Family and early childhood (1929–1938)[edit]

Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston or, later, Hepburn-Ruston [4][5] on 4 May 1929 at number
48 Rue Keyenveld in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium.[6] She was known to her family as Adriaantje.[7]

Hepburn's grandfather, Aarnoud van Heemstra, was the Governor of the Dutch colony of Dutch Guiana.

Hepburn's mother, Baroness Ella van Heemstra (12 June 1900 – 26 August 1984), was a Dutch
noblewoman. She was the daughter of Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra, who served as Mayor
of Arnhem from 1910 to 1920 and as Governor of Dutch Suriname from 1921 to 1928, and Baroness
Elbrig Willemine Henriette van Asbeck (1873–1939). [8] At the age of nineteen, Ella had
married Jonkheer Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford, an oil executive based in Batavia,
Dutch East Indies, where they subsequently lived.[9] They had two sons, Jonkheer Arnoud Robert
Alexander Quarles van Ufford (1920–1979) and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford
(1924–2010), before divorcing in 1925. [10][11]
Her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston (21 November 1889 – 16 October 1980), was a British
subject born in Auschitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary.[12][b] He was the son of Victor John George
Ruston, of British and Austrian background [13] and Anna Wels, who was of Austrian origin and born
in Kovarce.[14] In 1923–1924, Joseph had been an Honorary British Consul in Semarang in the Dutch
East Indies,[15] and prior to his marriage to Hepburn's mother, he had been married to Cornelia
Bisschop, a Dutch heiress.[12][10] Although born with the surname Ruston, he later double-barrelled his
name to the more "aristocratic" Hepburn-Ruston, perhaps at Ella's insistence, [16] as he mistakenly
believed himself descended from James Hepburn, third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.[13][10]
Hepburn's parents were married in Batavia, Dutch East Indies, in September 1926.[9] At the time,
Ruston worked for a trading company, but soon after the marriage, the couple moved to Europe,
where he began working for a loan company; reportedly tin merchants MacLaine, Watson and
Company in London and then Brussels. [7] After a year in London, they moved to Brussels, where he
had been assigned to open a branch office.[9][17] After three years spent travelling between Brussels,
Arnhem, The Hague and London, the family settled in the suburban Brussels municipality
of Linkebeek in 1932.[9][18] Hepburn's early childhood was sheltered and privileged. [9] As a result of her
multinational background and travelling with her family due to her father's job, [19][c] she learned six
languages: Dutch and English from her parents, and later varying degrees of French, German,
Spanish, and Italian.
In the mid-1930s, Hepburn's parents recruited and collected donations for the British Union of
Fascists.[20] Joseph left the family abruptly in 1935 after a "scene" in Brussels when Adriaantje (as
she was known in the family) was six; later she often spoke of the effect on a child of being
"dumped" as "children need two parents".[21] Joseph moved to London, where he became more
deeply involved in Fascist activity and never visited his daughter abroad. [22] Hepburn later professed
that her father's departure was "the most traumatic event of my life". [9][23]
That same year, her mother moved with Hepburn to her family's estate in Arnhem; her half-brothers
Alex and Ian (then 15 and 11) were sent to The Hague to live with relatives. Joseph wanted her to
be educated in England,[24] so in 1937, Hepburn was sent to live in Kent, England, where she, known
as Audrey Ruston or "Little Audrey", was educated at a small independent school in Elham.[25][26]
Hepburn's parents officially divorced in June 1939. [citation needed] In the 1960s, Hepburn renewed contact
with her father after locating him in Dublin through the Red Cross; although he remained emotionally
detached, Hepburn supported him financially until his death. [27]

Experiences during World War II (1939–1945)[edit]

See also: Dutch famine of 1944–45
After Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Hepburn's mother moved her daughter
back to Arnhem in the hope that, as during the First World War, the Netherlands would remain
neutral and be spared a German attack. While there, Hepburn attended the Arnhem Conservatory
from 1939 to 1945. She had begun taking ballet lessons during her last years at boarding school,
and continued training in Arnhem under the tutelage of Winja Marova, becoming her "star pupil".
[9]
 After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Hepburn used the name Edda van Heemstra,
because an "English-sounding" name was considered dangerous during the German occupation.
Her family was profoundly affected by the occupation, with Hepburn later stating that "had we known
that we were going to be occupied for five years, we might have all shot ourselves. We thought it
might be over next week… six months… next year… that's how we got through". [9] In 1942, her
uncle, Otto van Limburg Stirum (husband of her mother's older sister, Miesje), was executed in
retaliation for an act of sabotage by the resistance movement; while he had not been involved in the
act, he was targeted due to his family's prominence in Dutch society.[9] Hepburn's half-brother Ian
was deported to Berlin to work in a German labour camp, and her other half-brother Alex went into
hiding to avoid the same fate.[9]
"We saw young men put against the wall and shot, and they'd close the street and then open it, and you could pass
by again... Don't discount anything awful you hear or read about the Nazis. It's worse than you could ever imagine."[9]
—Hepburn on the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands

After her uncle's death, Hepburn, Ella and Miesje left Arnhem to live with her grandfather, Baron
Aarnoud van Heemstra, in nearby Velp.[9] Around that time Hepburn performed silent dance
performances to raise money for the Dutch resistance effort. [28] It was long believed that she
participated in the Dutch resistance itself,[9] but in 2016 the Airborne Museum 'Hartenstein' reported
that after extensive research it had not found any evidence of such activities. [29] However, a 2019
book by author Robert Matzen provided evidence that she had supported the resistance by giving
"underground concerts" to raise money, delivering the underground newspaper, and taking
messages and food to downed Allied flyers hiding in the woodlands north of Velp. She also
volunteered at a hospital that was the centre of resistance activities in Velp, and her family
temporarily hid a paratrooper in their home during the Battle of Arnhem.[30][31] In addition to other
traumatic events, she witnessed the transportation of Dutch Jews to concentration camps, later
stating that "more than once I was at the station seeing trainloads of Jews being transported, seeing
all these faces over the top of the wagon. I remember, very sharply, one little boy standing with his
parents on the platform, very pale, very blond, wearing a coat that was much too big for him, and he
stepped on the train. I was a child observing a child." [32]
After the Allied landing on D-Day, living conditions grew worse, and Arnhem was subsequently
heavily damaged during Operation Market Garden. During the Dutch famine that followed in the
winter of 1944, the Germans blocked the resupply routes of the Dutch people's already limited food
and fuel supplies as retaliation for railway strikes that were held to hinder German occupation. Like
others, Hepburn's family resorted to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake cakes and biscuits; [33]
[34]
 she developed acute anaemia, respiratory problems and oedema as a result of malnutrition.[35] The
Van Heemstra family was also seriously financially affected by the occupation, during which many of
their properties, including their principal estate in Arnhem, were badly damaged or destroyed. [36]

Entertainment career[edit]
Ballet studies and early acting roles (1945–1952)[edit]
After the war ended in 1945, Hepburn moved with her mother and siblings to Amsterdam, where she
began ballet training under Sonia Gaskell, a leading figure in Dutch ballet, and Russian teacher Olga
Tarasova.[37]
As the family's fortunes had been lost during the war, Ella supported them by working as a cook and
housekeeper for a wealthy family.[38] Hepburn made her film debut playing an air stewardess in Dutch
in Seven Lessons (1948), an educational travel film made by Charles van der Linden and Henry
Josephson.[39] Later that year, Hepburn moved to London after accepting a ballet scholarship
with Ballet Rambert, which was then based in Notting Hill. [40][d] She supported herself with part-time
work as a model, and dropped "Ruston" from her surname. After she was told by Rambert that
despite her talent, her height and weak constitution (the after-effect of wartime malnutrition) would
make the status of prima ballerina unattainable, she decided to concentrate on acting. [41][42][43]
While Ella worked in menial jobs to support them, Hepburn appeared as a chorus girl [44] in the West
End musical theatre revues High Button Shoes (1948) at the London Hippodrome, and Cecil
Landeau's Sauce Tartare (1949) and Sauce Piquante (1950) at the Cambridge Theatre. During her
theatrical work, she took elocution lessons with actor Felix Aylmer to develop her voice.[45] After being
spotted by a casting director while performing in Sauce Piquante, Hepburn was registered as a
freelance actress with the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC). She appeared in the BBC
Television play The Silent Village,[46] and in minor roles in the films One Wild Oat, Laughter in
Paradise, Young Wives' Tale, and The Lavender Hill Mob (all 1951). She was cast in her first major
supporting role in Thorold Dickinson's The Secret People (1952), as a prodigious ballerina,
performing all of her own dancing sequences.[47]
Hepburn was then offered a small role in a film being shot in both English and French, Monte Carlo
Baby (French: Nous Irons à Monte Carlo, 1952), which was filmed in Monte Carlo. Coincidentally,
French novelist Colette was at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo during the filming, and decided to
cast Hepburn in the title role in the Broadway play Gigi.[48] Hepburn went into rehearsals having never
spoken on stage, and required private coaching. [49] When Gigi opened at the Fulton Theatre on 24
November 1951, she received praise for her performance, despite criticism that the stage version
was inferior to the French film adaptation. [50] Life called her a "hit",[50] while The New York
Times stated that "her quality is so winning and so right that she is the success of the evening".
[49]
 Hepburn also received a Theatre World Award for the role.[51] The play ran for 219 performances,
closing on 31 May 1952,[51] before going on tour which began 13 October 1952 in Pittsburgh and
visited Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D. C., and Los Angeles, before closing on 16 May
1953 in San Francisco.[9]