It's not just Star Wars Day

[litlover12]

It is also Audrey Hepburn's birthday! I'm celebrating with a little help from TCM, which has been airing her movies today. Just now it was Breakfast at Tiffany's, and I'm reminded all over again what an amazing actress she was. Not just beautiful -- some people seem to think she coasted on her looks -- but really, really talented.

And what's weird is that she's known for running down her looks and her talent. Most actresses do at some point, but she was always doing it, and by all accounts she truly meant it. This astounds me. Hepburn took a role that might have been a prototype for Ally McBeal -- whom I loathe -- and made something magical out of it. The dozens of actresses who make a living today playing girls who are just too, too klutzy and quirky and cute (and annoying) have absolutely nothing on her. Looking back now with the jaded eye of someone who has suffered far too many of these ditzy portrayals, one realizes that to make a character like Holly fragile and human and appealing and totally un-annoying took ENORMOUS talent.

And to think that Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe for the role. I cannot imagine what he was smoking.

Comments

[arkadelos.livejournal.com]

What is the obsession with klutzy, quirky, and cuteness?

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but it's gotten old. I think the absolute worst was a Christian romance novel I read a couple of years ago (not by choice -- I was judging a fiction contest!). The heroine couldn't take two steps without falling over something and couldn't eat without spilling or spewing or spraying food all over herself and everyone else in the vicinity. Charming, no? *shudder*

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

She was a class act. I think one of my favorite Hepburn movies was "Love in the Afternoon" which, when I was little was once on each weekday at 3 (?) for a whole week, and I would rush home from school to see it (this was long before VCRs). "Sabrina" and "Charade" (both infinitely better than the remakes) are also among my faves. We will not see her like again *sigh*

Shakatany