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Summary
Summary
Twenty-five years after her passing, Audrey Hepburn remains the most beloved of all Hollywood stars, known as much for her role as UNICEF ambassador as for films like Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Several biographies have chronicled her stardom, but none has covered her intense experiences through five years of Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. According to her son, Luca Dotti, "The war made my mother who she was." Audrey Hepburn's war included participation in the Dutch Resistance, working as a doctor's assistant during the "Bridge Too Far" battle of Arnhem, the brutal execution of her uncle, and the ordeal of the Hunger Winter of 1944. She also had to contend with the fact that her father was a Nazi agent and her mother was pro-Nazi for the first two years of the occupation. But the war years also brought triumphs as Audrey became Arnhem's most famous young ballerina. Audrey's own reminiscences, new interviews with people who knew her in the war, wartime diaries, and research in classified Dutch archives shed light on the riveting, untold story of Audrey Hepburn under fire in World War II. Also included is a section of color and black-and-white photos. Many of these images are from Audrey's personal collection and are published here for the first time.
Author Notes
Robert Matzen is the award-winning author of Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe , Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 , and five other books. He has appeared on national broadcast programs and his byline has appeared in the Wall Street Journal among other publications. Luca Dotti is the younger son of Audrey Hepburn and New York Times bestselling author of Audrey at Home . He is a former graphic designer and now chairs the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund. Created by Audrey's family in 1994, the Fund helps children in need around the world.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Matzen (Mission: Jimmy Stewart) completes his trilogy of books about Hollywood figures during WWII with this exciting volume about Audrey Hepburn's childhood and adolescence under the Nazi occupation of Holland. At first, Hepburn is largely a supporting player, having been only 11 when the Nazis invaded (she later said, "A child is a child is a child; I just went to school"). Instead, Matzen focuses on Hepburn's mother (by then divorced from Hepburn's father), a socialite and longtime Nazi sympathizer, and other family members, including her uncle, who was held by the Nazis and eventually shot in retaliation for Dutch resistance activity. Nevertheless, Matzen shows how war shaped Hepburn's resilient and fiercely private personality and informed her work as a UNICEF ambassador later in life. And all is not gloom and doom, as he explores Hepburn's fascination with dance, and her dreams of becoming a ballerina. More dominant, however, is the wartime background. Visceral details-of intense privation ("I went as long as three days without food" Hepburn recalled), constant bombings, and also acts of resistance-evoke the period. Matzen has created a vivid portrait of a civilian population under siege-one of who just happened to become a Hollywood star. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A popular biographer's intimate portrait of Audrey Hepburn's wartime experiences. Before the world knew Audrey as an actress and UNICEF humanitarian, she was born Adriaantje, in 1929. With this scrupulous account of Hepburn's upbringing in Belgium, England, and the Netherlands--elements that previous biographies have only glanced at--Matzen completes his trilogy on Hollywood stars during World War II, following books on Jimmy Stewart and Carole Lombard. The author delves into the attraction of fascism for Hepburn's mother, Baroness Ella van Heemstra, and father, Joseph Ruston. He opens the book with a chilling passage about Ella's meeting with Hitler in 1935. "He was so pale, so composed as he smiled that enigmatic smile, full of humility, the one seen so often in newsreels flickering on screens around the world," writes Matzen. "He reached out his hand and accepted hers lightly." After Joseph left the family, Hepburn's life was irreversibly altered, as it would be again when the Germans invaded their town. The author interweaves detailed military and social history with Ella's lineage, quotes from Hepburn, fragments from the diaries of her contemporaries, and interviews with people who knew her. Hepburn seldom spoke of Ella's early Nazi support or her own war efforts, but Matzen resurrects this history, thoroughly contextualizing Ella's dominant personality. In addition to documenting the family's many traumas, the author explores Hepburn's love for ballet, and accounts of early film auditions add light to the bleakness. When thoughts and impressions are ascribed to Hepburn--e.g., her reaction to Anne Frank's diary (" 'There were floods of tears," Audrey said of that first encounter with the writing of Anne Frank. 'I became hysterical.' ") and her 1992 trip to Somalia--the journalistic text is often moving but sometimes slows the narrative flow. Nonetheless, Matzen's labor of love amply shows how war shaped Hepburn's worldview. Useful chapter notes blend bibliographic sources with the author's reasoning for engaging with specific topics. An illuminating and devastating examination of an icon and her dramatic experiences. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Matzen, who's previously examined World War II's impact on Hollywood stars (Fireball; Mission), turns to Audrey Hepburn and her life during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The war years coincided with Hepburn's adolescence, and the author chronicles the actor's early performances as a dancer and her relationship with her dynamic mother, while showing how the war affected them both. This is a vivid exploration of Hepburn, her family, and the experiences of the Dutch population. Matzen discusses how Hepburn's uncle Otto, Count van Limburg Stirum, was detained and eventually executed by the Nazis, and evocatively depicts the resistance movement, the massive battles in and around Arnhem as the Allies attempted to liberate the country, and the months of near-starvation conditions in the final winter of the war. VERDICT A meticulously detailed and researched look at the formative years of an iconic performer; for fans of Hepburn as well as anyone seeking a social history of the Dutch experience of World War II.- James Collins, Morristown-Morris Twp. P.L., NJ © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Foreword | p. ix |
| Preface | p. xi |
| Part I Cauldron | |
| 1 Rapture | p. 1 |
| 2 The Blood of Frisia | p. 6 |
| 3 Exile | p. 18 |
| 4 Edda | p. 27 |
| 5 The Unthinkable | p. 43 |
| 6 Dancer | p. 48 |
| Part II Long Live Oranje! | |
| 7 Pencil Scratches | p. 61 |
| 8 Unacceptable | p. 65 |
| 9 Born For the Spotlight | p. 74 |
| 10 Death Candidate | p. 83 |
| 11 Paranoid | p. 97 |
| 12 The Secret | p. 105 |
| Part III Resistance | |
| 13 Soul Sister | p. 119 |
| 14 Just Dutchmen | p. 126 |
| 15 Warmest Praise | p. 131 |
| 16 Black Evenings | p. 143 |
| 17 Het Vaderland | p. 150 |
| 18 If, If, If | p. 156 |
| 19 The Hun on the Run | p. 159 |
| Part IV The Liberators | |
| 20 The Netherlands in Five Days | p. 165 |
| 21 Ultimatum | p. 169 |
| 22 The Devil's Picnic | p. 175 |
| 23 Cakewalk | p. 184 |
| 24 Aflame | p. 193 |
| 25 Champagne For One | p. 201 |
| Part V Toys | |
| 26 The Princess | p. 217 |
| 27 Hunters | p. 221 |
| 28 The Magic Stamp | p. 227 |
| 29 Streaking Evil | p. 236 |
| 30 Peace on Earth. Yeah, Right. | p. 243 |
| Part VI Pursued | |
| 31 A Tree | p. 253 |
| 32 The Race | p. 257 |
| 33 Gates of Hell | p. 268 |
| 34 First Cigarette | p. 277 |
| 35 Sorting | p. 283 |
| 36 Crossroads | p. 289 |
| 37 Completely Nuts | p. 297 |
| 38 Peace | p. 304 |
| Chapter Notes | p. 321 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 358 |
| Selected Bibliography | p. 362 |
| Index | p. 366 |
