Audrey Hepburn: An Intimate Portrait (44 page)

Her
pregnancy proved difficult, however, and the doctors advised complete bed rest
to avoid a miscarriage. She decided to return to Tolochenaz for this period, so
she could at least be awakened by the sounds of birds every morning. She would
have less trouble with confinement in the country than in the city. Besides,
Dotti was working extremely long hours on a project at his clinic and Sean was
thriving at the Lycée Francais in Rome.

But
the last six months of her pregnancy were extremely uncomfortable for Audrey
and the rumors about her husband’s philandering made matters worse. What Audrey
never imagined is that Dotti would continue his wild social life after their
marriage. Not only did it continue, it seemed to accelerate.

Night
after night after he finished up at his clinic, Dotti was photographed on the
arm of a beautiful young woman at some of the hottest night spots in Rome. In
some photos, he was seen biting their ears. In others, he and his date were
kissing passionately. One woman with whom he was photographed more than once,
the model Daniela, was a notorious party girl. The official story was that
Dotti was offering psychiatric help to her for drug addiction. The trouble was,
Daniela publicly stated that she didn’t have a drug problem.

Audrey
was distraught. “I tried to reason with myself that my husband was Roman,
this was not unusual, it was the way he was brought up. But none of that worked
for me. I felt extremely rejected, especially since I was about to have his
baby. I thought seriously about leaving him, but I thought the decision would
have lasting effects on Sean. He seemed to get along with his stepfather, and I
didn’t want to disrupt his life again.” Once again, Audrey was making
excuses for the man in her life, who was making her miserable.

Still,
on weekends, when Dotti flew to Switzerland to visit his bedridden wife, they
entertained one another with stories of their childhoods and little games they
invented on the spot. “We did not talk about infidelity,” Audrey
said. “That would have been much too painful for me. I was of the school
then, `Out of sight, out of mind.‘ I didn’t see any mistresses around, so I
chose not to believe in them. What I mean is, I ignored them. I was having a
baby, for God’s sake, and I couldn’t handle the end of the fairy tale before it
had even begun.”

On
February 8, 1970, at the Cantonial Hospital in Lausanne, Audrey, forty, gave
birth by cesarean section to a seven-pound, eight-ounce boy. Both she and her
husband were ecstatic, as were the rest of the Dottis in Rome.

“We
decided to call him Luca, a name that has been in Andrea’s family for
years,” Audrey explained. “I was so thrilled at finally being able to
have another child, I was completely optimistic that things between Andrea and
I would work out. I mean, we had so much going for us.”

Like
the dutiful wife that she always wanted to be, Audrey took a decided interest
in her husband’s work and his patients, often stopping by at the clinic for
afternoon tea.

She
made all the travel arrangements for him when he flew around the world to
medical conventions, often accompanying him on the trips. She organized lunches
with the wives of Dotti’s fellow doctors, at which they mostly discussed their
children. It was a fairly staid, fairly uneventful life, and Audrey loved every
minute of it.

A
few projects were offered in the early seventies, but she immediately turned
them down, telling producers she had a brand-new career as a full-time wife and
mother. She passed on
Nicholas and
Alexandra
(Janet Suzman eventually played the part of the Russian czarina);
a role opposite Richard Burton in
Jackpot
;
a movie by
Wait Until Dark
director
Terence Young; and a part opposite Elizabeth Taylor in
Father’s Day,
a movie about two divorcées who set up house
together. Without her involvement, the latter two movies were never made.

The
writer Garson Kanin was desperate to get Audrey for
A Thousand Summers,
the proposed movie from his bestselling novel
about a lifelong affair between a pharmacist and a diplomat’s wife. “I
didn’t think any other actress could do the part. Audrey had the right mixture
of mischievousness and sophistication. George C. Scott wanted to play opposite
her. I wanted Dustin Hoffman or Jack Lemmon. When I mentioned Audrey’s name to
both of them, they were immediately interested.” Audrey turned down the
project. The movie was never made.

But
her friends advised her she was being foolish in not working at all. David
Niven, a lifelong friend and fellow resident of Switzerland, advised her to go
back to work, if only to show Dotti that she could still charm the world,
albeit perhaps not her own husband. “David never, never approved of the
men I married,” Audrey said. “He thought Mel used me, and he thought
Andrea ignored me. He treated me like a little sister a lot of the time, but I
know he had my best interests at heart. He told me in no uncertain terms if I
wanted my husband to stop straying, I should go back to work.”

The
movie she chose was
Robin and Marian,
Richard
Lester’s delightful story of a middle-aged Robin Hood (Sean Connery) who, after
fighting the Crusades and wandering the Holy Land for twenty years, returns to
Sherwood Forest accompanied by his old pal Little John (Nicol Williamson) and
lays claim to his long-lost love Maid Marian (Audrey), by now the abbess of a
priory.

The
rekindling of their romance is beautifully rendered. “My confessions were
the envy of the convent,” she tells her old boyfriend. “But you never
wrote.”

“I
didn’t know how,” he says simply. And in that moment, he redeems himself
in her eyes.