Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn had two failed marriages, and later she met the Dutch actor Robert Wards and called him a "spiritual partner", and the two lived together but did not marry. Audrey Hepburn's mother, Ella, was indisputablely fond of Robert Wards. Ella, the Countess, worked in a San Francisco veterans hospital in the 1960s and 1970s to raise funds for veterans returning from Vietnam, and as she grew older, her health deteriorated, so she moved to live with Audrey Hepburn in the "Peace House" in a Small Swiss town, and although Robert Wards knew her when she was bedridden, she was glad that Audrey Hepburn and Robert Wards could meet and fall in love, especially as they were all Dutch compatriots. Today, Xiaobian will introduce the relationship between Audrey Hepburn and her mother, and present a precious and rare photo of Audrey Hepburn mother and daughter.
Young Audrey Hepburn with her mother Ella
Audrey Hepburn's mother, whose full name was Ellavan Heemstra, was a descendant of the Dutch nobility and was knighted as a baron, and the family lineage could even be traced back to King Edward III of England. Ella's first marriage was married to a Dutch nobleman with two sons, the eldest son, Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford, a descendant of a Dutch nobleman, who was knighted as a squire. The second son, Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford, was a descendant of the Dutch nobility and was knighted as a squire. Daughter Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston. The second marriage was to marry Audrey Hepburn's father, Joseph Victor Anthony Hepburn-Ruston, a British banker, who gave birth to Audrey Hepburn, divorced in 1938. After World War II, she moved to London, England, with the £100 saved from Hepburn.
Audrey Hepburn as a child with her mother Ella
Robert Wards remembers: "When I first started with Audrey Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn's mother lived here, and we became good friends. There was often friction between Audrey Hepburn and her mother, because her mother was quite strict and did not express her feelings very much, and she cared and cared about Audrey Hepburn, but she could not express it, so she called me a bridge because she knew that I would convey her feelings for Audrey Hepburn, especially since she was glad that we all spoke Dutch. ”
Audrey Hepburn and Robert Wards
The relationship between the adult Audrey Hepburn and her mother, Ella Audrey Hepburn, and her mother, is of great significance to Audrey Hepburn's subsequent emergence as such a woman, and we must discuss it more here, with Lennart, the screenwriter of "Sweet Sister", meeting Ella for the first time in Paris while filming the dance scene. "Usually on set, the last person to show up is the writer and the actor's mother, so the two of us leave the scene and have a drink at a nearby restaurant. That's when we started our friendship. ”
Adult Audrey Hepburn with her mother Ella
Lennart, like Robert Wards, knew the mother and daughter well and could observe their relationship up close. "Ella was as humorous as Audrey Hepburn," Lennart recalls, "but unfortunately they weren't humorous at all when they were together, and they couldn't laugh together." I liked her mother very much, and Audrey Hepburn didn't seem to like her very much. Ella plays the role of a strict mother, she talks about Audrey Hepburn as if she has changed as a person, very critical of Audrey Hepburn, and at the moment she is very serious about playing the role of baroness. ”
"But," he continued, "Ella was very adamant, and Audrey Hepburn was the same person, so Audrey Hepburn never really knew her mother, and they didn't know how much they looked like each other." Ella thought Audrey Hepburn was a good actress, but she never told her daughter that. She was proud to be Audrey Hepburn's mother and felt that it was several times more important than being a baroness. Audrey Hepburn once told me that she felt her mother didn't love her, but Ella really loved Audrey Hepburn, trust me. People often don't tell their loved ones that they love each other, they show love to others, and if Ella is my mother, I hate her too," Lennart speculated, "but I love her because she's my friend." ”
Despite these contradictions between them, Audrey Hepburn never forgot everything her mother had given her: the care of the war years, the move to London and the help she could in her early career. She had always been sure that she would make her mother live a comfortable life. Except for those years in San Francisco, Ella actually lived with Audrey Hepburn from time to time, sometimes for months. For almost 10 years before Ella's death, she lived with Audrey Hepburn in the "House of Peace" and was cared for by Audrey Hepburn, who died on 26 August 1984, leaving Audrey Hepburn and Robert Wards in Switzerland.