Speaker 1: I'm on thirty fourth Street in Manhattan, outside Macy's at
Speaker 1: Harold Square. I worked here more than twenty five years ago,
Speaker 1: and on one faithful day as a twenty three year old,
Speaker 1: I came face to face with bona fide old time
Speaker 1: Hollywood stardom, sort of face to face. Let's go inside.
Speaker 1: Macy's was my first job. When I arrived in New York.
Speaker 1: I worked behind the counter as a fragrant specialist for Channel.
Speaker 1: I was not a spritzer. Spritzer's were the male models
Speaker 1: in front of the counter debait to lure customers so
Speaker 1: that I could dazzle them with my knowledge of the
Speaker 1: product line. Can I help you, ma'am? H Channel number nineteen.
Speaker 1: You do know who wears number twenty two? The Queen Mother.
Speaker 1: I hear she smells great. You're a French teacher, Well
Speaker 1: you have no choice. You have to wear Chanelle number five,
Speaker 1: Coco or the Divarsay looking to get her groove back. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's an ou de toilette. No, it's not literally toilet water.
Speaker 1: Most people run screaming when they see anybody standing there
Speaker 1: with a fragrance bottle, and they didn't when they saw you.
Speaker 1: That's my former supervisor Javen Bunch. God, I cannot believe this.
Speaker 1: In that man shouting in disbelief is salesman Park Salons
Speaker 1: and my former colleague Raymond Ramirez, and I've been wishing
Speaker 1: to know since nineteen eighty eight. You were like the
Speaker 1: cal Ripken of Chanel at Macy's Baseball Reverence. So one
Speaker 1: of the things I remember is that occasionally celebrity stars
Speaker 1: would walk through. I got to see Share the opera
Speaker 1: diva Jess Norman, before you is Elizabeth Taylor. I got
Speaker 1: to see Lena Horn. But for me, the one truly
Speaker 1: magical moment took place in April of nineteen ninety two
Speaker 1: during the annual Flower Show. I was right behind the counter,
Speaker 1: yes right, yes, when when she and by she I
Speaker 1: mean Audrey Hepburn walked floated by my counter. Yes, Audrey Hepburn.
Speaker 1: I will cherish my visit here in memory as long
Speaker 1: as I live. When I say she floated by, I'm
Speaker 1: not just talking about her impossibly perfect posture, which indeed
Speaker 1: made it seem like she was being pulled by a string.
Speaker 1: It was more than that. I've met a lot of stars,
Speaker 1: and most of them kind of disappoint She didn't more
Speaker 1: than gracefulness. She exuded grace. I do remember that day.
Speaker 1: What do you remember, Oh my god, I remember that,
Speaker 1: the excitement, I remember the sack excitement. Sure, but the
Speaker 1: floor became very quiet when she floated through, like the
Speaker 1: world came to a stop. There was this reverence among
Speaker 1: everybody on the floor. No one would have tried to
Speaker 1: get that right. And that's a difference too. Even if
Speaker 1: selfie's existed a smartphones, you never would have thought to
Speaker 1: like wrap your arm around her and put your shove
Speaker 1: your hand in front of her face. He wouldn't go
Speaker 1: near miss Heathburn. And that's who she would have been
Speaker 1: more than a quarter century after her passing. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: been that long. The image of Hepburn in a black
Speaker 1: dress and sunglasses having breakfast outside Tiffany's is as identifiable
Speaker 1: as Marilyn Monroe standing above a subway grate or James
Speaker 1: Dean in his red jacket. But our attachment to Audrey
Speaker 1: feels special, more intimate. Let's find out why. Along the way,
Speaker 1: I'll take you to some unusual places and we'll cross
Speaker 1: paths or some unexpected people, like say a former president
Speaker 1: of the United States. Were you aware that the day
Speaker 1: of your inauguration, Audrey Hepburn died. No, you didn't know that. No,
Speaker 1: I'm Mo Rocca, and this is mobituaries. This mobid the
Speaker 1: timeless Audrey Hepburn January twentieth, nineteen ninety three, Death of
Speaker 1: an icon. When I started on this podcast, I kind
Speaker 1: of made a promise to myself that I wouldn't get
Speaker 1: too gushy or hagiographic about any of the people I
Speaker 1: was profiling. But I may have to make an exception
Speaker 1: because we're talking about Audrey Hepburn. This episode is going
Speaker 1: to be a little unconventional, more a series of vignettes
Speaker 1: than a womb to tomb biography. Now, Like I said
Speaker 1: at the beginning, the connection to Audrey is personal for people.
Speaker 1: One day, not too long ago, I was feeling especially reflective,
Speaker 1: and so I tweeted, Because what's the point of reflecting
Speaker 1: if you don't let your followers know it. I went
Speaker 1: ahead and tweeted, how did we drift so far from
Speaker 1: Audrey Hepburn? Can we ever get back? Quite The response?
Speaker 1: One person answered, no way, there is no comparison. Another wrote,
Speaker 1: she was not of this world wer than an I'm
Speaker 1: than you in style she's now been gone twenty five years.
Speaker 1: She's become a legend. Sean Hepburn Ferrer is Audrey Hepburn's
Speaker 1: older son from her first marriage to actor Melfarrere. Audrey
Speaker 1: Hepburn is not the movie star from Hollywood. Audrey Hepburn
Speaker 1: is the young girl from across the landing who puts
Speaker 1: on a little black dress and goes out into the world.
Speaker 1: And she represents us, not them, and we're rooting for her,
Speaker 1: and we do root for her. Somehow she manages to
Speaker 1: be both aspirational and totally accessible, whether she's the chauffeur's
Speaker 1: daughter who dazzles the industry tycoon and his brother in
Speaker 1: Sabrina or Sabrina or Sabrina, Where have You've been? On
Speaker 1: My Life? Right over the garage? Eliza Doolittle in My
Speaker 1: Fair Lady. The difference between a lady and a fogle
Speaker 1: is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. Or
Speaker 1: my personal favorite, the bohemian bookworm turned fashion model in
Speaker 1: Funny Face? How could I be a model? I have
Speaker 1: no illusions about my looks. I think my face is funny. No,
Speaker 1: she wasn't a bombshell like Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor,
Speaker 1: but what may have seemed funny to her was considered
Speaker 1: an ideal to many. Oh God, I didn't think I
Speaker 1: was ever going to look like anyone in a movie.
Speaker 1: But of course when I saw a Funny Face with
Speaker 1: Audrey Hepfron, I definitely wished I looked like her. In
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, I interviewed the late great wit Nora Ephron.
Speaker 1: She wrote, when Harry met Sally and directed Sleepless in Seattle,
Speaker 1: and had I known we were going to talk about this,
Speaker 1: I would be wearing right now my black turtleneck sweater,
Speaker 1: which almost looks like the one she wore in Funny Face.
Speaker 1: Nora went on to tell me this terrific story. When
Speaker 1: she was sixteen, she visited Edith Head, the great costume
Speaker 1: designer of Hollywood's Golden Age, and Edith Head then took
Speaker 1: me to see her famous dressing room, which had thirty
Speaker 1: six panels of mirror for every ten degrees. It was
Speaker 1: a completely circular room, and she said that there was
Speaker 1: only one person who can stand in that room and
Speaker 1: look good in all thirty six mirrors. Then it was
Speaker 1: Audrey Hepburn. That is great. If I were a geometry teacher.
Speaker 1: I would use that. Yes, there was no one like
Speaker 1: her ever. The charm was who she was. I've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like it. It's striking that Nora Ephron, who
Speaker 1: had perfectly articulated opinions about pretty much everything, had trouble
Speaker 1: describing what it was about Audrey hepburn that was so captivating.
Speaker 1: Ditto the normally unflappable Johnny Carson. Audrey appeared on the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show in nineteen seventy six, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: wild watching Carson in his sidekick. Ed McMahon reduced to
Speaker 1: anxious schoolboys as they get ready to welcome her onto
Speaker 1: the show the first time she's been on the show.
Speaker 1: And would you believe I'm a little nervous really what
Speaker 1: I had not to put you now all? I mean,
Speaker 1: I would believe that because I would feel the sandwich.
Speaker 1: She's kind of very, very special, special. She's delicate, thank you. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the word I was going to use, delicate, delicate?
Speaker 1: Would you walk in place, miss Audrey Hepburnie? And as
Speaker 1: I always like to say, I never really saw anyone
Speaker 1: truly misbehave in front of her. How do you think
Speaker 1: she felt about being called delicate and She must have
Speaker 1: smirked because she knew that she was not because of
Speaker 1: what she lived through. And Audrey Hepburn lived through a lot.
Speaker 1: Maybe the reason she pulled off all those Cinderella rolls
Speaker 1: so beautifully was that her own early life was something
Speaker 1: of a fairy tale. And I don't mean the Disney kind.
Speaker 1: I'm talking grim. I never led what people sink is
Speaker 1: this glamorous life. I've always been me. I've always been
Speaker 1: aware of what goes on in the world. And I
Speaker 1: suddenly grew up in a war ravaged country, and I've
Speaker 1: always known, you know that I was privileged and NATO
Speaker 1: always seeing suffering, known about it. And that hasn't changed.
Speaker 1: So it's still the same old old. Audrey Hepburn was
Speaker 1: born in Brussels, Belgium, on May fourth, nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: Her father was a banker and her mother a Dutch aristocrat.
Speaker 1: She spent some of her youth in the UK, where
Speaker 1: she trained as a dancer and where her parents were
Speaker 1: supporters of the Fascist movement. After her father abandoned the
Speaker 1: family and as war loomed, Audrey moved with her mother
Speaker 1: to neutral Holland. Soon after the Nazis invaded this is
Speaker 1: the Columbia Broadcasting System. Hipler added another to his bag
Speaker 1: of small nations today, the fifth and fourteen months, when
Speaker 1: the Dutch Army laid down its arms everywhere except in
Speaker 1: the extreme southwestern part of the country. In spite of
Speaker 1: her parents pre war politics, Audrey, as a young teenager,
Speaker 1: did what she could to help the resistance, like raising
Speaker 1: funds through secret dance performances. The war was a lasting
Speaker 1: trauma for her, as her hometown of Arnham became a battlefield.
Speaker 1: As reported here by Walter Cronkite, the tragedy a resupply
Speaker 1: now bassets Arnham brigades protecting landing zones are under withering
Speaker 1: German attack. Hepburn talked about her wartime experience during her
Speaker 1: American television debut in nineteen fifty one on a show
Speaker 1: called We the People. She was twenty two years old,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, telling you her own story. Broadway's latest star,
Speaker 1: Audrey Hepburn. It's her first time on Broadway. She's starring
Speaker 1: in a play called Gigi, the precursor to the musical,
Speaker 1: and she's understandably excited. This is a wonderful Christmas for me.
Speaker 1: Irreculusly I'm in New York a Broadway. But then the
Speaker 1: own shifts as Hepburn begins to reenact what happened to
Speaker 1: her during the war. The Christmas I want to tell
Speaker 1: you about is the one that took place here Arnum Holland,
Speaker 1: seven years ago. It's pretty surreal. Hepburn is basically playing
Speaker 1: herself as a fifteen year old. She talks about how
Speaker 1: her uncle was executed by the Nazis and how her
Speaker 1: family nearly starved. And there was the morning of December
Speaker 1: twenty fourth when finally my aunt told us there wasn't
Speaker 1: a scrap of food left in the house. Well, I'd
Speaker 1: heard one could sleep and forget hunger. Perhaps I could
Speaker 1: see ball through Christmas. I try, But there's a Christmas
Speaker 1: miracle when the Resistance sends a delivery ten potatoes, the
Speaker 1: most wonderful and most beautiful thing I ever saw. It
Speaker 1: may sound a bit melodramatic to you, but ten potatoes
Speaker 1: would have been a prize. Hepburn suffered severe malnourishment during
Speaker 1: what was known as the Dutch Famine. Under German occupation.
Speaker 1: Much of the populace had reached the starvation level. The
Speaker 1: Nazis blocked the food supply to over four million civilians.
Speaker 1: More than twenty thousand died the lack of fulgum's day
Speaker 1: after day after day, and it's a long torture. Luca
Speaker 1: Dotty is Hepburn's younger son from her second marriage to
Speaker 1: Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti. He says that during the war,
Speaker 1: Audrey and her family were so desperate for food they
Speaker 1: had to make flower out of tulip bulbs. By the
Speaker 1: time Holland was liberated, she weighed only eighty eight pounds.
Speaker 1: Did that stress stay with her for the rest of
Speaker 1: her life? Obviously yes, but she he did very well.
Speaker 1: All her life was a search of stability. That's why
Speaker 1: home it was very important. Luca wrote a book a
Speaker 1: few years back about their home life and her favorite recipes,
Speaker 1: a surprise best seller times and times over. People were
Speaker 1: surprised that my mother who actually they were surprised by
Speaker 1: the fact that she actually atees. I think Luca's half
Speaker 1: choking here a nod to the speculation that his mother,
Speaker 1: who was very thin, may have had an eating disorder.
Speaker 1: But Luca swears by her love of pasta and chocolate,
Speaker 1: which she associated with the Allied liberation of Holland. My
Speaker 1: mother was then a survivor, and when you are you
Speaker 1: always have this duality. You know, you're happy you're alive,
Speaker 1: but then you have this sense of guilts because the
Speaker 1: person next door didn't make it. And for Hepburn, one
Speaker 1: of those people, while not a literal next door neighbor,
Speaker 1: was another Dutch girl. Audrey Hepburn felt a special connection
Speaker 1: to someone you wouldn't necessarily expect. Are you speaking of
Speaker 1: An Frank. I'm speaking of An Frank. You have an
Speaker 1: affinity for that story, don't you. I do in a
Speaker 1: way because we both lived through the same war, exactly
Speaker 1: the same age. I was born, the same year Anne
Speaker 1: Frank was born. That's Audrey Hepburn speaking to CBS in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. But she became acquainted with the story
Speaker 1: of Anne Frank far earlier, earlier than almost anyone. I
Speaker 1: read the diary in Dutch in galiform when it was
Speaker 1: still being edited, and it was one of the most
Speaker 1: devastating experiences I've ever had, because more than just reading
Speaker 1: a book, it was like having the whole war played
Speaker 1: back to me. She obviously was locked up inside. I
Speaker 1: was outside, and here was somebody who had been able
Speaker 1: to put on paper everything I'd felt during those years,
Speaker 1: and was it destroyed me. I must saying it has
Speaker 1: stayed an extremely emotional experience for me. Luca calls mother
Speaker 1: and Anne Frank soul sisters. And I had no idea
Speaker 1: that Otto Frank, Anne's father actually wanted Hepburn to play
Speaker 1: his daughter on screen. He even visited her home in
Speaker 1: Switzerland to try to persuade her. There's this striking photo
Speaker 1: of Hepburn, Otto Frank and his second wife posing outside
Speaker 1: Hepburn's home. But she said no to the role. Why
Speaker 1: did she turn it down because it was much too
Speaker 1: close to what she lived through. She thought he would
Speaker 1: kill her. She actually believed that it would somehow, you know,
Speaker 1: kill her to do it, because she felt so close
Speaker 1: to her and she was crushed that she made it
Speaker 1: and Frank didn't. Both her sons talked to me about
Speaker 1: the lifelong impact of the war on their mother. My
Speaker 1: mother once said, you know, if I get through this alive,
Speaker 1: I will never ever complain anymore. And this is something
Speaker 1: she actually did. My mother was never complaining, even in
Speaker 1: the worst situations, and I think that this is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why she wanted to do then, is
Speaker 1: that she remembered so vividly herself and her emotions as
Speaker 1: a little girl and living through the war, and so's
Speaker 1: there's this empathy thing going on. Long before Angelina, there
Speaker 1: was Audrey, traveling the globe in the nineteen eighties and
Speaker 1: nineties raising awareness about the world's poorest, actively lobbying governments
Speaker 1: to help children in need. While she appeared in a
Speaker 1: few films here and there, it was her charitable work
Speaker 1: that defined her later years as a good will ambassador
Speaker 1: for Uni Seth. She really was one of the world's
Speaker 1: most prominent celebrity humanitarians. She never forgot the relief that
Speaker 1: came at the end of the war. Is there a
Speaker 1: point at which our well of compassion might run dry?
Speaker 1: Do you think never? I don't think that's It's not
Speaker 1: in human nature. Giving is and giving is life living.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you stopped wanting to give, I think
Speaker 1: it's nothing more to live for. The darkness of her
Speaker 1: wartime experience may seem like the polar opposite of the
Speaker 1: light she emits on screen. And yet I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: this combination of yearning and gratitude is what still draws
Speaker 1: us today, because those things really seem to show up
Speaker 1: on screen, and it did show. It did show through
Speaker 1: her eyes, it did show in her genuinity and simplicity,
Speaker 1: and people realize it's true. So it's very hard to define,
Speaker 1: but you define it very well. After talking with Luca
Speaker 1: and Sean and learning what her mother went through, I
Speaker 1: went back and rewatched some of her movies and now
Speaker 1: I see her story in those performances as the wound,
Speaker 1: did Holly go lightly looking for a better life? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, you don't know what you're
Speaker 1: Freda as Princess Anne, who feels a genuine joy on
Speaker 1: her Roman holiday and decide caffine looking shop windows, look
Speaker 1: in the rain. It's no coincidence that in the screen
Speaker 1: test that launched her. You can watch it yourself, it's
Speaker 1: on YouTube, she's talking about the war, the world, the bed,
Speaker 1: and then we weren't going to leave this out. There's
Speaker 1: wait until Dark. Audrey Hepburn the role you're going to
Speaker 1: remember whenever you're alone. Hepburn plays a blind woman who
Speaker 1: is terrorized inside her home. Co star Alan Arkin plays
Speaker 1: her tormentor and supposedly hated doing the tormenting I mean,
Speaker 1: who wants it to be mean to Audrey Eppburn. The
Speaker 1: scenes were intense, and Audrey, quite possibly channeling her wartime experience,
Speaker 1: endures the struggle and survives. Listen. There were plenty of
Speaker 1: other talented actresses in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and
Speaker 1: they were beautiful too. Some of them were supposed to
Speaker 1: be the next Audrey Hepburn, Millie Perkins, Maggie McNamara, Susan Strasburg,
Speaker 1: but they hadn't lived through what Audrey lived through. Peter Bogdanovitch,
Speaker 1: who directed Hepburn, summed up perfectly when he called her
Speaker 1: an iron butterfly. All this may go some way towards
Speaker 1: explaining Audrey Hepburn's hold on us, but I think there's
Speaker 1: more to the story. For that, we'll head to where else, Japan.
Speaker 1: But first we've made clear there were no other Audrey Hepburn's,
Speaker 1: but there was one other, very famous Hepburn. So let's
Speaker 1: take a moment to settle something. Audrey Hepburn is not
Speaker 1: Katherine Hepburn. It reminds me of that disambiguation alert that
Speaker 1: you get on Wikipedia or Google. You know, did you
Speaker 1: mean now if you are one of those people who
Speaker 1: confuses Katherine with Audrey, you probably stopped listening to me
Speaker 1: ten minutes ago. Otherwise, it's never too late to disambiguate.
Speaker 1: Oh we're going to talk about me. Good. Are they related? No,
Speaker 1: they are not sisters. They are not even third cousins.
Speaker 1: Who was older Katherine by twenty two years? But who
Speaker 1: wore the pants? Well they both did, and quite well,
Speaker 1: I should add. Then there are the very distinctive Hepburn's
Speaker 1: speech patterns. Guess who's coming to dinner. If you've never
Speaker 1: heard Katherine's mid Atlantic affect, you've probably heard Martin Short
Speaker 1: doing Katherine Hepburn's mid Atlantic affect. Well, that kind of
Speaker 1: talk will get you. No, I missed out. Now, Audrey's
Speaker 1: accent was always a little harder to place. Did I
Speaker 1: tell you how divinely and utterly happy I am? I
Speaker 1: guess it was a British, Dutch, American bland. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd just like to hear her say things. Why didn't
Speaker 1: you say something, Sarah dipity right? Suddenly, not only would
Speaker 1: they not be playing scrabble, it would also not be
Speaker 1: playing by cheesy chicken stock plugs. The Journey of Nattigan
Speaker 1: I'm having much too much fun. We hope you are
Speaker 1: to stay tuned for more Audrey after this. Just before
Speaker 1: my stint working at Macy's, I was living in Japan,
Speaker 1: where I studied kabuki. Yes really, I taught English on
Speaker 1: the side. Because it was the early nineties, I had
Speaker 1: no other income, and a cup of coffee in Tokyo
Speaker 1: costs about twelve dollars. One of my students, a very
Speaker 1: nice woman named Ritzko, asked me out to a movie.
Speaker 1: It may have been a date, I still don't know.
Speaker 1: We ended up going to an Audrey Hepburn film festival.
Speaker 1: We saw How to Steal a Million co starring Peter O'Toole.
Speaker 1: You went us in a big time paper heist. A
Speaker 1: life sized cardboard cut out of Audrey greeted us at
Speaker 1: the festival Entrance. Fans post for pictures next to it.
Speaker 1: Now we've talked about the personal attachment a lot of
Speaker 1: fans have for her. Well, in Japan, the Audrey love
Speaker 1: is deep. There's this famous all female theater troupe there
Speaker 1: called Takaraska. They staged a musical version of Roman Holidays.
Speaker 1: And get this, Hepburn was ranked above Gandhi in a
Speaker 1: Japanese poll on the most well liked historical figures. What
Speaker 1: is the deal with your mother and Japan? The connection?
Speaker 1: It's intense, It's very intense. Little by little I understood
Speaker 1: there was a sincere devotion. There's no other word for it,
Speaker 1: and Luca would know. He told me that it was
Speaker 1: through Japanese fan mail and small tokens like origami that
Speaker 1: he first began to grasp his mother's fame. During his
Speaker 1: childhood in Rome, he would watch Japanese tourists trying to
Speaker 1: follow in his mother's film star footsteps. Audrey Hepburn now
Speaker 1: welcomes you to Rome as the captive princess who goes
Speaker 1: out on the town to have some fun. And they
Speaker 1: came to Rome to retrace the Roman Holiday, every scene
Speaker 1: you know, and the vise by and the ice great
Speaker 1: and the fountain and this sent deats in case you
Speaker 1: haven't seen Roman Holiday, it's the movie that won Hepburn
Speaker 1: her oscar. She plays Princess Anne, who's visiting Rome on
Speaker 1: a royal tour and ends up playing hooky for the
Speaker 1: day while pretending to be a commoner. She falls in
Speaker 1: love with an American journalist played by Gregory Peck I
Speaker 1: could do some things. I've always wanted to blake what oh,
Speaker 1: you can't imagine. I like to just whatever. I like.
Speaker 1: Holiday long. When the Japanese saw Roman Holiday, it was
Speaker 1: love at first sight. It was nineteen fifty three, the
Speaker 1: war was still a recent memory, and American culture was
Speaker 1: really just starting to take root in Japan. The Japanese
Speaker 1: connection to the film may have something to do with
Speaker 1: the importance of duty. You see spoiler alert, Princess Anne
Speaker 1: tearfully leaves her true love to return to her royal world,
Speaker 1: not a Hollywood ending. I have to leave you now.
Speaker 1: I'm going to that corner. That done. You stay in
Speaker 1: the gun drive away. It was very understandable for Japanese.
Speaker 1: Taki Kato lives in Japan and was a young girl
Speaker 1: when Roman Holiday premiered, But Order Helper we could identify
Speaker 1: with how they say so charming, so natural for us,
Speaker 1: was so cute, and the Japanese tend to like someone
Speaker 1: who's cute. And apparently the Japanese found Hepburn's pixie haircut
Speaker 1: cuter than Hello Kitty. Hepburn talked about it in a
Speaker 1: Dutch TV interview in nineteen eighty eight, and actually it
Speaker 1: caused a bit of a fjor, especially in Japan, with
Speaker 1: the film was an enormous success, still is today, because
Speaker 1: they're all girls have very long hair and it was
Speaker 1: part of the tradition and they'll cut off their hair,
Speaker 1: and I was held responsible. Yes, that's very true. Taki
Speaker 1: went on to become a show business coordinator in Tokyo.
Speaker 1: She worked with a lot of big names, Frank Snatche,
Speaker 1: Harry Barafonte, Ringosta, and as you may have guessed, miss
Speaker 1: Ldre Hepburn. In a surprise move, Hepburn left Hollywood when
Speaker 1: she was still very much in demand in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties to live abroad and focus on motherhood. But
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one, Taki helped negotiate to get her
Speaker 1: back in of the camera, this time for Japanese commercials.
Speaker 1: It's that lost in translation thing where Americans appeared in
Speaker 1: ads that were never broadcast in the US, which was
Speaker 1: very very sensational Hinchapan, of course, and the commercials was
Speaker 1: very fashionable. Incidentally, she was advertising high end wigs. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't until nineteen eighty three that Audrey Hepburn actually
Speaker 1: went to Japan. The occasion a fashion show for her
Speaker 1: dear friend and designer Hubert de Givanshi. Quick side note,
Speaker 1: The Givanschi fashion show in funny Face is a magical sequence.
Speaker 1: When Hepburn landed in Tokyo, it was like Princess Anne
Speaker 1: from Roman Holiday had finally arrived. Hepburn was naturally exhausted
Speaker 1: after a very long flight, and she worried that she
Speaker 1: might disappoint fans who were accustomed to seeing her as
Speaker 1: a young woman on screen. So she said to me, Taki,
Speaker 1: I am very sad. If the Japanese fans look at
Speaker 1: me in that tired face, they may not like me anymore.
Speaker 1: Talkie told her friend not to worry, that Japanese fans
Speaker 1: would always love her, and she said, I still remember
Speaker 1: her big smile. Taki. Okay, you're right. Taki and Audrey
Speaker 1: remained friends for years. I have about thirty letters from her.
Speaker 1: This must be in nineteen eighty three, after she left Japan.
Speaker 1: I think I have now almost recovered from my jet lag,
Speaker 1: but will never get over Japan. Never, she underlines, none
Speaker 1: of us will ever be the same again. Exclamation mark
Speaker 1: three of them. She told me, Taki, perhaps in the
Speaker 1: past years in the in my ancestor era. I might
Speaker 1: have in a Japanese Hepburn may have been joking here,
Speaker 1: but she understood that there was a bond. So to
Speaker 1: test this notion of devotion, we sent a producer to
Speaker 1: this Audrey Hepburn photo exhibition happening in a department store
Speaker 1: just outside Tokyo, and one of the women waiting in
Speaker 1: line likened Hepburn to a goddess. Another lady talked about
Speaker 1: a sense of elegance and her quote straight spine that
Speaker 1: goes like tis a day and you'll remember. That's what
Speaker 1: I remembered from that day at Macy's when I caught
Speaker 1: a glimpse of Audrey Hepburn back in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 1: I had no way of knowing how little time she
Speaker 1: had left. In September, she was diagnosed with cancer of
Speaker 1: the appendix, and she died on January twentieth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: I would have thought it would have been front page news.
Speaker 1: I did front page, even above the fold, yes, I
Speaker 1: still think in newspaper terms. But someone else was front
Speaker 1: and center that day. I William Jefferson Clinton, who solemnly
Speaker 1: swear that I will faithfully execute the office President of
Speaker 1: the United States. Yep, Bill Clinton kind of stole her spotlight.
Speaker 1: Were you aware that the day of your inauguration, Audrey
Speaker 1: Hepburn died. No, you didn't know that. No, it didn't
Speaker 1: look I didn't. It was a fairly busy time. I
Speaker 1: didn't sleep for two days. Understandably, he'd been a little distracted.
Speaker 1: So to jog his memory, I brought along an old
Speaker 1: copy of The New York Times. She was only sixty three. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember then. I remember how young I thought she was.
Speaker 1: I didn't think about it being my inaugural. They yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like she they put her back here. But it's
Speaker 1: a nice spread. She was amazing. I loved her. I
Speaker 1: love Roman Holiday, I love Funny Face, I love Sabrina.
Speaker 1: I like the remake because I like the first one
Speaker 1: so much. That may be pushing it. Oh that is yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely a stretch. That's Karen James. She's a culture
Speaker 1: critic and on January twentieth, nineteen ninety three, she was
Speaker 1: working for The New York Times when she was assigned
Speaker 1: Audrey Hepburn's obituary. So I'm going to show you it's
Speaker 1: been a long time since you've seen it. I haven't
Speaker 1: read this obituary in years. I glanced at it. What
Speaker 1: did I say? I think? I said she was elegant
Speaker 1: and graceful. You do use those words. Audiences were enchanted
Speaker 1: by her combination of grace, elegance, and high spirits, and
Speaker 1: she won an Academy Award as Best Actress. You were
Speaker 1: talking about Roman Holiday. There. In a string of films
Speaker 1: that followed, she continued to play the lie, the young
Speaker 1: thing with stars in her eyes and the ability to
Speaker 1: make Cinderella transformations. I stand by that. But there's a
Speaker 1: whole story behind this obituary. So Karen's in the news
Speaker 1: the day of the inauguration, and at about five in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, when all the top editors were in the
Speaker 1: Page one meeting putting together the front page, the deputy
Speaker 1: Culture editor came running over to my desk and said,
Speaker 1: thank goodness you're here. Katherine Hepburn is dead and we
Speaker 1: have a ten year old obituary. Can you rewrite it?
Speaker 1: And they were tearing apart in page one because they
Speaker 1: thought Katherine Hepburn was dead. So we walk over to
Speaker 1: the Culture news desk. You're looking very mystified for a
Speaker 1: good reason. I really am. We went to the news
Speaker 1: desk and said, how do we know she's dead? And
Speaker 1: someone said, oh, the Uwen called to tell us, and
Speaker 1: it was like one of those cartoon moments where you
Speaker 1: saw the lightbulbs go on over everyone's head and we
Speaker 1: realized it was Audrey, not Katherine. Before the world to
Speaker 1: knew the word disambiguation, you experienced it, That's right, I
Speaker 1: did firsthand. Did you mean Audrey Hepburn or Katherine Hepburn.
Speaker 1: That's right. They were so relieved that they did not
Speaker 1: have to tear apart page one for Audrey Hepburn's obituary
Speaker 1: that Katherine Hepburn would have warranted tearing apart a page one,
Speaker 1: even though that page one was about a presidential inauguration exactly.
Speaker 1: They would have found room for her on page one,
Speaker 1: and they were doing it. But when I heard it
Speaker 1: was Audrey, immediately what they said to me was, oh,
Speaker 1: can you write Audrey's obituary? I feel like this is
Speaker 1: the kind of mistake that Audrey Hepburn would have been
Speaker 1: really gracious about. Katherine Hepburn would not have been pleased about,
Speaker 1: because Katherine Hepburn did not suffer fools. No, she didn't
Speaker 1: well it's a lovely oh bit, so it does. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a rush job. I mean, really, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that, because I felt bad after
Speaker 1: that I didn't have time to give her, you know,
Speaker 1: the atention I would have if I'd known. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of remarkable when you read your oh bed that
Speaker 1: her career was basically fourteen years long. I mean nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three to nineteen sixty seven. There was a little
Speaker 1: stuff before, a little stuff afterward. I just have the
Speaker 1: impression she wasn't one of those people who had to act.
Speaker 1: There are people who really feel like they have to
Speaker 1: do it no matter what. And she had other things
Speaker 1: to do. She had a family, she had her un work.
Speaker 1: She really didn't feel as driven to do things that
Speaker 1: she wasn't really passionately interested in doing. I remember how
Speaker 1: special it felt to watch the Oscars, and you know,
Speaker 1: in those days, right, and it was an event that
Speaker 1: Audrey Hepburn would show up and float across the stage
Speaker 1: to deliver best costume or whatever, right, partly because she
Speaker 1: wasn't on screen all the time, so when she appeared,
Speaker 1: it really did seem like an event. Why do you
Speaker 1: think people still remember her so fondly. I think there
Speaker 1: was great affection for her at the time, and I
Speaker 1: think there's but no one like her, since there are
Speaker 1: maybe Audrey Hepburn types there in there, but she was
Speaker 1: so special and so graceful and so elegant in a
Speaker 1: way that was distinctly hers. You know, Karen's story is
Speaker 1: so great, and she's not even an obituary writer. In fact,
Speaker 1: she's only written two obits in her life, Audrey Hepburn
Speaker 1: and Katherine Hepburn. Maybe it's weird to feel nostalgic for
Speaker 1: a time you didn't live through. I wasn't around during
Speaker 1: Audrey Hepburn's heyday. And yet on those days when the
Speaker 1: news is particularly dreary and people are being especially awful,
Speaker 1: and I'm flipping through the channels and I land on
Speaker 1: one of her movies, I can't help but wonder how
Speaker 1: did we drift so far from Audrey Hepburn. Can we
Speaker 1: ever get back? One can only hope marcle Ary friend
Speaker 1: and me next time on mobituaries. He did it all,
Speaker 1: Sammy Davis Junior. He was everything. I mean, he could
Speaker 1: play any instrument, he could sing, he could dance like
Speaker 1: a maniac. You were lovers, you were boyfriend's friends. What
Speaker 1: was that like? It was fabulous. He's as talented in
Speaker 1: that area as he wasn't he was otherwise. I certainly
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Speaker 1: For more great content about Audrey Hepburn, you can visit
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Speaker 1: get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by
Speaker 1: Megan Marcus. Our team of producers also includes Gideon Evans,
Speaker 1: Kate mccauliffe, Meghan Dietree, and me Mo Rocca. It was
Speaker 1: edited by Ashley Cleek and engineered by Dan Dzula. Indispensable
Speaker 1: support from Genius Daneski, Alison Stanley, David Fox, Richard Roreer,
Speaker 1: everyone at CBS News Radio, and special thanks to Macy's
Speaker 1: Young and Rubicam and the Paley Center for Media. Our
Speaker 1: theme music is written by Daniel Hart and as always,
Speaker 1: on Dying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp without
Speaker 1: whom Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo if you're enjoying
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