176 pgs. color | $16.99 ebook, $24.99 hardcover | W: Michele Botton A: Dorilys Giacchetto
If you like old movies, you probably know Audrey Hepburn from classics like Roman Holiday (1953), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), and My Fair Lady (1964). She was a real movie star of the old-school glamorous variety, an off-beat beauty who proved attractiveness didn’t require a figure like Marilyn Monroe. But she was also much more, including a survivor of the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, dedicated wife and mother, and an outspoken advocate for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, a.k.a. UNICEF.
Hepburn’s life and career is the subject of Audrey Hepburn, a graphic biography whose author Michele Botton* takes a straightforward, documentary-style approach to the narration. Recognizable scenes from her best-known films (plus the notably unsuccessful Green Mansions, directed by her then-husband Mel Ferrer) alternate with autobiographical details.
Some of the information included was unfamiliar to me: for instance, that Colette herself selected Hepburn as the perfect Gigi, first for Broadway and then for Hollywood; that Hepburn was a volunteer nurse during World War II; that William Holden had a vasectomy, which ended a romance between Hepburn and himself shortly after it got started; that William Wyler bullied Hepburn on the set of Roman Holiday in order to get a particular reaction from her, and co-star Gregory Peck defended her. Also didn’t know that Hepburn suffered a miscarriage during her first pregnancy, rode a bike around the set of My Fair Lady, or gave up the movie business for years to devote herself to her family.
Digging into other people’s messy private lives isn’t really my thing, but I’m totally into old movies and the shot recreations in this volume are good enough to set off a chain of recollection not just of the movies but also of my experiences watching them. And let’s face it, probably no one would know about Hepburn were she not a movie star, so centering her film work makes perfect sense. The way her experiences on movie sets are portrayed does cause me to wonder why, in this telling, they seem so entirely upbeat. It’s possible that’s a reflection of how it really was, but it seems more likely this is a narrative choice made to underline the fairy-tale nature of Hepburn’s rise from failed ballet student to international star of stage and screen, and as such something to simply note and move on from. The personal material digs a bit deeper, including her father’s departure from the household when she was only 6, her experiences under German occupation, and the slow and painful disintegration of her first marriage.
Dorilys Giaccheto’s art for Audrey Hepburn uses a stylized, realistic approach that is a good match to the documentary tone of the text. There’s not a huge variety in matters like layout or frame dimensions or palette, but Giaccheto uses enough options (usually motivated by the story being told) to keep things interesting.
Audrey Hepburn includes an introduction by Hepburn’s son Luca Dotti, an afterword by Michele Botton, and a bibliography of works by and about Hepburn. | Sarah Boslaugh
*Probably not surprising since, according to his nbm page, Michele Botton “studied screenwriting for comics at the International School of Comics in Padua.” That’s a pursuit I didn’t know existed, but it makes total sense given the similarities between the two types of visual storytelling.
You can see a sample of the artwork for Audrey Hepburn here.
