How Audrey Hepburn was lured out of semi-retirement: “They begged me to do the film”
With the release of William Wyler’s Roman Holiday in 1953, America gained a new sweetheart. As Princess Ann, a runaway royal who dreams of a normal life, Audrey Hepburn won over millions of fans with her combination of grace, humour, and sincerity. This role launched a career that would become one of the greatest in Hollywood history, but all good things must come to an end.
Just 14 years after her star-making performance opposite Gregory Peck, Hepburn decided that acting simply wasn’t for her anymore. The final straw was a movie called Wait Until Dark, a psychological thriller in which she plays a blind woman terrorised by a drug gang in her own home. Through a combination of difficult on-set conditions and a turbulent personal life, one of the most famous people in the world walked away from the spotlight.
After quitting show business, Hepburn spent time with her family. She divorced actor Mel Ferrer in 1968 and married Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti the following year. She had two sons, one from each marriage: Sean, who followed her into acting, and Luca, who would become co-chair of the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund following his mother’s death. It seemed as if the quiet life suited the former starlet, but the allure of the movies was just too strong.
Like so many others before or since, Hepburn decided to make a comeback. Nine years after her last film appearance, she appeared opposite Sean Connery in Robin and Marian. The two stars played older versions of the classic folk characters Robin Hood and Maid Marian, in an adventure set many years after their most famous stories. The 47-year-old was drawn to the film because she liked the idea of playing a woman her own age, but it turns out her family – the reason she left Hollywood in the first place – played an instrumental role in bringing her back.
“They begged me to do the film,” Hepburn said of her children, as per Barry Paris’ biography of the enchanting star. “They were so thrilled at the idea of meeting James Bond.” She also called the idea of finding out what happened to the characters in their old age “romantic”, while dismissing other scripts she’d been pitched as “too kinky, too violent, or too young.” Would you just love to read those?
“I never ‘retired’. I’m not Garbo,” she continued, comparing herself to Greta Garbo, who quit acting in her mid-30s and never returned. “I always hoped to make another film. The time was right for me and the part was right, too…. I’m not one of those people who retire and then come back year after year. I’m not making a ‘comeback’ because I never consciously went away. And now that I’ve come back in Robin and Marian, I may not stay back.”
This prediction turned out to be true. Hepburn made just three more pictures after Robin and Marian: a thriller by Terrence Young (who also directed Wait Until Dark) in which she plays the daughter of a murdered CEO, They All Laughed, a romcom, and Always, a World War II fantasy directed by none other than Steven Spielberg. She passed away four years later at the all-too-young age of 63, her legacy very much still intact.
