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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Celebrity biographer Spoto (The Art of Alfred Hitchcock) offers a sparkling, fawning life of the European gamine whom America took to instantly with her 1953 debut in Roman Holiday. Hepburn (1929–1993) held the irresistible charm of a childlike star naïvely unaware of her appeal, from her first big break at age 22 when selected by Colette herself to play the Broadway version of Gigi. Born to a Dutch baroness and an English ne'er-do-well (and fascist sympathizer) who separated when she was six, Hepburn and her mother underwent horrendous deprivations during the Nazi occupation of Holland during WWII; her early ambition to become a ballet dancer was undermined by inadequate nutrition and training. Her early film successes flowed astonishingly, however, from Sabrina, Funny Face, Love in the Afternoon, Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady to attempts at roles with more gravitas, as in The Nun's Story and Wait Until Dark. Often paired with older, avuncular leads, Hepburn was viewed as unerotic, yet Spoto tracks her steamy relationships with playboys and co-stars, and marriage to American actor-director Mel Ferrer, who often acted as her Pygmalion. Her later work with UNICEF is sketched too briefly. Spoto's previous Hollywood biographies allow the author authoritative access to Hepburn. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Spoto's career has taken on an interesting split personality lately, as he has alternated between celebrity biographies (of Ingrid Bergman and Jackie Onassis, for example) and thoughtful accounts of such religious figures as Jesus and St. Francis. Here he returns to celebrities but chooses a subject, Audrey Hepburn, whose image makes her seem almost ethereal. And yet, as Spoto reveals, her life was plagued with all-too-human difficulties and sorrows. Virtually abandoned by her father, Audrey spent her childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland. Her parents had been Fascists, but Hepburn's mother's personal experience with Nazi brutality led her to join the Dutch Resistance, sometimes using young Audrey in her work. The Hepburn vulnerability, with which moviegoers so identified, originated in this time of upheaval, but Spoto reveals that she also developed a good deal of steel in her spine, a useful attribute in her later life, when she faced myriad personal problems, particularly with her husbands. Several good biographies of Hepburn have been published recently, including a photographic memoir by her son, Sean Ferrar (2003), from which Spoto borrows generously here. But he also does a seamless job of weaving together his own research and interviews, and he offers keen-eyed insights and analyses of Hepburn's movies. Unlike so many biographies, this one is not simply a recitation of the subject's accomplishments. Spoto's digs beneath the surface, giving readers strong images of both actress and woman, and he does so in way that is, like Audrey Hepburn, quite elegant. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Celebrity biographer Spoto (The Art of Alfred Hitchcock) offers a sparkling, fawning life of the European gamine whom America took to instantly with her 1953 debut in Roman Holiday. Hepburn (1929–1993) held the irresistible charm of a childlike star naïvely unaware of her appeal, from her first big break at age 22 when selected by Colette herself to play the Broadway version of Gigi. Born to a Dutch baroness and an English ne'er-do-well (and fascist sympathizer) who separated when she was six, Hepburn and her mother underwent horrendous deprivations during the Nazi occupation of Holland during WWII; her early ambition to become a ballet dancer was undermined by inadequate nutrition and training. Her early film successes flowed astonishingly, however, from Sabrina, Funny Face, Love in the Afternoon, Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady to attempts at roles with more gravitas, as in The Nun's Story and Wait Until Dark. Often paired with older, avuncular leads, Hepburn was viewed as unerotic, yet Spoto tracks her steamy relationships with playboys and co-stars, and marriage to American actor-director Mel Ferrer, who often acted as her Pygmalion. Her later work with UNICEF is sketched too briefly. Spoto's previous Hollywood biographies allow the author authoritative access to Hepburn. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Spoto's career has taken on an interesting split personality lately, as he has alternated between celebrity biographies (of Ingrid Bergman and Jackie Onassis, for example) and thoughtful accounts of such religious figures as Jesus and St. Francis. Here he returns to celebrities but chooses a subject, Audrey Hepburn, whose image makes her seem almost ethereal. And yet, as Spoto reveals, her life was plagued with all-too-human difficulties and sorrows. Virtually abandoned by her father, Audrey spent her childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland. Her parents had been Fascists, but Hepburn's mother's personal experience with Nazi brutality led her to join the Dutch Resistance, sometimes using young Audrey in her work. The Hepburn vulnerability, with which moviegoers so identified, originated in this time of upheaval, but Spoto reveals that she also developed a good deal of steel in her spine, a useful attribute in her later life, when she faced myriad personal problems, particularly with her husbands. Several good biographies of Hepburn have been published recently, including a photographic memoir by her son, Sean Ferrar (2003), from which Spoto borrows generously here. But he also does a seamless job of weaving together his own research and interviews, and he offers keen-eyed insights and analyses of Hepburn's movies. Unlike so many biographies, this one is not simply a recitation of the subject's accomplishments. Spoto's digs beneath the surface, giving readers strong images of both actress and woman, and he does so in way that is, like Audrey Hepburn, quite elegant. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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