Audrey Hepburn

There are many stars that have passed from our midst that continue to have a cult following and the one that most often comes to mind is Marilyn Monroe but if you do a little bit more study of those really interested in cinema you will find that the very alluring Audrey Hepburn has an epic fan base as well.  Let’s take a deeper look at this very intriguing star that disappeared from our lives all too soon. 

I take a quote from Time magazine in an article they wrote about Audrey’s life in 2007 in which they write she represented “emotional aristocracy”. And if you know anything about her life in and out of film you will no doubt agree because the characters she portrayed in film mirrored the Audrey people that knew her outside the celluloid life.  In the definition of self-effacement Miss Hepburn’s picture is alongside the text.  To some she was the most beautiful woman alive but you would never know it from her because her humility never became a cross she bore it just naturally became part of an aura and hence the brilliance of her stardom. 

Born in Brussels and educated mostly in England to an aristocratic Dutch mother and Englishman businessman father during WWII her mother and Audrey were in the Netherlands when the Nazis invaded and executed her uncle and cousin and one of her brothers was interred in a labor camp. After the wars end Audrey began as a chorus girl and dancer and spotted by a French author Collette who recommended her for the part in her novel Gigi. So impressed by her performance when the play opened in New York in 1951 William Wyler wanted to screen test her for Roman Holiday. After filming her would remark, “That girl is going to be the biggest star in Hollywood.” Wyler must have seemed a soothsayer as Audrey would win the Oscar that year in which she played a princess who breaks away from her Royal entrapment while in Rome and falls in love with a journalist Gregory Peck.  It was a great year for her in 1953 and after the movies release she would also win the Tony for Broadway’s Ondine.   

Audrey remodeled the buxom blonde look into a lithesome figurine that often seemed just a little bit underweight for her frame. No one seemed to mind though, as her uncanny beauty was intoxicating sans the resulting hangover. She matched elegantly with leading men Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina 1954, Funny Face 1957 with Fred Astaire, Love in the Afternoon 1957 Gary Cooper, 1959’s A Nun’s Story followed by her delightfully free spirited Holly Golightly with George Peppard in 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s where her 4th Oscar nomination touched her.  She was not without controversy however when she was awarded the role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady in 1964 naturally destined for Julie Andrews who would have reprised the role from Broadway. Audrey was selected instead for the movie version and was splendiferous opposite Rex Harrison although Marni Nixon dubbed her singing. 

In 1967 in a somewhat darker performance her 5th Academy Award nomination followed in Wait Until Dark wherein she played a blind heroine stuck in her apartment terrorized by some nefarious drug smugglers.  Audrey retreated to Switzerland and made 3 more movies most notably Robin and Marian in 1976 paired with Sean Connery. Audrey married twice first to Mel Ferrer she bore him two sons and they divorced in 1968 and then married Andrea Dotti in 1969 an Italian psychiatrist and they had a son they later divorced and then her final relationship with a Dutch actor Robert Wolders in 1980.  

In the final two decades of her life Audrey dedicated her life to UNICEF as an ambassador for the U.N.’s children’s fund where her travels spanned the globe. Audrey maintained her very thin physiology never wanting to appear to well fed to the starving children she met along the way. In 1992 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Audrey Hepburn died from cancer in 1993 at age 63. She continues on in our memories as one of Hollywood’s most beautiful and enduring stars.  

I Was Born Under A Wanderin' Star

When I listen to this song I think that if I was to use this metaphor I would probably say that my star races around the universe and that sometimes I just don’t know where it is. And I will confess that the people that love me tap me on the shoulder and tell me just where it is. Abstract as that may sound I live in an abstract world and fashion my puzzle piece into the world at large and hope that I fit in and when I don’t I go inside and take a look at how I can make my life better and at this stage turn stagnation into generativity.  

Not easy when you turn Social Security because for me the alphabet atop the blackboard in 1st Grade in Saint Sebastian’s seemed but a fortnight ago. My epoch of time as it enters the 4th quarter before God calls me home can only be described as OT for a man blessed as I am. The mistakes I have made are but the manifestations of the best life I can lead one day at a time right now. If it were not for those days I wouldn’t be living the happiest time of my life and that’s all I can do. I pray that God has a plan worthy for me to carry out either as an example or to give back before I breathe my last breath.  

   

Judgment Free

“Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure which you measure will be measured out to you.”

It seems deplorable to me that it has become a ‘social sport’ to exploit what we see as weaknesses in others in order for us to make ourselves feel better at another’s expense. It has become rampant! Sometimes it is because others don’t share our political or social views or we hold them up for ridicule for how they look. We look at people’s outsides when we should be taking a good look at our own insides. Trouble is we are probably too afraid to look at the face in the mirror. Instead of becoming a healing instrument we choose the low road of ridicule and chastisement where we might make better use of our time reflecting on our own lives.  

It would seem that if we tended to our own side of the street we might be better prepared for the world at large and be better equipped to offer healing solutions rather than taking the easier softer way spewing our own one sided “our way or the highway” because we have deemed we have earned it. We have earned nothing until we have walked in another person’s shoes. Until we do that it’s best we hold off on our next tweet, instant message or post on Facebook.  

Olivia de Haviland Turns 100

 Olivia de Haviland

This screen legend turns 100 this July 1. Her birth in 1916 actually took place in Tokyo Japan to British parents. Her mother Lilian Augusta Ruse a former actress and her father Augusta de Haviland who was an English professor and patent attorney. Although her parents divorced when Olivia was just 3 years old it was in High School that the “acting bug” infected her when she was cast in the Shakespeare play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Hardly a coincidence she played in the role again on the stage and then later reprised it in the Warner Brothers screen version.  

Signed to a 7 year contract, as was the norm back then Olivia made 3 films in 1935,  “The Irish in Us”, “Alibi Ike” and the first with the co-star that she would be most closely associated with Errol Flynn, in “Captain Blood”. She would make a total of 8 films with her heartthrob. Although later in life Olivia claimed they never consummated their love affair their ardor was nonetheless very real. 

It was 1939 however, that David O. Selznick would tap her to play the very likable role of Melanie Hamilton in the 1939 blockbuster “Gone With the Wind” in which she would receive her first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress which would later go to her other co-star Hattie McDaniel. In 1941 she was nominated again only this time to lose to her sister Joan Fontaine for best actress in the role opposite Cary Grant in “Suspicion”.  

As her successes continue to mount Olivia balked at the roles she was receiving from the studio and a court battle ensued. For 6 years as the suit continued Olivia was kept off the silver screen but in the end the court ruled in her favor and no longer could actors be held to contracts longer than 7 years. Performers could no longer be ‘property’ as studios contended they were. The decision became known as the “de Haviland decision”. 

Eventually she won her best actor Oscar in 1946 in  “To Each His Own”. Olivia now lives quietly in Paris France. She is also the subject of TCM’s star of the month in view of her Centennial birthday this month alongside a written tribute from her friend and the venerable TCM host and film historian Robert Osborne. This month the classic movie channel in honor of her birthday will feature 39 of her films some of them memorable and some not so memorable. All nonetheless worthy viewing of one of the last remaining living legends of the silver screen Olivia de Haviland.  There’s still one more turning 100 this year can you guess who it is?   

  

The Best Things In Life Are Free

How is it that surrounded by the force fed air of the material world do we forget that the best things in life are indeed free.  It’s not in the trappings of bulging bank accounts does happiness exist. For money can bring us the rentals of luxury but when God calls us home none of those trinkets accompany us into the ground or the urn from the crematorium.  

The best things in life are free.  The human touch, a kiss, a held hand, a glance from a loved one and a knowing smile.  These gifts we share everyday and no price tag can be pulled from them. When we cry for help and it’s answered I know that the best things in life are free.  

Angel on the Highway

I think that there are more believers than ever before in those heavenly beings some of us choose to call angels. They are everywhere for me. Whether I am backing out of a parking space and an unknown force keeps me in place as a speeding car racing in the parking lot whizzes by saving me from a certain collision or in my lane when I was thinking of changing and that blind spot on my right keeps that invisible vehicle from my line of sight. It never seems to fail. Even when I am a miscreant and am texting and driving those deities right me with those awakening grooves in the concrete that alert me to my swerve.  

Yesterday afternoon in the midst of that treacherous snow storm and I say treacherous because it was only a few hours old and the plows hadn’t been out just yet to scrape down to the pavement and so the inch or so skating rink made drivers overly cautious or as is their wont others with 4 wheel drive brazen with insanity thinking they are invincible to the elements. 

I found myself coming home from a business appointment and deciding what church I would attend to make the 5 pm mass. I settled on St. Patrick’s in Huntington as my logical sanctuary. As I was following a Mercedes up 108 towards 25A who I was becoming impatient with as they seemed to be traveling way too slowly for my impatient taste they finally veered off to the left (as I should have) and I quickly decided that I would head up Lawrence Hill Road as my short cut. Well since my ride is a Mini Cooper this little engine thought it could but simply couldn’t. I went about 30 yards up that steep grade and came to a halt. 

If you’re familiar with that road there’s traffic from three directions. Oncoming, from behind and perpendicular from 108. Since my only alternative seemed to be backing down the hill I needed a lot of luck or just good timing not to collide with traffic behind. As I got out of my car I saw another driver seeing my plight and he was in the midst of changing his mind as to avert the hill I was challenging. I approached him and said that maybe we could help each other. I would watch traffic for him and he could for me. He seemed to agree but after I did he zoomed off. 

I had no time to whimper or stamp my feet as just then a young woman stopped in the triangle below me out of harms way opened her window and asked: Can I help? I said YES! Could you watch as I back down the hill? She being the bright woman said: Why don’t you just do a 3-point turn? I’ll protect you. I don’t know if I can I retorted. She said simply: Just try it. I got in and as the car started to roll backward it went into a natural 3 point turn and as if by magic I was facing downhill and on my way but not before I rolled down my window and blew a kiss to my mystery angel. 

I thought to myself that no matter what has changed between men and women one thing has not. Women are still nurturers and God thank you for that. I love angels. That woman wherever you are I prayed for you today. 

When I'm 64

Will you still need me will you still feed me when I’m 64.  When I think that this tune first aired 47 years ago age 64 seemed light years away. It has however been but a blink.

I tell young people that I meet keep your head where your feet are else you will miss the present moment and since they can never be recaptured except as a memory live each breath as if it was your last.