Far from Audinary

A definitive new biography of the Breakfast at Tiffany's star reveals the real woman behind the icon, and the shocking family secret that remained buried for decades..

- BY KAREN ROCKETT

HOLLYWOOD star, enduring style icon and dedicated humanitarian - Audrey Hepburn remains recognised the world over as all three. But the Breakfast At Tiffany's actress had a fourth role, perhaps even her greatest, as an advocate of female individuality in a conformist age of glamour.

“When Hollywood women were in flouncy dresses with big, curled and coiffed hair, she was in her black slacks and black jumper and flat shoes,” says journalist Wendy Holden, who has coauthored the first authorised biography of the star with Audrey's eldest son Sean Hepburn Ferrer.

“She was a feminist icon ahead of her time. She made it okay for us to cut our hair short and not wear stilettos.”

Such was Audrey's stardom both on and off screen that more than 30 years after her death, it's hard to imagine there is anything new to learn about the woman who is the subject of 1,000 books, and counting.

But when Sean asked Wendy to help him reveal the real woman behind the image, flaws and all, he had his own revelation to tell a deeply buried family secret unknown to the world.

It described the moment Sean, then aged 17, arrived at his Switzerland home and discovered Audrey had taken a near-fatal overdose after the traumatic breakdown of her second marriage to the Italian psychiatrist-neurologist Andrea Dotti, Sean's stepfather.

“We both really wrestled with whether we should reveal such a painful and personal chapter in Audrey's history, something that had been kept hidden for so long-which was a miracle given the Rome paparazzi followed her every move,” says Wendy, speaking ahead of the publication of Intimate Audrey.

“I knew it could potentially tarnish the reputation Sean has worked so hard since her death to protect, but he was adamant.

“He wanted to tell her whole story and, if this was to be the definitive biography recording her whole life, it must be included, however difficult.”