Audrey Hepburn’s hatred of pastries nearly ruined an iconic scene in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’
Everyone knows the scene well: A yellow cab glides up a deserted New York street at dawn as the opening notes of Henry Mancini’s melancholic ‘Moon River’ play. The cab comes to a halt outside Tiffany & Co, and a sophisticated, be-coiffed figure steps out in a slender black dress, strings of pearls, opera gloves and shades. She looks up pensively and sashays elegantly to the window.
Cut to her profile, revealing not only diamonds in the window but a paper bag in her hands. Out of it, she pulls a rather flat pastry, which she holds between her teeth, and a takeaway coffee. She proceeds to eat them chicly, the paper bag, cup, pastry and her shawl all balanced perfectly in her arms as she tilts her head longingly at the window.
Now, imagine the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s had cut to Audrey Hepburn, as the famous Holly Golightly, and instead of delicately nibbling a pastry, she takes a good ol’ lick of an ice cream cone? Which somehow hasn’t melted all over her lovely opera gloves and dripped down her dress on the way from the cab to the window. Not quite the same image, is it? But this is the image we might have gotten had Hepburn had her say.
One of the most beloved films of the 20th century, with one of the most famous sequences in cinema history—Hepburn with an overlong cigarette holder in hand—Breakfast at Tiffany’s is also renowned for facing many, many problems during production. To begin with, Truman Capote, who wrote the novel the film is based on, didn’t even want Hepburn to be cast in what is considered to be her most iconic role. He famously wanted Marilyn Monroe, saying, “Paramount double-crossed me in every way and cast Audrey. She was just wrong for that part”. Horrifyingly, Hepburn wasn’t really considered a beauty at the time, at least not in comparison to someone like Monroe.
Then there was the switching of directors a good way into production, difficulty casting the male lead, issues shooting the iconic scene in front of Tiffany’s, trouble with Hepburn’s virginal image, disagreements over Mancini’s iconic song, Hepburn’s singing, and on and on and on the list could seemingly go. Not to mention that Capote was not a fan of the result. But, there was one small footnote that could have truly changed, or ruined, depending on how strongly you feel, the whole thing: Audrey didn’t like pastries.
I know, I know, the audacity. Who doesn’t like pastries? They’ve always seemed so universal. Butter, flour and sugar: what’s not to like? But so disgusting to our Audrey that she had the aplomb to ask director Blake Edwards if she could possibly lick an ice cream cone instead. Though that might have added to the lascivious subtext of the whole thing, there’s something about it that just doesn’t sit right.
Firstly, you can’t hold an ice cream cone through an entire cab ride and expect it to still be intact when you get to Tiffany’s.
Secondly, who is eating ice cream at dawn? As Edwards pointed out to Hepburn, ice cream isn’t much of a breakfast food. So it wouldn’t have been “breakfast” at Tiffany’s as much as it would have been “a little treat” at Tiffany’s, which doesn’t really roll off the tongue in quite the same way.
