With our recent move, we haven’t yet gotten internet at our house, so we set up membership at our local library. (We probably would have done that anyway.) But the very day we did, we decided to go ahead and check out some books. As I stood browsing the biography shelves, I came across the biography of Audrey Hepburn written by her son, Sean Ferrer, title above. “Perfect,” I thought, simply because I needed something to jump start some needed research for the book I’m writing this year called The Definition of Beauty. (A little more detail in a couple of posts down or here.) Who better to read about when it comes to elegance, poise, and grace? These are rather all encompasing concepts of the beauty we most closely have defined in our culture today.
People the world over have adored Audrey Hepburn for her elegance, her seemingly unassuming vulnerability that everyone falls in love with when they watch one of her films. Her son explores these ideas of his mother from his point of view, retelling many personal stories and moments with her, and over all, expressing his very apparent love and devotion to her and her legacy.
A few things stick out in my mind: Sean Ferrer, being the son of Audrey and her first husband, Mel Ferrer, also an actor/director (AH and Mel starred in War and Peace together) wrote about one memory of how he used to rub her feet while she put on her makeup, sitting in the floor, just adoring her. How sweet! This prompted a desire within me for having sons. I have always wanted daughters, but now, I certainly want my son to feel about me the way Sean Ferrer did of his mother. It makes me realize the utmost importance of becoming that type of admirable lady before I ever become a mother.
Audrey and Mel with son Sean Ferrer
The story of her life will certainly affect you if you read it. Just as her fame has affected women all over. All women want to be elegant in the way they dress, walk, talk, seem to others. They want to be fashionable, but in a completely prideless way, as Audrey seemed to be. Ferrer talks about this type of beauty in his mother. He says,
She was basically a very insecure person whose very insecurity made everyone fall in love with her. Isn’t that the true definition of beauty, like a fawn caught drinking from a creek? He looks up and just is. He doesn’t know what he looks like, how svelte his body is, or how graceful his movements are; he is just a fawn, like all the others.
That was wonderful quote to have come across. I may actually have another perspective on that, as far as the definition of beauty goes, but…you’ll have to read my book once I write it completely and have it published.
One thing I learned about AH that I didn’t know before was that she was actually the same age as Anne Frank, and after Frank’s diary was published, was deeply moved by the fact that she had experienced a little of what Anne had. She had experienced World War II in Holland. They are more details in the book on how that experience in her late childhood, early teen years affected the rest of her life.
In the end, Sean Ferrer relays that Audrey Hepburn “believed in one thing above all: She believed that love could heal, fix, mend and make everything fine and good in the end…and it did.”
I am not sure if AH new the concept that Love covers a multitude of sins or if she knew that Love is God. I hope she did, after all I do know that she left a legacy that has influenced so many. The book is an inspiration to see that same destiny in myself. I hope you will choose to read it and also see that in yourself.
