Customer Reviews

Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are already a number of posthumous biographies of the fabled star on the market, the most notable being her son Sean Hepburn Ferrer's loving 2003 memoir, "Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit: A Son Remembers". Author Donald Spoto adds another one, a respectful portrait that may lack the personal detail Ferrer provides but at the same time, allows enough distance from the subject to be a bit more objective. In 1983, Spoto wrote a fascinating profile of Alfred Hitchcock where the legendary filmmaker came across as a repressed, twisted individual whose outlet was the terror he could instill in his films. This time, he etches an in-depth portrait of a woman whose vulnerability, personal insecurity, and innate love of family endeared her to all those exposed to her - Hepburn's inner circle, friends, colleagues, lovers and ultimately the world.

The facts of her life and career are already well known - near-starvation during WWII where she spent her childhood in beleaguered Belgium and Holland, a legendary screen career sparked by a fortuitous debut in 1953's "Roman Holiday", and her selfless work on behalf of UNICEF during her later years. What Spoto adds are multi-textured portraits of Hepburn's parents, surprisingly both Fascist sympathizers whose opinions diverged during the war - he abandoned the family with his beliefs intact, while her mother grew frustrated and joined the resistance movement. Hepburn's film career is well documented here, as are her personal relationships. She wed twice, bearing sons with each marriage - her first husband, Mel Ferrer, is described by her friends as controlling and guardedly jealous of her meteoric success, while her second husband, Andrea Dotti, a psychiatrist, is shown to be a notorious womanizer.

The author also covers Hepburn's own love affairs, often extramarital, with actors William Holden (rejected due to his inability to bear more children), Albert Finney and Ben Gazzara, as well as a newly revealed relationship with screenwriter Robert Anderson, who adapted 1959's "The Nun's Story" for her. Spoto believes this particular movie represents her best screen work as it melded memories of her difficult childhood with her newfound confidence as a serious dramatic actress. It's obvious that Hepburn's Hollywood years is what holds most of the author's fascination, as he is relatively cursory in covering her UNICEF years and her enduring relationship with former actor Robert Wolders. Nonetheless, the book represents a more objective treatment of Hepburn's life than others' efforts, and for that reason, it is a worthwhile read. At the same time, Spoto is as susceptible to her charms as the rest of us, and his periodic fawning is entirely excusable within that context.

Donald Spoto's new biography of Audrey Hepburn will please those who wish to gain a fuller understanding of Ms. Hepburn's private life and rise to stardom.

Spoto is most effective when revealing the private Hepburn: her early years in World War II Holland; her father's early departure from the family; her complex and frequently unsatisfying relationship with her mother; her disappointing marriages to Mel Ferrer and Andrea Dotti; her joy in her sons; and the happiness she ultimately found with Robert Wolders and her work on behalf of UNICEF.

The Audrey Hepburn who emerges from Spoto's pages shows admirable discipline-- she prepares rigorously for each of her roles and manages her film career and image adroitly-- combined with an affecting insecurity. Hepburn is always anxious to please family, colleagues and friends, is uncertain about her beauty (she feels that she is too angular and that her nose is too large), and experiences bouts of nerves on movie sets and before television and other public appearances. Her insecurity is perhaps the product of the thread of sadness that runs through her personal life: an absent father, a war-torn childhood, a critical mother, and unhappy marriages. These difficulties contrast starkly with the glamour and success of Hepburn's superb film career.

Hepburn also emerges as a woman of depth and principle-- her favorite role is that of Sister Luke in A Nun's Story, and she maintains a lifelong friendship with the former nun on whose life the film is based. Hepburn also takes her work with UNICEF seriously, researching her own speeches and traveling globally to disaster sites. It is clear that her work with UNICEF was Hepburn's most personally compelling and publicly significant work, and Spoto is to be credited for highlighting this chapter of her life.

All told, Spoto has produced a touching portrait of Audrey Hepburn that amplifies and deepens our understanding of one of the film icons of our age. One wishes that Spoto had included more interviews with her sons and intimates and a filmography, but he has penned a worthwhile and affecting book.

When I think of some of his previous work, Donald Spoto's priorities seem geared towards including enough scintillating information for good PR and improved sales. Perhaps I've been unfair. Not only does has he done historical work (Amazon.com called my attention to his historical biographies), but this is a well-researched, non-sensationalist biography of Ms. Hepburn. If anything, it could have standed something less objective, some sort of socio-cultural analysis of how we were and remain completely smitten with her, but Mr. Spoto shows restraint. A remarkable, truely admirable figure, this book illuminates some of her many roles both in and outside of Hollywood. There are some lovely black and white photos, but not many; one's hnger for that image must be satisfied elsewhere. One book cannot do its subject justice, but this is a very good beginning. You can appreciate Ms. Hepburn without having seen a single one of her films, but I can't think of one good reason why you'd want to.

More than a decade after her death, Audrey Hepburn remains an ideal of femininity in cinema and a role model for film stars in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Donald Spoto has penned a biography that manages successfully to tread the delicate line between treating her with proper reverence while offering genuine insight into her life and personality.

Abandoned early on by a roue of a father and raised by a caring but distant mother, Hepburn began as an aspiring ballet dancer in war-torn Holland. She rose to stardom both on Broadway and in Hollywood with astonishing speed, winning both the Tony and Oscar by the time she was twenty-five years old. She managed her career with a shrewdness that belied her delicate, vulnerable screen persona, rarely making any missteps in preserving a carefully constructed screen image, though Spoto turns an unwavering, and to this reader unnecessarily harsh, eye on many of her most popular films. Her private life was much less perfect. The author analyzes her two relatively long-term, by Hollywood standards, but unhappy marriages to fellow cinema actor Mel Ferrer and Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti, and many love affairs with a sympathetic tone that avoids sensationalization. His revelations concerning the star's passionate, doomed affair with playwright Robert Anderson during the filming of one of her best movies, Fred Zinneman's The Nun's Story, make moving reading. He achieves a signal success in implying a connection between Hepburn's surprisingly voracious sexual appetites and her emotionally barren childhood without clumsily stating the obvious.

Carefully researched, as evidenced by the many footnotes, Spoto's work is on the whole a model for film-star biographies. Ultimately he achieves his goal of bringing Hepburn to life in these pages, painting a portrait of a woman surprisingly anxious and insecure despite outward physical beauty and enviable artistic and commercial success, who never found true fulfillment in her personal life (except perhaps with her last partner, Robert Wolders), but did eventually find it in her untiring work for UNICEF, before tragically succumbing to cancer at all too early an age. For Hepburn the artist, despite extended discussions of most of her important films, one might have wished for a more balanced assessment, as well as a detailed filmography, the lack of which is the book's one real defect. Still, "Enchantment" is a remarkable achievement and easily transcends its frequently tawdry genre.

Audry Hepburn was in a league of her own. When was the last time we heard of a star of this magnitude helping a friend in business and firing his/her manager for trying to make a profit from the help? While I was aware of her work with UNICEF, I was unaware of the depth of her commitment. The trip to Sudan was hard enough to read about. I cannot imagine going there as she did.

WWII's deep scars were well hidden from public view. For most of the war she and her family had daily fear for their lives and in the end were near death due stavation. A mere 8 years later Audrey is at the pinnacle of glitter and glamor of a film career with an Oscar. The effects of the war, the trials of living with a withholding aristocratic mother, the rigid roles for women in the 50's are mentioned but not discussed. The insecurities these brought on show in her marriages, and the emphathy shows in her above and beyond work for UNICEF as

This book covers the life, but not the inner person or the times. Fortunately, she is not a star in this time. Today's even more intrusive paparazzis and career journalists could destroy her for us and for herself. Spoto does a loving and respectful job of presenting her life.

I am very impressed with Donald Spoto's review of Audrey Hepburn. Reading Mr. Spoto's biography of Audrey Hepburn shows a huministic side of the actress and woman the world loved and adored. This book is a wonderful addition to Sean Ferrer's book and Barry Paris's book. I am sure anyone that buys this book will enjoy it as much as I do.

Here is the latest biography on Audrey Hepburn, who continually fascinates people long after her death, and the main attraction for this book is a "new affair" discovered by Spoto with his friend Mr. Anderson. Let's get it straight now: none of the other biographies have mentioned the affair, and considering how Mr. Anderson described their affair, you would think the crew members, family members, or someone else than Mr. Anderson would have known about this. The fact that he "described" the affair in his book After, and how Spoto eagerly seems to agree with the vague description, is nothing more than a fantasy that Spoto seems to agree with only to sell his books. Since Audrey is not able to defend herself, we will never know the truth.

As for the other parts of the biography, Spoto has done his research, and you get a good picture of what her life was, her impact upon her peers and society, and the importance of others to her. However, Spoto is not objective in his analysis of the subject; Barry Paris does a much better job in this aspect. I never like it when the biographer speculates too much and focuses more on gossip and hearsay than actual facts. Spoto seems to want his impress upon his readers that his subjective speculations are the truth, when actually he had no first-hand experience of her life.

I recommend to read Alexander Walker's and especially Barry Paris' biographies if you really want to know what the true Audrey was like, not the mental picture that Spoto has got stuck in his head.

Enchantment (The Life of Audrey Hepburn) by: Donald Spoto was a very detailed description of Hepburn's life. The book starts off by giving the background of her parent's life and struggles, and leads into her birth; it then goes on to say how Hepburn started off as a ballet dancer, but later lost that talent because of the Great Depression. It shows that having failed at dancing is what lead Hepburn into the acting business. After going through her Hollywood career it concludes by telling about the charity work she did later in her life with the UNICEF foundation and leads into her struggle with death.

My rating for this book (on a scale form 1-10) would be a 6 or 7. In the book Spoto tends to go into to much detail, instead of getting straight to the event that was happening. With this great detail causes some suspicion as to if all of this information is entirely true. Often times I would get lost in the detail and have to skim back over to see what event he was talking about.

Although Spoto went overboard with the detail, the story line was well thought-out. It touched on just about every aspect of Hepburn's life and highlighted all of her Hollywood films. I was often times intrigued by her harsh childhood, her Hollywood career, and the charity work she did with the UNICEF foundation.

Spoto did do a nice job of highlighting how elegant and inspiring Audrey Hepburn truly was. He made an effort to paint her in a good life and make each aspect of her life interesting.

If you are the type of person who enjoys detailed biographies then you would also enjoy reading, Audrey: Her Real Story by: Alexandra Walker. This book gives a great description of Hepburn's life, but in more of her own words rather than the author's.

The book arrived when I was convalescing from an illness and thus was was a special treat as it was a biography about Audrey Hepburn. The author is thoughtful and writes clearly and with sensitivity. I am fascinated with detailed protraits of aspect's of Audrey Hepburn's character; portraits of her friendships and loyalty and longevity in friendships. Insights into her family are fascinating as well as insights into her family in Holland. In the book I read new information about her work with UNICEF. Every once in a while there are edifying and instructive vignettes about her character such as the fact that Miss Hepburn offered to do her own ironing for her clothes for The Gardens of the World series. What actress of her stature would make such an offer? I guess because Audrey Hepburn was almost so singularly genuine and vulnerable I had an ambivalent reaction to some gossipy aspects of the book. Though tales of who she might have been romantically vulnerable to at a difficult point in her life are interesting, because of her own over-arching nobility of character it left me feeling sad that the author felt it necessary to include such material. We have all made mistakes in life and all have experienced things we'd like to be able to explain from our perspective. We all have experienced things we'd prefer to remain undiscussed. In one or two instances I felt: "She's not here to defend herself. Does this have to be in the book?" In the main I found the book thoughtful and interesting especially because I always feel there is so much I can learn from Audrey Hepburn about how to be a person.

This was an excellent biography of one of the most fascinating actresses of the 20th century. Beginning with her early childhood during WWII, through her early days in motion pictures, to her life as a mother, and finally commencing with her contributions to UNICEF in her later years, this book does a wonderful job of shedding some light on the woman behind Holly Golightly and Princess Ann.

Interspersed between the stories of her life experiences are fascinating dissections of her films by Spoto himself. He writes with a very plain tone, sometimes making minor errors in grammar or spelling, but almost so passionately that he is defending Audrey's work himself--an ardent supporter as well as a biographer. I wish there had been more about "Two for the Road" which is my favorite Hepburn film because it shows such a complex character--one of the most real depictions of a marriage I've seen in classic film.

The continuity that Spoto creates throughout the book, however, is seamless--everything flows together and it is not at all disjointed as many biographies are. The reader is allowed a precious glimpse at Hepburn's evolution from a child growing up in German-occupied territory during WWII, to delicate young actress, to a mature woman and mother, and finally to a humanitarian. Throughout this transformation, her shining spirit and generous nature are always apparent making the book not just a biography but also remarkably inspiring to any reader.