Luca dotti
I admire the work the Children’s Fund and UNICEF do. She was a natural, who at the end of her life gave herself completely to the poor hungry children of the world, as the unforgettable Ambassadrice of UNICEF. Audrey says herself that she seemed to have been floating on heavenly air, unaware what was happening to her. She never boasted, had no scandals, was always gracious and seemingly self-conscious about her fame as an actress.
This site also includes many charming photographs of Audrey throughout her life. Whatever proceeds I will receive from the story will be donated to the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund.
#LUCA DOTTI FOR FREE#
I would have liked to offer the Audrey short story for free but the Amazon Kindle system does not allow that.
#LUCA DOTTI HOW TO#
(I understand that Amazon will open a Netherlands bookstore this fall.) Readers in other parts of the world will have their own directives how to reach and get access to the stories. Readers in the Netherlands may want to go to, which leads to .uk., which, in turn, is the source for readers in England as well. On Amazon.ca (Canada), the price may vary around CDN$1. They will be offered to readers in the USA through Amazon Kindle, which sells for the regular low introductory Kindle price of $0.99 cents. The short stories are published by Willow Manor Publishing of Virginia (which also handles cover design. Even her sons reportedly said that they did not realize how famous their mother was, despite all the paparazzi. Just look at the Wikipedia and Google sites. In the process, I became aware that Audrey must have been the most photographed film star ever. We copyrighted it to Sean Hepburn Ferrer, as we could not find the original copyright holding photographer. They apparently used it as a Christmas card to close friends in 1962. We found that the photograph of Audrey and Mel Ferrer and their son Sean appeared on the website. Noel Mayne had taken the picture when Audrey was modeling and doing cabaret shows in London around 1950, and that was before she was discovered to play Gigi on Broadway. On the back of the photo figured a stamp stating that photographer Noel Mayne of Baron Studios in London was the copyrighted photographer, but he died in 2011 and we could not find an estate handling his copyrights posthumously.
#LUCA DOTTI PROFESSIONAL#
To verify if it had a copyright, a professional framer friend carefully opened the fragile back and then we noticed that Audrey’s photo was collated to a photograph of another unknown beautiful woman taken by a high-end studio in Rome! Did they feel at that time that Audrey’s photo was not important enough to buy a new frame for it? Audrey was not “famous“ yet at that time, and that’s probably the reason why this photograph is not as widespread as some of the others. It was an old frame that stood later in our house on my grand piano. Audrey’s mother, Aunt Ella van Heemstra, had told her she should leave it to me. I had glued them in my scrapbook at boarding school, proud that I was given “personal photographs.” However, on researching their origin, it appeared they were all copyrighted.Īunt Nini bequeathed to me the photo that is on the cover. The few photographs in the short story – link on the right – were given to me by Audrey’s mother in the fifties when I met her at the house of my grandfather’s sister, Aunt Nini van Limburg Stirum, where she stayed sometimes. The Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund deserves your good intentions too. I know of a few organizations that help to keep them off the streets and build a new life for them (e.g. Give magnanimous Audrey and her poor and malnourished children magnanimously! I have seen them myself and it is heartbreaking when you meet the orphaned kids on the street, in cities or rural towns, many limping because of maltreated diseases or injuries by war, or emaciated by hunger, struggling to stay alive, stretching their little hands for food or a dime. There you will also find direct links to the Audrey Hepburn website, courtesy Luca Dotti, Audrey Hepburn’s second son, who is Chairman of the Fund’s board. You can also navigate my website and look under ‘Books’ for more details on the Audrey story. There are several ways you can do this: directly through Audrey’s website or by buying a copy of ‘Audrey Hepburn – A Cherished Memory’, a short story about how her bright star brushed my personal life, the proceeds of which go to the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund.
This is why May 4 is a splendid occasion to reward her tireless effort to support the deprived children of the world, in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America. Neither of us knew then that she would become a famous and worldwide adored filmstar a decade later, and a beloved UNICEF Ambassadrice at the end of her flamboyant career. She remains an icon in my mind as she touched my life when I was a kid during World War II.
She would have been 89 today but sadly she died way too early when she was only 63.