The “impatient” director Audrey Hepburn hated working with: “Audrey could get along with Hitler”
Anyone who worked in Hollywood throughout the early years was prone to witnessing some of the worst misbehaviour of all time, with directors being notorious for acting out and demanding too much of their stars.
As a result, anyone who managed to survive this period and come out the other end unscathed was a true star, with Audrey Hepburn being one of the titular stars from the golden era and a trooper for managing to put up with one particularly tricky director.
There hasn’t been anybody quite like Hepburn throughout the history of Hollywood, with an effortlessly elegant and charismatic presence that defined cult classic pictures like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Roman Holiday and Charade, with an image that became instantly recognisable and synonymous with true style.
After working with renowned directors like Stanley Donen and Billy Wilder, Hepburn became accustomed to the fast-paced speed of the industry, with increasingly demanding roles as she worked both on stage and screen, earning her Tony, Oscar, Golden Globe and Bafta awards.
However, despite tackling a number of extremely challenging projects, there was one that took the biscuit with a demanding director who took things too far and made it an unpleasant working experience for Hepburn.
Robin and Marian was directed by Richard Lester in 1976, following the romance between Robin Hood and his one true love, Maid Marian. While it is a pleasant enough film, it was far from pleasant for Hepburn while filming, with her experiences on the production being detailed in her biography.
The film was shot very quickly in just 36 days, with the director saying, “I’m prone to be impatient. Hard Day’s Night was just under seven weeks. Juggernaut was six. Musketeers was seventeen weeks for the two parts, about eight and a half apiece. On Robin, I set out to shoot eight or nine pages a day. There were about fifty pages under a bloody tree, so why not?”
However, alongside the intense working conditions, Hepburn also clashed with Lester over his writing of her character, with the director cutting down the love story between Robin and Marian, with Hepburn fighting to keep her best lines in the script. The actor was quoted as saying, “With all those men, I was the one who had to defend the romance in the picture. Somebody had to take care of Marian.”
Thankfully, someone was bringing their brain to work, with Hepburn using her years of experience to focus on what was right for the character and the film. As a result, the actor was not a fan of Lester, also taking issue with him after their first interaction, first meeting her while playing a game of tennis, and not stopping his game to greet her properly.
A representative of the studio said, “Audrey could get along with Hitler, but Lester is not in her scrapbook of unforgettable characters.”
It sounds as though the experience really tested Hepburn’s patience, but nonetheless, she stayed true to herself by always remaining a pillar of grace and professionalism.
