion. More travel/food/health types, along with those who, like you, serve as protectors of our language....
i love audrey too! great tunes. her version of moon river is one of my favorites!
Deedee, BBC4 is doing a series of fashion programmes through the decades. They're excellent in all respects - well researched with fantastic footage. The 60s had movie footage of a wonderfully camp Bailey in vest and black jeans directing Shrimpton. So funny watching the very butch Bailey mincing like a big girl's blouse. Of course they showed the photo from 'Blow Up' of Hemmings kneeling on top of Veruschka on the floor. [sigh] I'm sure that while they were the days, it looks a lot better from a distance.