Audrey Hepburn, psychological portrait

Although twenty years have passed since his disappearance, Audrey Hepburn continues to be that attractive icon that Andy Warhol one day immortalized in his Pop Art canvases.; Her face, her figure, come to represent a model of eternal elegance and distinction that even now the new generations want to imitate despite the risks, and that is that one of the things that that frame of Audrey Hepburn looking out of the window has always transmitted to us. Tiffany showcases, is that beauty is associated with thinness.

Never so far from reality. The eating disorders suffered by this great actress remained under the gag of silence for quite some time.; For many, there is only that face of fragile beauty that fashion insists on imitating, and very few manage to glimpse that woman who surpassed herself to give everything for others.

The darkness of a childhood

The traumas suffered in childhood are the echoes that accompany us in adulthoodsuffering never escapes through an invisible drain, but rather remains within us as a challenge to overcome.

Audrey Hepburn’s childhood was marked by the Second World War, despite being related to the Dutch nobility, her distinguished position changed drastically the day that half a million German soldiers invaded Holland, and resources, food, began to become scarce.

Hunger and malnutrition not only marked his childhood and adolescence, his eyes had to see how part of his family was murdered.how his brother was taken to a German labor camp and how the illness prevented him from doing the only thing with which he could earn a living and help the resistance: dance.

When the war ended. Audrey Hepburn suffered from malnutrition, anemia, asthma, lung problems and depression that took her years to overcome.

Golden years, years of sadness

The triumphs came: films like “Holidays in Rome” either “Breakfast with diamonds” They gave him the power to place himself in that echelon of influence and fame where one must know how to keep the balance very well.

Audrey Hepburn was an intelligent and highly sensitive woman. that she was always right in the roles she chose, she transmitted very well that emotion with which to captivate the viewer and, in her own words, she was always in need of affection and understanding, dimensions that she could not find in her marriage with Mel Ferrer.

Sadness was a frequent companion, a shadow that turned into despair the day she miscarried her first child after falling from a horse during filming.

Depression returned to his life with the same intensity as in the past, as did guilt.. Added to this was his sometimes irrational self-demand, he knew that part of his success was based on that reedy and delicate physique, hence, as he stated in an interview “If in the past I managed to survive with hardly any food, I could also do it now. I was forced to control my food intake.” Anorexia nervosa was a cruel companion with which Audrey Hepburn lived her entire life.

The simplicity of happiness

The years of tragedy and loss in the war were never erased from Audrey Hepburn’s mind, nor was her need to be loved fully satisfied.: two failed marriages and several disappointments were often that knife that cut through his sleepless nights, where his desire to offer, to give affection and love to people in need increased.

Hence, in 1988, cinema was almost relegated from his life to dedicate 6 months a year to UNICEF, to the emergency fund for children. The key to true happiness, for Audrey Hepburn, never came from success as an actress or the admiration of the public, but from her desire to receive and the need to offer affection to others. Sometimes, the door to satisfaction is not in the highest peak, but in ourselves.

Source “Audrey Hepburn, an intimate portrait”. (Diana Maychick, 1994).

You might be interested…