Audrey Hepburn's - Believe

Audrey Hepburn (born; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress. Recognized as a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywood's Golden Age. She was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend in Golden Age Hollywood and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Born in Ixelles,  a district of Brussels, Hepburn spent her childhood between Belgium, England and the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, she studied ballet With Sonia Gaskell before moving to London in 1948, continuing her ballet training with Marie Rambert, and then performing as a chorus girl in West End musical theatre productions.

Following minor appearances in several films, Hepburn starred in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi after being spotted by French novelist Colette, on whose work the play was based. She shot to stardom for playing the lead role in Roman Holiday (1953), for which she was the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for a single performance. The same year Hepburn won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play for her performance in Ondine. She went on to star in a number of successful films, such as Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963), My Fair Lady(1964) and Wait Until Dark (1967), for which she received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Hepburn won a record three BAFTA Awards for Best British Actress in a Leading Role. In recognition of her film career, she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from BAFTA, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and the Special Tony Award. She remains one of the few people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards.

Hepburn appeared in fewer films as her life went on, devoting much of her later life to UNICEF. She had contributed to the organization since 1954, and then worked in some of the poorest communities of Africa, South America and Asia between 1988 and 1992. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in December 1992. A month later, Hepburn died of appendiceal cancer at her home in Switzerland at the age of 63.

Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston on 4 May 1929 at number 48 Rue Keyenveld in Ixelles, a municipality in Brussels, Belgium.[1] Her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston (1889–1980), was a British subject born in Auschitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. His mother was Anna Ruston (née Wels), of Austrian descent, and his father was Victor John George Ruston, of British and Austrian descent. After World War I, Joseph was appointed British consul in the Dutch East Indies, and prior to his marriage to Hepburn's mother he had been married to Cornelia Bisschop, a Dutch heiress. Although born with the surname Ruston, he later double-barrelled his name to the more "aristocratic" Hepburn-Ruston, mistakenly believing himself descended from James Hepburn, third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Hepburn's mother, Baroness Ella van Heemstra (1900–1984), a Dutch aristocrat was the daughter of Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra, who served as mayor of Arnhem from 1910 to 1920, and as Governor of Dutch Suriname from 1921 to 1928. Ella's mother was Elbrig Willemine Henriette, Baroness van Asbeck (1873–1939), who was a granddaughter of jurist Count Dirk van Hogendorp. At age nineteen, Ella had married Jonkheer (Esquire) Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford, an oil executive based in Batavia, Dutch East Indies, where they subsequently lived. They had two sons, Jonkheer Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford (1920–1979) and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford (1924–2010), before divorcing in 1925.

Hepburn's parents were married in Batavia in September 1926. At the time, Ruston worked for a trading company, but soon after the marriage, the couple relocated to Europe, where he began working for a loan company. After a year in London, they moved to Brussels, where he had been assigned to open a branch office. After three years spent travelling between Brussels, Arnhem, The Hague and London, the family settled to the suburban Brussels municipality of Linkebeek in 1932. Hepburn's early childhood was sheltered and privileged. As a result of her multinational background and travelling with her family due of her father's job, she learned to speak five languages: Dutch and English from her parents, and later French, Spanish, and Italian. To strengthen her English, Hepburn was sent to a boarding school in Elham, Kent when she was five years old.

In the mid-1930s, Hepburn's parents recruited and collected donations for the British Union of Fascists. Joseph left the family abruptly in 1935 and divorced Ella in 1938, which Hepburn later professed was "the most traumatic event of my life". In the 1960s, she renewed contact with him after locating him in Dublin through the Red Cross; although he remained emotionally detached, Hepburn supported him financially until his death. Following the divorce, Ella began making more frequent visits to Kent.