Audrey Hepburn: An Intimate Portrait (14 page)

But
she was not actually the shy little innocent in which the studio delighted.
Executives at
Paramount
had hoped to turn Audrey into an indentured servant for seven years, the length
of the contract they wanted her to sign. The feeling was that there always
would be a role for Audrey in any movie, even if not a lead. With her splendid
emaciation, she could play young or old, high fashion or virginal waif.

“She
knew exactly how to highlight her good points,” Head said. “What’s
funny is that her best look was as a sophisticated naif. What I liked best
about her is that she calculated all her business decisions, but made it look
as if she didn’t have a clue.”

Audrey
steadfastly refused to sign the
Paramount
contract. Despite the fact that the studio tried to call her bluff and
pretended it was going to give the role of Princess Anne to someone else,
Audrey would not back down.

“I
have Mother to thank for that maneuver,” she said.

“Once
I started to become popular, Mother continuously tried to impress upon me that
the ball was in my court, that I could call the shots. And since I really
didn’t care too much about whether I got the film or not, it did me no harm to
follow her advice. After I listened to her for a while, I saw that she was
right. The less accessible I was, the more people wanted me. I was never
intentionally difficult, but I did decide up front what I required and I stuck
by my guns.

I
remember when [
Gigi
producer] Gilbert
Miller asked me to change my last name so that I wouldn’t be confused with
Katharine Hepburn. My name! I had no trouble getting rid of Edda, but Hepburn
was my blood. I had to say no. In the end, I was respected for knowing what I
wanted and not wavering.“

Her
personal life was another story. The more that agents and directors and
producers sought her out, the more James Hanson became insecure about his
status as her beau. He even went so far as to announce their wedding plans in
the
London Sunday Times
without
Audrey’s permission.

He
must have intuited that he was losing her. He began doing everything in his
power to change the course of events. After it became clear that Audrey would
be in
America
for the theatrical run of
Gigi
and
the preproduction work on
Roman Holiday,
he
moved the headquarters of his trucking business from
England
to
Canada
in order
to be closer to his beloved.

Although
they caught a few evenings together, Audrey’s career took precedence over her
personal life. Hanson began to sense that her devotion to him was faltering. He
backed off for a time to see if she might begin to miss his attentions. But too
much was going on in Audrey’s life for her to regret any missed opportunities.

In
May of 1952, Gilbert Miller disappointedly closed
Gigi
on Broadway, despite the fact that it was still selling out.
Audrey’s contract was up. She was scheduled to fly to
Italy
to begin
work on
Roman Holiday.

“The
night we closed the play, I couldn’t even join my colleagues in a little
party,” she recalled. “I had to hurry home and pack for
Italy
. I left
the next day. It was too bad I couldn’t say goodbye to the cast and crew. I was
already working against my image as a snob because I didn’t spend much time
with the cast members, but that’s because I was always taking lessons to
improve myself.

“There
were Wednesday afternoons where I would have loved to goof off with all of them
between the matinee and evening performances, but I had to rush over to
West Fifty-fourth Street
for my dance classes.”

She
studied with a Russian émigré, Madams Olga Tarassova, whose teaching technique
was far more rigorous than her predecessors’ in Audrey’s ballet career. But
Tarassova’s husband often hung around the studio, drinking and eating and
generally interfering with the classes. Still, he was a welcome relief to
Audrey.

“He
was my entertainment for the week,” she recalled. “I got a real kick
out of his antics. He would drink a glass of vodka from the opposite side of
the rim and spill nary a single drop in the process. He annoyed most of the
other students, but I think I was secretly jealous of his freedom to do as he
pleased. I didn’t have that luxury. I wouldn’t have it for years to come, and
then when I finally could do exactly what I wanted, my desires remained pretty
simple.”

Like
Princess Anne, Audrey’s first major role and a part that would define her for
the rest of her career, Audrey longed for simple fun and genuine friendship,
desires often at odds with the realities of moviemaking.

By
the time Audrey arrived in
Rome
in the summer of 1952 to begin filming the movie which would establish her as a
film star of the first rank, the
Hollywood
publicity machine had already started rolling.

Paramount
put her up at the four-star
Excelsior Hotel. Cocktail parties were thrown in her honor. Strangers pretended
to know her well. It was a whirl of high drama and artifice, where kisses
polluted the air with empty promises.

At
a welcoming party honoring Audrey and her famous costar, Gregory Peck, she got
a small dose of the price of celebrity.

I
had never met Greg before that,“ she recalled, ”and I was extremely
excited. I mean, he was a movie star! It was inconceivable to me that we were
in any way equals. But he was gentlemanly and gracious when we were introduced,
certainly acting as if we were coming from the same place. He shook my hand
with such strength that somehow I felt a little stronger. He hadn’t said a
word. I gave him a little peck on the cheek in gratitude.“

That
innocent kiss was enough to fan the flames of rumors everywhere.

Within
days, newspapers reported the alleged affair between the stars of
Roman Holiday.
Paramount
did nothing to quell the rumors.
The studio was secretly delighted at the opportunity to promote the romance. It
would be presented on the screen as an affair that had its roots in real life.

Any
opportunity for “a little ink” was seized.
Roman Holiday
was released almost simultaneously with the
announcement that
England
‘s
Princess Margaret had fallen in love with a commoner, RAF Group Captain Peter
Townsend. The coincidence between that fact and the plot of the movie was
milked for all it was worth.

The
actual making of the movie was prosaic in comparison to the stories swirling
around it. The only real high drama had to do with the enervating heat in
Rome
that summer—94 degrees
outside, with temperatures reaching as high as 104 in the Palazzo Brancaccio,
an eighteenth-century rococo palace where many of the early scenes were filmed.

“I
can remember sweating more than I ever did even as a dancer,” Audrey
recalled. “For the scenes in my bedroom, I had to wear this pink woolen
nightgown, very demure, covering me all up, and oh so hot! There were candle
sconces on the walls, and the wax would melt in about an hour. The candles
would have to be replaced. As I watched them drip between takes, I would lose
strength, too. I identified with them. I think I felt as wilted as they
did.”

Despite
director Wyler’s insistence up until his death in 1981 that everything about
the making of
Roman Holiday
was a
delight, either his memory had faltered or he wished to mask the truth.

In
fact, the tension on the set was palpable. Wyler was incensed with
Paramount
for insisting
he film the movie in black and white. That was his “punishment” for
wanting to film the entire movie on location in
Rome
. Yet once in
Rome
, he was not too happy about winning his
demand and losing Technicolor. In addition, street fighting between Communists
and Fascists often meant production had to be postponed.

In
terms of personalities, although Gregory Peck was at the height of his
popularity at the onset of
Roman Holiday,
at thirty-six he was already beginning to worry about maintaining his
position. He wondered what having a complete unknown as his costar would do to
his career. Wyler did nothing to build Peck’s confidence, either; in fact, he
neither praised nor chastised his actors, preferring instead to insist upon
innumerable takes without acknowledging which one he would use.

With
Audrey, however, the director was more solicitous. He coddled her, purring to
her in his thick German accent that she looked fine on-screen.

At
the time of shooting, Peck was making a last-ditch effort to save his marriage.
He had invited his Finnish-born wife, Greta, and their three children to join
him in a rented villa near
Albano
, twenty
miles outside of
Rome
.
The effort soon fell apart and Greta and the kids left for
Finland
.