BBC article by Megan Lane is neato. Thanks, Chipmunkalvyne. I am not
at all surprised Audrey Hepburn tops most beautiful poll, because her
beauty is all-embracing and in depth, not merely physical. She is
indeed singular. :-)


--- In audreysplace2@yahoogroups.com, chipmunkalvyne <no_reply@...>
wrote:
>
> Fans will be delighted to know Audrey Hepburn has been voted the
> most beautiful woman of all time by the readers of New Woman
> magazine. The complete list can be found here:
> http://www.newwoman.co.uk/life/100_beautiful_women/default.asp
>
> Audrey Hepburn: Why the fuss?
> By Megan Lane
> BBC News Magazine
>
> She's again topped a 'most beautiful' poll. Yet many fans weren't
> even born when she started making movies. What's the enduring
appeal
> of the original waif?
>
> Audrey Hepburn. Lovely, wasn't she? And her old-school glamour has
> beaten off modern day pin-ups - she's been voted the most beautiful
> woman of all time in a poll for New Woman magazine. But why is she
> so popular, among film fans and fashionistas alike?
>
> Today the Hepburn look has been around so long - and is so
imitated -
> that it's easy to forget that when she starred in 1953's Roman
> Holiday, she broke the mould of Hollywood leading lady in one deft
> swoop.
>
> With her elfin features, and tall and slender to near-androgyny,
> Hepburn arrived at a time when to be a star meant curves, curves
and
> more curves - "Jell-O on springs," as Marilyn Monroe's character in
> Some Like it Hot was memorably described.
>
> That movie's director, Billy Wilder, was also in thrall to the
> willowy Hepburn, Monroe's polar opposite: "After so many drive-in
> waitresses becoming movie stars, there has been this real drought,
> when along come class; somebody who actually went to school, can
> spell, maybe even plays the piano."
>
> The photographer Leo Fuchs, himself a Hollywood legend who spent 20
> years shooting on-set photos of film icons of the 50s and 60s, says
> she was a true original.
>
> "Audrey was a singular person, there ain't many like
her. 'Beautiful
> woman' is very difficult to explain, but she certainly was
> beautiful. She was very enticing at all times. She was a talented
> actress, and very personable," he told BBC News Magazine from his
> home in France.
>
> Effortless grace
> Born in Brussels in 1929, Audrey Kathleen Hepburn-Ruston was the
> daughter of John Victor Hepburn-Ruston and Ella van Heemstra, a
> baroness. "She is one of us," the Queen Mother is said to have told
> daughter Elizabeth after meeting her.
>
> Educated at boarding school in England in the 1930s, she spent
World
> War II at the Arnhem Conservatory in the Netherlands.
>
> She then went on to study dance, hoping to follow in the footsteps
> of Margot Fonteyn. But at 5ft 7in, she was deemed too tall to be a
> prima ballerina (although she would be dwarfed by her successor as
> America's sweetheart, Julia Roberts, who says she is "too tall to
be
> a girl" at 5ft 9in). Yet she never lost the poise and graceful
> movements of a dancer.
>
> By the age of 19, Hepburn was a chorus girl on the West End stage,
> and in 1951 she moved into film, playing roles such as "cigarette
> girl" and "hotel receptionist".
>
> She was not to remain a bit player for long. Spotted by the French
> writer Colette, she was cast in the title role of Gigi on Broadway,
> a star turn which landed her the lead in 1954's Roman Holiday. Her
> sparkling performance as a reluctant princess who falls for a
> commoner earned her an Oscar for Best Actress, her first of five
> such nominations.
>
> The definitive Hepburn role came in 1961 - good-time girl Holly
> Golightly in the Truman Capote scripted confection, Breakfast at
> Tiffany's. Her line "how do I look?" was later sampled by the DJ
> Dimitri From Paris; Une Very Stylish Fille soundtracked many a mid-
> 1990s fashion show.
>
> My Fair Lady followed in 1964, in which the actress underwent the
> reverse transformation to Eliza Doolittle, from posh to not. By the
> late 60s, she had moved into darker, less glamorous fare, playing a
> blind woman in the thriller Wait Until Dark.
>
> After that her film work rate slowed; her last role was as an angel
> in Steven Spielberg's Always in 1989. She died four years later of
> colon cancer, aged 63.
>
> But Hepburn was far from idle, devoting her energies to
humanitarian
> work. She became a Unicef goodwill ambassador in 1988. For she had
> first-hand experience of deprivation growing up in occupied
Holland -
> her naturally slender frame was said to be the result of childhood
> malnutrition (although biographers also recount her anorexic
> tendencies).
>
> "I've known Unicef a long time, ever since the Second World War
when
> they came to the aid of thousands of children like myself, famished
> victims of five years of German occupation in Holland. We were
> reduced to near total poverty as is the developing world today,"
she
> said.
>
> The waif
> For the photographer Cecil Beaton, her look and her spirit embodied
> her times. "It took the rubble of Belgium, an English accent, and
an
> American success to launch the striking personality that best
> exemplifies our new zeitgeist."
>
> And the proof lay in her many imitators: "The woods are full of
> emaciated young ladies with rat-nibbled hair and moon-pale faces,"
> he wrote.
>
> And they still are.
>
> "My look is attainable," she told the interviewer Barbara Walters
in
> 1989. "Women can look like Audrey Hepburn by flipping out their
> hair, buying the large glasses and the little sleeveless dresses."
>
> And then there are the flat ballet shoes, the nipped-in waist, the
> trench coat, the classic handbags with chain handles. Kate Moss has
> long taken note, and all are key looks on the High Street this
year.
>
> Fashion experts say her longevity as a style icon is because once
> she found what suited her - clean lines, simple yet bold
> accessories, minimalist palette - she stuck with it for life.
>
> Broad appeal
> Among the designers she worked with was Oliver Goldsmith, the
> British eyewear guru who also designed Michael Caine's iconic
specs.
>
> "She was quite clear on what she liked and what she didn't," says
> his granddaughter Claire Goldsmith, managing director of the
company
> and a Hepburn fan. "Her look is timeless because it's simple; fuss
> goes out of fashion."
>
> After a dormant two decades, the brand is now benefiting from the
> Hepburn effect, releasing replicas of its vintage designs alongside
> new models.
>
> Ms Goldsmith's enthusiasm for Hepburn is based in part on her
> grandfather's recollections, but largely on repeated viewings of
her
> films.
>
> "She didn't have arrogance; the most beautiful people are the ones
> who don't know it. She also had this wonderful humour about her,
she
> didn't mind laughing at herself. That got her fantastic movie roles
> and people fell in love with the characters she played."
>
> Can her appeal be distilled to just one characteristic? Goldsmith's
> answer is perhaps predictable for someone in her trade. "It's those
> eyes, those big, brown, warm eyes. Women relate to her because she
> was unthreatening, and for men she had that innocence."
>
> But her charm went beyond the purely physical. Those who met her
> agree that for that moment she treated them as if they were the
only
> person in the world - a rare gift, and one shared by that master of
> charisma, Bill Clinton.
>
> For Audrey Hepburn was a woman not to be sexy, but to fall in love
> with.
>