Audrey Hepburn: An Intimate Portrait (48 page)

When
he would first come to visit at Tolochenaz, Audrey introduced him to her mother
and her sons as a good friend. “I often wonder if our romance would have
progressed if we were both living in Los Angeles,” she said. “I don’t
know. Had we lived nearby, everything would have been easy and comfortable. But
Robbie had to come a long way to see me in Switzerland, and when he got here,
there weren’t parties to go to and movies to catch. We were left with each
other. I’m so grateful for the peace and quiet that contributed to our falling
in love.”

He
moved into the house at Tolochenaz in 1981, and he never left. “It took me
such a long, long time,” Audrey said, “but I am finally and
completely happy. I have fun with Robbie, which is something I never even knew
to want.”

Wolders
eased his way into the hearts of Audrey’s children by making it clear that he
had no desire to replace their fathers. He even made it clear that he would
respect their wishes if they didn’t want to get to know him at all. It was
their choice; he would not force himself on anyone. Sean, now a strappingly
handsome twenty-one-year-old, respected Wolders from the start, but
eleven-year-old Luca was initially a little resentful of the new man in his
mother’s life. Wolders remained patient. He didn’t foist a false friendship on
the boy. In time, Luca came to respect him, especially after it became obvious
Wolders made his mother so happy. “I used to tease Robbie that our
relationship was inevitable,” Audrey recalled. “I played the part of
the same woman accused of being a lesbian in the remake of
The Children’s Hour
that Merle played in the original [
These Three]. With a coincidence like
that, how could we go wrong?”

The
Baroness was thrilled from the start. She had made clear her dislike for the
controlling Ferrer and the philandering Dotti, and she delighted in the fact
that Wolders was not only sensitive and loyal, he was Dutch. Any misgivings
about his less aristocratic roots were completely erased by his devotion to
Audrey and the people she held dear. As her mother’s health began to decline
due to old age and the onset of rheumatism, the Baroness began to use a
wheelchair. Audrey’s lifelong friend Henry Gris recalled that Wolders would
often push the Baroness around the gardens of the house and speak to her in
Dutch. “They really liked one another,” Audrey recalled. “It was
a joy to witness.”

At
long last, someone was as completely in love with Audrey as she was with him.
At home, the two of them spent their days puttering in the garden, reading
aloud to one another, and reflecting on the joys of their life together.

But
they also spent more time in Los Angeles and New York. “I was of an age
and station when the charity circuit beckoned loud and clear,” Audrey recalled.
“There were also so many tributes I was invited to. This had been going on
for quite some time, but I always ignored it. With Robbie, though, I had more
fun going out. We enjoyed each other’s company so much that I was less nervous
at big parties. For once, it was fun getting dressed up. Robbie was always so
complimentary.”

With
the support of Wolders, Audrey finally began viewing herself as attractive. For
the first time in her life, the woman who had inspired so many others to
imitate her classic chic actually began to understand what all the fuss was
about.

“Until
Hepburn appeared, there weren’t beauties who weren’t voluptuous,” recalled
designer Isaac Mizrahi in
Interview
magazine.
“People thought that to be gaminelike was not beautiful. I’m sure she
never felt really beautiful. And yet there were millions of women who wanted to
look like her.

“In
a lot of ways, she was the beginning of minimalism… She had a very
graphic face and body. You could take that face and turn it into a flat surface.
Her body probably inspired a lot of the clothes Givenchy did for her. The
clothes that she wore were not fussy. It was really very simple clothing. They
all had a line or a little bit of shape or something. They were not about
beading and ruffles and stuff like that. Of course, she wore feathers and
froufrou and all that stuff, but it was always so simple, you didn’t even
notice it. You just kind of noticed her throat, her face, her eyes.

“Yet
she immortalized those clothes. There’s that scene in
Funny Face
where she’s wearing a little hooded parka, an anorak
kind of jacket, and a black turtleneck and skinny black pants and black
loafers, and it’s like the only perfect American look.”

Once,
at the Kennedy Center tribute to Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, introducing Audrey,
said in his most refined manner, “Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Katharine
Hepburn.” From stage left, Audrey came downstage and smiled, bowing
deeply. She didn’t feel it was necessary to correct him. “I had been away
so long I’m surprised they even got the last name right,” she said.
“Curiously, when I first met Hubert [Givenchy], I know he thought he was
meeting the original Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn. But he was so gracious to me,
this skinny little nobody.”

She
had arrived at his atelier in a simple T-shirt and a pair of slacks, but she
left with visions of stunningly simple high-waisted suits and dresses in her
favorite colors of black and white. Her love affair with his clothes never
ended, but during the years she became a semi-recluse at Tolochenaz, she didn’t
dress up much. Her reentry into the world of formal dinners on the arm of
Robbie also meant a trip through her closets, where the timeless designs still
looked fabulous on her painfully svelte form.

Dressed
in her beloved Givenchy, with a simple strand of good pearls and a pair of
diamond earrings, she was always the most striking woman at any party. Her
severe thinness, offset by that gigantic crooked smile, made Audrey seem regal
yet approachable, a look that was genuinely representative of her nature.