Learning from Audrey

TWICE during the last week, I watched a well-made documentary on the great Hollywood actress, Audrey Hepburn, who died of cancer some years ago. Now, Ms Hepburn was not a beauty queen by any means, yet turned out to be one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood. With only a little stage experience, she graduated to a number of plum roles and was the delight of her directors and co-stars.

To me, her role of a princess in the film "Roman Holiday" was quite unforgettable. It was her first major film. Yet her approach to acting was so refreshing and her performance so convincing that her co-star Gregory Peck, a senior actor, allowed her top billing. Audrey went on to win the best actress Oscar for the movie.

This film was followed by a number of others, each different from the other. Audrey starred in "Sabrina", "War and Peace", "Funny Face", "The Nun's Story", "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (picture) and "Wait until Dark". She worked with the topmost talent in Hollywood and every single director and hero enjoyed the experience of working with her. Like all great stars, Audrey was selective about her roles and spurned those which tended to glamourise her.

In the midst of her brilliant career, Audrey branched out to different avenues. She was chosen an ambassador by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. For her, it was not an ornamental post. For nearly ten years, she was an active representative, travelling around the world, studying the problems of undernourished children in the developing nations.

The Audrey Hepburn documentary was a heartwarming experience. We saw the famous star holding children who were nothing but skin and bones and trying to comfort them. She was at various refugee camps where people from war-torn nations huddled together. The children here had a haunted look. Some of them were badly wounded, there was no hope in their dull eyes. Audrey held them close, fed them, tried to comfort them and it was clear the children responded to her. They clung to her in desperation, she seemed to have so much warmth and kindness to give to them.

All this work was carried out despite serious family and health problems. Audrey Hepburn married three times, suffered miscarriages and by the time she was 55, she was seriously ill. But her work with the children went on as though nothing had happened. She still radiated the same feelings. It was like watching Mother Teresa in action.

Mother Teresa lived to a ripe old age, but Audrey Hepburn was not so lucky. Watching the documentary, I marvelled at her ability to switch roles effortlessly, from a successful actress to a UNICEF ambassador and shower affection on children from the Third World. All this was done without any fanfare or media publicity.

Audrey Hepburn was an actress turned do-gooder. She excelled in both roles. I wonder why some of our aspiring actresses are not inspired by her example. I am particularly referring to our crop of beauty queens who parrot their ambitions to be a Mother Teresa, take care of the orphan children the world over and change the world into a better one. These answers are obviously drilled into them and it is quite clear they lack sincerity. Once the crown is on their heads, our beauty queens forget all about being Mother Teresa and so on. They become members of the celebrity crowd, but their ultimate ambition is to land up in Bollywood and become stars. Look at Sushmita Sen, Aishwariya Rai and others. The not-so-successful ones become veejays, compres at beauty contests and remain on the fringes of show business. But no one buzzes off to take care of orphans! Remind them about their commitment to Mother Teresa, taking care of orphans and tackling the problems of the world and the subject is quickly changed. Well, some of them do enact such roles in their films, that is all.

There is nothing wrong in aspiring to be a film star. Entertaining people is a noble profession. But why should beautiful women who really aspire to be film stars come out with fanciful ideas of being social workers and changing the course of the world. Why indulge in such hypocrisy? Rather than Mother Teresa, our beauty contest winners should quote the example of Audrey Hepburn. They should aspire to tackle the kind of challenging roles she did, and help the children, elderly or the sick people of the world. Unfortunately, this attitude is totally lacking among our stars.

V. GANGADHAR

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