Read Audrey Hepburn: An Intimate Portrait Online
Authors: Diana Maychick
More
important, the rigorous shooting schedule kept her tied down to the Hotel de
Paris, an opulent, overdone amalgam of marble and gilt which most days served
as the location site.
In
one scene, director Jean Boyer was trying to convince Audrey that she should
smile and giggle more to lend the right feeling to her character, a young woman
who was having a good time on her honeymoon.
Out
of the corner of her eye, she noticed an elderly woman in a wheelchair, sternly
giving directions to the man who was wheeling her around.
“All
the time Monsieur Boyer was speaking to me, I was watching this older woman
tell this slightly younger man what to do. And I thought, giggles are nice, but
I bet this woman wouldn’t smile a lot to show she was having a good time. She’d
just keep on doing what she was doing. She had this bizarre red hair, all
curls, and every time she’d make a point, her curls would bounce emphatically,
too, like all these exclamation points shooting from her head. Her cheeks were
painted red. I mean, they looked as if they’d literally been painted. As much
as she was being pushed around by her husband, it was clear she was also
pushing him around.”
The
overbearing woman was Colette, one of the most beloved modern novelists in
France, a chronicler of the feminine heart in the
Claudine
books and the
Ch&escute;ri
series. She and her husband, writer and editor Maurice Goudeket, were in
Prince Rainier of
as they had been during several previous winter seasons.
“When
I realized who it was, I was overwhelmed,” Audrey said. “I was always
much more impressed with writers and artists than actors. 1 had read Colette’s
work as a young girl, and I always loved her simple style in conveying so much
emotion. Here she was! It made me nervous to think she might be forced to watch
me, since the lobby was closed off until the scene was shot.”
But
Colette didn’t want to go anywhere. From the moment she set eyes on Audrey,
watching her spritely movements, marveling at the wisdom in her young face,
Colette was captivated.
She
stayed for about an hour the first day, after director Boyer had at first been
incensed that she was making noise. He turned to chastise her, but when he
realized it was Colette, the Frenchman demurred. She was a national treasure.
She could interrupt any movie she liked.
When
she returned the next day just as shooting resumed, Boyer sighed, reconciled to
the fact that another day might be lost to Colette’s curious fascination with
moviemaking. Her husband quietly assured the director that they had a singular
purpose in watching the proceedings and that they certainly wouldn’t stay long.
“Madame finds the whole process enervating,” he said.
Yet
Goudeket pushed Colette closer to the center of action. Her wheelchair became
entangled with the sound cables running the length and width of the terrazzo
floor. She raised her gloved, birdlike hands to shield her eyes from the klieg
lights, and dramatically pointed at Audrey.
“Voilà,”
she said. “That’s my Gigi.”
Gigi
, Colette’s 1945 novella about a
young girl trained by her aunt to be a courtesan, was being adapted for
Broadway. For two years, the production team had been searching for a leading
lady. Talent scouts had been dispatched to comb
warm, loving woman.
Audrey
was unaware that she was being considered for the role by its creator, but she
was nonetheless made extremely self-conscious by all the attention, especially
since her lines in
Monte Carlo Baby
were
so stupid. She was embarrassed to be saying them in front of an audience.
Goudeket
pulled aside an assistant director and learned that Audrey would have to be
approached through her mother. The formidable Baroness, seated away from the
action in a corner armchair doing needlepoint, was pointed out. He approached
her gingerly; she looked like an impenetrable gatekeeper.
He
told her that Anita Loos, author of
Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes,
had adapted
Gigi
for the stage almost as soon as it was published, and that she and producer
Gilbert Miller had been searching since then for a suitable leading lady. There
was serious talk of postponing the production indefinitely since no actress
seemed to fit the requirements. Now his wife Colette was sure that Audrey would
be the ideal candidate, and he had to agree. “I have never felt an actress
was so emotionally right before,” he told the Baroness. “She has this
virginal seductiveness that marks Gigi. My wife is getting in touch with the
producer right now.”
Across
the room, hunched even lower in her wheelchair, Colette painstakingly wrote a
note to Loos that she had found Gigi and to alert Miller. At seventy-eight, her
arthritis was so painful that she was unable to compose more than one note that
day.
After
shooting stopped that afternoon on
Monte
Carlo Baby,
the Baroness quietly broke the wonderful news to her daughter.
“And
I was petrified,” Audrey said. “Looking back, I wasn’t the least bit
excited. I was just scared. I wished that they had never seen me, because I
didn’t want to go through the humiliation of showing them that I wasn’t really
an actress, that I couldn’t sustain a leading role on the stage. I remember
speaking to James that night and he agreed that I couldn’t do it. I remember
thinking that he just wanted me to stay at home anyway, so his opinion couldn’t
really be trusted, but I myself knew that I couldn’t do it.
“Mother
and I had the loudest, longest argument of our lives that night. She, of
course, was delighted at the turn of events. Not only would 1 go to
big star, in her opinion, but the scenario would eliminate James Hanson.
“Everybody
seemed to have a secret agenda that day but me. I just wanted to finish the
movie and go to the beach.”
Because
her mother literally forced her to meet with Colette, Audrey went to the
writer’s hotel suite and listened politely to her astounding proposal.
“I’m
so sorry to waste your precious time, Madame,” Audrey told Colette.
“But what you don’t know is that I cannot act. I could never play a
leading role now, maybe not ever. I cannot be your Gigi.”
Colette
dismissed Audrey’s objections with a fling of her gloved hand. She had done her
homework, and was aware of Audrey’s ballet and cabaret experience, although
maybe not the limited extent of it. “You’ve worked hard all your
life,” Colette told her. “I have faith that all that work is about to
pay off now,” she said. “For both of us.”
Audrey
continued to decline the offer, with a steadfast vehemence that reminded
Colette and her husband of Gigi’s own adamant refusal to marry Gaston in her
story. They watched the way her almond-shaped eyes grew even bigger and more
lustrous as she said no. They saw the way she bounded about the hotel suite,
dancer’s toes pointed out, as she nervously explained her reasoning.
The
more she refused, the more they had to have her.
Colette
was optimistic that all Audrey needed was a little gentle persuasion and
coddling. She advised Goudeket to send a cable to
you receive a letter from me.”
Although
neither Anita Loos nor Gilbert Miller put much stock in Colette’s eye for
talent, they did realize the importance of keeping the novelist happy. They
agreed to interview Audrey that summer in
hoping that in the meantime they’d find their Gigi among the ranks of genuine
actresses.
Audrey,
on the other hand, was finally coming around. “Colette did everything she
could to bolster my confidence,” she recalled. “I still have a photo
that she gave me at the time. It’s inscribed, `To Audrey Hepburn, the treasure
I found on the beach.‘ ”
When
she finally walked into producer Miller’s suite at the Savoy Hotel in
of her fear. As much as she wanted the part, she was still troubled by the
notion that it might mean her marriage to Hanson would be postponed. Yet since
she hadn’t seen much of him recently, she agreed that there was no hurry and
that going to
Miller
was rather less enthusiastic. The veteran producer of important plays,
including the debut of T. S. Eliot’s
The
Cocktail Party
, wondered if Audrey was strong enough both physically and
mentally to carry a Broadway show on her frightened shoulders. An obese man,
Miller was sure that Audrey had to be dreadfully ill to be so thin. But he was
charmed by her international accent and dark, stunning eyes. He knew that if he
didn’t hire her, another producer would. Despite the fact that her experience
was minimal, he decided he wanted her for the title role in
Gigi.
As
a matter of courtesy, he asked her to stop by Anita Loos’s suite down the hall.
When Audrey entered, Loos was catching up with her good friend Paulette
Goddard. The actress didn’t say a word as Loos kindly asked Audrey a few
questions and attempted to make small talk to get to know her a little.
According to journalist Charles Higham, Goddard was unable to contain herself
after Audrey left the room.
“There’s
got to be something wrong with that girl,” Goddard reportedly said to
Loos. “Anyone who looks like that should have been discovered before she
was ten years old!”
At
twenty-two, Audrey was on the verge of becoming a major star. Miller decided to
give her a contract, despite the fact that she flubbed her lines and became
extremely flustered and uncomfortable at the impromptu audition he held at a
To
make matters worse, veteran stage actress Cathleen Nesbitt was positioned at
the back of the balcony to see if Audrey could project to the entire house. She
had to report that she could hear absolutely nothing. Yet Miller had so much
faith in Audrey’s ability to capture an audience’s complete attention that he
used his expertise to help Audrey get out of her contract for additional films
with Associated British Pictures. He began to believe that no other Gigi would
do. Blind faith carried the day.