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hotvintagepoll · 4 months

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Congrats to the ultimate winner of the Hot & Vintage Movie Men Tournament, Mr. Toshiro Mifune! May he live happily and well where the sun always shines, enjoying the glories of a battle hard fought.

A loving farewell to all of our previous contestants, who are now banished to the shadow realm and all its dark joys and whispered horrors—I hear there's a picnic on the village green today. If you want to remember the fallen heroes, you can find them all beneath the cut.

What happens next? I'll be taking a break of two weeks to rest from this and prep for the Hot & Vintage Ladies Tournament. I'll still be around but only minimally, posting a few last odes to the hot men before transitioning into a little early ladies content, just like I did with this last tournament. The submission form for the Hot & Vintage Ladies tournament will remain up for one more week (closing February 21st), so get your submissions in for that asap! Once the form closes, there will be one more week of break. The first round of the Hot & Vintage Ladies Tournament will be posted on February 29th, as Leap Year Day seems like a fitting allusion to leaping into these ladies' arms.

Thanks for being here! Enjoy the two weeks off, and send me some great propaganda.

In order of the last round they survived—

ROUND ONE HOTTIES:

Richard Burton

Tony Curtis

Red Skelton

Keir Dullea

Jack Lemmon

Kirk Douglas

Marcello Mastroianni

Jean-Pierre Cassel

Robert Wagner

James Garner

James Coburn

Rex Harrison

George Chakiris

Dean Martin

Sean Connery

Tab Hunter

Howard Keel

James Mason

Steve McQueen

George Peppard

Elvis Presley

Rudolph Valentino

Joseph Schildkraut

Ray Milland

Claude Rains

John Wayne

William Holden

Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Harold Lloyd

Charlie Chaplin

John Gilbert

Ramon Novarro

Slim Thompson

John Barrymore

Edward G. Robinson

William Powell

Leslie Howard

Peter Lawford

Mel Ferrer

Joseph Cotten

Keye Luke

Ivan Mosjoukine

Spencer Tracy

Felix Bressart

Ronald Reagan (here to be dunked on)

Peter Lorre

Bob Hope

Paul Muni

Cornel Wilde

John Garfield

Cantinflas

Henry Fonda

Robert Mitchum

Van Johnson

José Ferrer

Robert Preston

Jack Benny

Fredric March

Gene Autry

Alec Guinness

Fayard Nicholas

Ray Bolger

Orson Welles

Mickey Rooney

Glenn Ford

James Cagney

ROUND TWO SWOONERS:

Dick Van Dyke

James Edwards

Sammy Davis Jr.

Alain Delon

Peter O'Toole

Robert Redford

Charlton Heston

Cesar Romero

Noble Johnson

Lex Barker

David Niven

Robert Earl Jones

Turhan Bey

Bela Lugosi

Donald O'Connor

Carman Newsome

Oscar Micheaux

Benson Fong

Clint Eastwood

Sabu Dastagir

Rex Ingram

Burt Lancaster

Paul Newman

Montgomery Clift

Fred Astaire

Boris Karloff

Gilbert Roland

Peter Cushing

Frank Sinatra

Harold Nicholas

Guy Madison

Danny Kaye

John Carradine

Ricardo Montalbán

Bing Crosby

ROUND THREE SMOKESHOWS:

Marlon Brando

Anthony Perkins

Michael Redgrave

Gary Cooper

Conrad Veidt

Ronald Colman

Rock Hudson

Basil Rathbone

Laurence Olivier

Christopher Plummer

Johnny Weismuller

Clark Gable

Fernando Lamas

Errol Flynn

Tyrone Power

Humphrey Bogart

ROUND 4 STUNGUNS:

James Dean

Cary Grant

Gregory Peck

Sessue Hayakawa

Harry Belafonte

James Stewart

Gene Kelly

Peter Falk

QUARTERFINALIST VOLCANIC TOWERS OF LUST:

Jeremy Brett

Vincent Price

James Shigeta

Buster Keaton

SEMIFINALIST SUPERMEN:

Omar Sharif

Paul Robeson

FINALIST FANTASIES:

Sidney Poitier

Toshiro Mifune

and ok, sure, here's the shadow-bracket-style winner's portrait of Toshiro Mifune.

#hotvintagepoll #hot men finals #a winner crowned!#fuck that old man (requiem)#shadow bracket #toshiro mifune

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markwatnae · 5 months

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Masterpost of Hot Old Man Round 1 Polls

Paul Newman v Richard Burton

Omar Sharif v Tony Curtis

Red Skelton v Burt Lancaster

Christopher Plummer v Keir Dullea

Anthony Perkins vJack Lemmon

Kirk Douglas v Alain Delon

James Dean v Marcello Mastroianni

Harry Belafonte v Jean-Pierre Cassel

Marlon Brando v Robert Wagner

Sammy Davis Jr. v James Garner

James Coburn v Rock Hudson

Peter Cushing v Rex Harrison

George Chakiris v Sidney Poitier

Dean Martin v Sean Connery v Jeremy Brett

Tab Hunter v Toshiro Mifune

Howard Keel v Peter O'Toole

Robert Redford v James Mason

Steve McQueen v Charlton Heston

Dick Van Dyke v George Peppard

Elvis Presley v Peter Falk

Oscar Micheaux v Rudolph Valentino

Joseph Schildkraut v Buster Keaton

Jimmy Stewart v Ray Milland

Cary Grant v Claude Rains

John Wayne v Errol Flynn

Clint Eastwood v William Holden

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. v Sessue Hayakawa

Carman Newsome v Harold Lloyd

Noble Johnson v Charlie Chaplin

John Gilbert v Conrad Veidt

Ramon Novarro v Robert Earl Jones

Slim Thompson v Gary Cooper

John Barrymore v Paul Robeson

Edward G. Robinson v Clark Gable

Humphrey Bogart v William Powell

Leslie Howard v Ronald Colman

Peter Lawford v Vincent Price

Harold Nicholas v Mel Ferrer

Joseph Cotten v Danny Kaye

John Carradine v Keye Luke

Ivan Mosjoukine v Gilbert Roland

Benson Fong v Spencer Tracy

Guy Madison v Felix Bressart

James Shigeta v Ronald Reagan

Montgomery Clift v Ricardo Montalbon

Peter Lorre v Frank Sinatra

Bob Hope v Gregory Peck

Fred Astaire v Paul Muni

Bela Lugosi v Cornel Wilde

Cesar Romero v John Garfield

Basil Rathbone v Cantinflas

Henry Fonda v Turhan Bey

Boris Karloff v Robert Mitchum

David Niven v Van Johnson

Gene Kelly v José Ferrer

Robert Preston v Tyrone Power

Jack Benny v Donald O'Connor

Fredric March v Lex Barker

Michael Redgrave v Gene Autry

James Edwards v Alec Guinness

Fayard Nicholas v Fernando Lamas

Ray Bolger v Johnny Weismuller

Orson Welles v Sabu Dastigir

Mickey Rooney v Laurence Olivier

Rex Ingram v Glenn Ford

Bing Crosby v James Cagney

@hotvintagepoll

#hotvintagepoll #fuck that old man #round 1

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shizuokadivision · 9 months

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Silent Tragedy — Inspirations (Redux)

— Kanon

Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Verde - Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Mayuri Kurotsuchi - Bleach

Salem - RWBY

Evolt - Kamen Rider Build

The Joker - DC

— Reika

Soraya Montenegro - María la del Barrio

Oberyn Martell - Game of Thrones

Poison Ivy - DC

Rubí Pérez Ochoa Ferrer - Rubí

Marilyn Monroe

Vil Schoenheit - Twisted Wonderland

— Sakura

Tier Harribel - Bleach

Tony Montana - Scarface

Red Hood - DC

Xanxus - Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Balalaika - Black Lagoon

O-Ren Ishii - Kill Bill

#hypnosis microphone #hypnosis mic #hypmic #hypmic oc #hypnosis mic oc #shizuoka division #silent tragedy #kanon hojo #reika aichi #sakura kito #character inspirations

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ncisfranchise-source · 2 months

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Ahead of the NCIS franchise’s actual 1,000th episode (airing next Monday at 9/8c), CBS this Monday night served up the Entertainment Tonight special NCISverse: The First 1,000.

Hosted by ET‘s Kevin Frazier, The First 1,000 featured some new/new-ish interviews with past and present franchise cast members, a few archival Q&As and clips galore from NCIS and its assorted offshoots.

Closing out the retrospective was acknowledgment of cast members who are no longer with us (including NCIS: Los Angeles‘ Miguel Ferrer and NCIS‘ David McCallum), plus some hype for the franchise’s two upcoming offshoots: NCIS: Origins (aka the Young Gibbs prequel series starring Austin Stowell) and the yet-to-be-titled, Europe-set Tony/Ziva series starring Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo.

For hardcore NCIS megafans, brand-new reveals were probably hard to come by. But for the slightly more casual fan such as myself, there were fun facts to be found. Such as….

1. Spun off of a JAG two-parter, NCIS was at first envisioned as following the Law & Order format — half investigation, half courtroom — but viewer affinity for the agents’ clue-gathering and Mark Harmon’s character led to a change in the formula.

2. We’ve heard most of these before, but always fun to ponder: Other actors whose names were bandied about for the role of Leroy Jethro Gibbs included Harrison Ford, Kevin Bacon, Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy, Alec Baldwin and Patrick Swayze, while a post-Friends Jennifer Aniston was eyed to play the replacement for Tony’s original partner, Viv Blackadder (Robyn Lively),

3. Michael Weatherly recalled that when filming his first scenes as DiNozzo, NCIS co-creator Donald P. Bellisario came up to him on-set and grumbled, “What are you doing, modeling?” Weatherly then resolved to entertain at the very least himself with a more animated performance.

4. In the Season 2 episode “Twilight,” in which Caitlin Todd (played by Sasha Alexander) is shot dead by a sniper, Michael Weatherly can be seen wincing a half-second too soon, before the “blood” squib actually explodes. (See photo above.)

5. Actual NCIS agents had never worn stitched logo caps — until TV’s NCIS came along and sparked interest, and the real-life LEOs requested official ones.

6. Diona Reasonover, who plays Kasie, had no idea that Cote de Pablo was secretly returning as Ziva in the Season 16 finale — until she watched the episode that night!

7. Though not a series regular as McGee until Season 2, Sean Murray holds the record for appearing in the most NCIS episodes: 450 (out of 464). Fun fact within a fact: Murray was originally hired as a one-off guest star, but a subsequent episode came in three minutes short and it was decided to bring the McGee character back to fill time.

8. It would take almost 30 days to watch all 1,000 NCIS franchise episodes. Without bathroom breaks!

9. For its headquarters scenes, NCIS: Sydney shoots inside an actual, old restaurant space at the Walsh Bay Wharves along Sydney Harbour.

#ncis #ncis la #ncis sydney #jag

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alexlacquemanne · 5 months

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2023 in 12 movies (1 per months)

January

The Horse Whisperer (1998) directed by Robert Redford with Robert Redford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Neil, Chris Cooper and Cherry Jones

[First Time]

February

L'Horloger de Saint-Paul (1974) directed by Bertrand Tavernier with Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, Jacques Denis, Yves Afonso, Julien Bertheau and Jacques Hilling

[First Time]

March

The Fabelmans (2022) directed by Steven Spielberg with Gabriel LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Keeley Karsten, Julia Butters and Judd Hirsch

[First Time]

April

The Third Man (1949) directed by Carol Reed with Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard and Bernard Lee

[First Time]

May

The World, The Flesh and the Devil (1959) directed by Ranald MacDougall with Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer

[First Time]

June

La ciociara (1960) directed by Vittorio De Sica with Sophia Loren, Eleonora Brown, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Carlo Ninchi, Andrea Checchi and Pupella Maggio

[First Time]

July

Oppenheimer (2023) directed by Christopher Nolan with Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett and Casey Affleck

[First Time]

August

Heat (1995) directed by Michael Mann with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Dennis Haysbert, Donald Breedan and Ashley Judd

[First Time]

September

Catch Me If You Can (2002) directed by Steven Spielberg with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Nathalie Baye, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen, James Brolin and Brian Howe

[First Time]

October

Le Grand Bain (2018) directed by Gilles Lellouche with Mathieu Amalric, Guillaume Canet, Benoît Poelvoorde, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Philippe Katerine, Félix Moati, Alban Ivanov, Balasingham Thamilchelvan, Virginie Efira et Leïla Bekhti

[First Time]

November

Fools Rush In (1997) directed by Andy Tennant with Matthew Perry, Salma Hayek, Jon Tenney, Carlos Gómez, Tomás Milián, Siobhan Fallon et John Bennett Perry

[First Time]

December

The Great Race (1965) directed by Blake Edwards with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn et Ross Martin

[First Time]

Honourable Mentions :

Airplane! (1980)

Duel (1972)

Les Sentiments (2003)

The Carpetbaggers (1964)

Scoop (2006)

Mon crime (2023)

To Have and Have Not (1944)

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

臥虎藏龍 (2000)

The Glenn Miller Story (1954)

Le Dernier Voyage (2020)

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)

L'ingorgo (1979)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Adieu Gary (2008)

Conflict (1945)

Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

La Nuit américaine (1973)

Sorcerer (1977)

La Guerre des polices (1979)

Life of Pi (2012)

The Big Short (2015)

Le Hussard sur le toit (1995)

Excalibur (1981)

The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

Le Procès Goldman (2023)

Enter the Dragon (1973)

Matrimonio all'italiana (1964)

Chaplin (1992)

La Vie de château (1966)

Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

Au-delà des grilles (1949)

Second Tour (2023)

Le Couteau dans la plaie (1962)

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

JFK (1991)

Le Fugitif (1993)

Chef (2014)

Quai des Orfèvres (1947)

Appointment with Death (1988)

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

River of No Return (1954)

L'Assassinat du père Noël (1941)

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Die Glasbläserin (2016)

The Lion in Winter (1968)

Les Mystères de Paris (1962)

#2023 films #my top 12 #cinema #cinematography #the horse whisperer #l'horloger de saint paul #the fabelmans #the third man #the world the flesh and the devil #la ciociara #oppenheimer #heat #catch me if you can #le grand bain #fools rush in #the great race #films #movies of 2023 #bye 2023

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rutaalrocknoticias · 1 year

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After The Long Night, la canción que no te esperabas de Tangerine Flavour.

Después de hacernos bailar con un sonido más cercano al soul con Moloko Nights, los chicos de Tangerine Flavour nos hacen un regalo anticipado de reyes con su nuevo single. After The Long Night nos introduce en la versión más pop de la banda, confirmando que aunque las raíces americanas seguirán presentes en sus canciones va a ir apareciendo en su espectro musical nuevos estilos y sorpresas. After The Long Night es quizá su giro estilístico más radical e inesperado. Una canción poderosa y directa, con aires de los años 80 y sabor a serie de TV. Su letra, culminada en un gran estribillo, rompe por mensaje con las amigables guitarras y las melodías alegres provocando un dualismo que todo lo envuelve, una evolución constante en cada una de sus partes, juegos vocales y hasta un guiño a lo psicodélico. Todo cabe esperar del resto del álbum de Tangerine Flavour que, a buen seguro, recorrerá otros muchos caminos sonoros con su buen gusto y su aroma particular.

youtube

Este single será la última capsula que podremos escuchar antes de la llegada del segundo disco de Tangerine Flavour. Un disco que aparecerá ante nosotros como un trabajo rompedor con todo lo que anteriormente hemos podido descubrir sobre la banda y que estamos seguros enganchara a diferentes públicos. Además este nuevo single viene acompañado por un video musical, grabado por Jorge Ferrer, personaje clave en la imagen actual de la banda, donde nos adentramos en los pormenores de la grabación del nuevo disco de Tangerine Flavour en Audiomatic Studios. Un disco que ha sido producido por Josu García, que ha contado con la ayuda en la mezcla y máster de Mark Janipka y con Toni Brunet completando un trio de autentico lujo al mando de la nave ¨tangerina¨. Una de las fechas que esta marcada bien a fuego para ese 2023 es la del 1 de febrero en la sala El Sol, donde Tangerine Flavour y Suso Díaz presentaran sus nuevos discos dentro del incomparable marco del Inverfest. Una fecha para la que ya se están vendiendo a buen ritmo las entradas. Las entradas para este concierto se están vendiendo a buen ritmo en el siguiente enlace.

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audreyhepburninblackandwhite · 2 years

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Published after Audrey Hepburn's death in The Age from Melbourne, page 14 (Victoria, Australia) January 22, 1993

Farewell to a Screen Princess

OBITUARY: AUDREY HEPBURN 1929-1993

AUDREY HEPBURN, 63, died on Wednesday at her home in Lausanne, Switzerland, after a long battle with colon cancer. Throughout her acting career, which included Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sabrina, and Funny Face, she charmed cinema audiences with an elfin innocence, an almost ethereal beauty, and sophistication.

But her childhood was scarred by fear and hunger during World War II and led to her devotion to children as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF.

The slender, dark-eyed Belgian beauty who delighted movie fans since Roman Holiday in 1953 was caught in Holland as a child when the country was invaded by Nazi Germany.

She saw her brother dragged away to a labor camp and had to struggle to survive after her uncle and cousin were executed.

Born Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston on 4 May 1929, in Brussels to a Dutch baroness and an English banker who eventually divorced, Miss Hepburn was sent to private schools in Britain and was on holiday in Holland when the war broke out.

Both mother and daughter suffered the deprivation of the occupation, although Miss Hepburn escaped from Nazi officers who were forcing children to work in their kitchens.

She attended school and took ballet classes despite suffering severe malnutrition as the war reached its peak in the “hunger winter” of 1944-45. She also took part in clandestine amateur shows to raise money for the Dutch underground.

It was a world with little parallel to her carefree performances in such classics as Roman Holiday, her first major role for which she won an Academy Award, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and My Fair Lady.

But the traumas of childhood were perhaps the root of the work Miss Hepburn began in 1988, more than 20 years after she gave up full-time acting, as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

“My childhood made me more receptive to the ravages of war, violence and hunger and gave me the urge to do something,” she said in 1989.

With her slender, graceful figure and an almost pixie-ish gamine quality. Miss Hepburn was well-suited to fashion modeling, which she began while in London on a ballet scholarship.

Modeling led to bit parts in British films in the early 1950s. One of them Monte Carlo Baby, brought her to the Riviera where she met the French novelist Colette, who saw Miss Hepburn as the perfect woman for the Broadway production of her Gigi.

Audrey Hepburn was an instant hit with the American public and two years later she became a star opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. Her portrayal of a glamorous runaway princess taken on a whirlwind tour of the Eternal City by a news photographer brought her the first of five Oscar nominations. She went on to win the award for the film.

An enthusiastic reviewer wrote at the time: “She is a slender, elfin, and wistful beauty, alternately regal and childlike in her profound appreciation of newly found simple pleasures and love.”

Six weeks later Miss Hepburn won the Tony Award for her Broadway performance in Ondine, and the same year she married her co-star from that production, Mel Ferrer.

Her second major film, Sabrina, brought her her second Oscar nomination and typified the Hepburn role of a young woman involved with older men, in this case Humphrey Bogart and William Holden as brothers vying for her affections.

Over the next decade she secured her popularity in films such as War and Peace, Funny Face, in which she played a bookstore clerk turned high fashion model opposite Fred Astaire, the Hitchcockian mystery Charade, Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, opposite Shirley MacLaine and the adaptation of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Of her portrayal of his heroine Holly Golightly, which brought Miss Hepburn her fourth Academy Award nomination, Capote said she was wonderful, “but not my vision of Holly.”

Love in the Afternoon (1957) reunited her with Peck and she was again nominated for an Oscar for The Nun’s Story (1958). Note: Audrey Hepburn starred with Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon and not with Gregory Peck.

In one of the only controversies of her career, she was cast opposite Rex Harrison to play Eliza Doolittle in the film version of the Broadway smash My Fair Lady.

After the British actress Julie Andrews had become the toast of Broadway in the role, fans fully expected to see her star in the film.

When the role went to Audrey Hepburn, whose singing voice was dubbed by Marnie Nixon, Oscar voters retaliated by giving Academy Awards to Harrison and the film as Best Picture, while Miss Hepburn was not even nominated. The winner that year? Julie Andrews for The Sound of Music.

Innocence, beauty, and charm: Audrey Hepburn (clockwise from above) in Funny Face in 1957; at the height of her film success; and on her visit to Melbourne for UNICEF in 1989.

But Miss Hepburn went on to further triumphs, in Two for the Road opposite Albert Finney and Wait Until Dark, for which she won her fifth Oscar nomination as a blind woman stalked and terrorized by a drug dealer.

She then abruptly gave up acting to look after her family.

“I had a wonderful time but I don’t miss my film career,” said the actress who for many came to epitomize class, grace, and poise.

She had two sons, one by Ferrer whom she divorced in 1968, and one by Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti whom she married the following year. They also later divorced.

Miss Hepburn accepted only occasional small acting roles and did not re-emerge in the public eye until her UNICEF appointment.

“Being famous is a marvelous advantage and I thought, why not put my fame to good use?” she said.

She told an interviewer in 1002 after a visit to ravaged Somalia, where millions of people were starving to death: “I don’t believe in collective guilt. But I do believe in collective responsibility. Somalia is our responsibility.”

Inspecting UNICEF development projects in Africa and Latin America, touring rich countries to persuade them to do more to help, she was one of the most prominent campaigners for Third World children. She was to have been given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards on 29 March.

UNICEF’s executive director, James Grant, in announcing her death at the United Nations, said: “She became truly ‘Our Fair Lady.’ The children of the world have lost a true friend, and an important eloquent advocate.”

Miss Hepburn occasionally returned to the screen in later years, starring as Maid Marian to Sean Connery’s Robin Hood in Robin and Marian (1976), in Bloodline (1979), and in Peter Bogdanovich’s They All Laughed (1981), the latter two co-starring Ben Gazzara.

Despite her commitments she found time to play a cameo in Steven Spielberg’s film Always in 1989—“just for fun,” she said.

In the early 1980s Miss Hepburn became involved with Robert Wolders, a Dutch actor-turned-businessman who had been married to Merle Oberon. Miss Hepburn said Wolders was “the best husband ever, but there’s no piece of paper.”

In 1992 she underwent surgery for the removal of a cancerous tumor in her colon. A UNICEF spokesman said her funeral would take place Sunday at the village church in Tolochenaz, near Lausanne. —REUTER

Audrey Hepburn in 1956 Photography by Yousuf Karsh

Ever young, to her fans

TRIBUTE: MICHAEL SHMITH

For the generation that grew up with the films of Audrey Hepburn, her death seems impossible. She was always so young (and still too young to die). The trouble was, we aged while Audrey remained the same. If she was Dorian Gray, we were the portrait in the attic.

Her films were essentially romantic comedies, cleansed of nudity and sex. You knew that whatever the situation, whatever the heroine thought of her leading man, and whatever obstacles were put in the way, there would be that moment when you realized everything was OK; that the power of love had won yet again over the forces of evil, but no jumping into bed, please, until after the final credits.

When Hepburn, as Sabrina, the chauffer’s daughter, sailed away with Humphrey Bogart, as Linus Larrabee, stuffy tycoon, at the end of Sabrina (1954), it set the tone for most of her films. She floated off down the Seine with Fred Astaire (Funny Face, 1957); breakfasted at Tiffany’s (1961) before falling in love with George Peppard; solved Charade (1963) and dropped ice cream on Cary Grant’s lapel, falling for him in the process; committed daylight robbery with Peter O’Toole (How to Steal a Million, 1966); and meekly found Rex Harrison’s slippers (My Fair Lady, 1964).

When Hepburn played different roles (Natasha in War and Peace, 1956; a schoolteacher falsely accused of a lesbian affair in the adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, 1962; a blind woman in the thriller Wait Until Dark, 1967) they were not always easy to believe. No, she had to be the pencil-thin, wide-eyed, worldly-wise yet innocent woman with the ability to charm her man (be it Gregory Peck, William Holden, or Gary Cooper) and the bank balance to afford rack after rack of Givenchy clothes. In fact, Givenchy created his scent, l’Interdit, for Hepburn.

Curiously, yet understandably, Audrey Hepburn was not a sex symbol. Maybe this was due to Hepburn’s gamine appearance (she always looked like someone’s daughter) that made her more of a protected species that you would take home to feed, not bed. This was emphasized by some of her leading men, who were more father-figures—for example, Fred Astaire and Cary Grant—than lovers.

She had dignity, too, that simply added to her beauty. IN her first hit film, Roman Holiday, (made when she was 24) she made the role of the duty-bound but romantic princess who falls for reporter Gregory Peck, noble, but never haughty. You could quite understand her decision to stay on the throne, rather than Peck’s Vespa.

Billy Wilder, the director of Sabrina, said Audrey Hepburn was the antithesis of the 1950s blonde bombshell. His description is brilliant: “Here is class. There is nobody else. Just a lot of drive-in waitresses off the races, wriggling their behinds at the 3-D camera. She’s a wispy, thin, little thing, but you’re really in the presence of somebody when you see that girl. Not since Garbo has there been anything like it, with the possible exception of Bergman. It’s the kind of thing where the director plans 16 close-ups throughout the picture with that dame—that curious, beautiful, ugly face of that dame.”

Someone else spoke of Hepburn’s “moon-faced radiance,” which is half right, except she was more alluring than any old moon. The extraordinary thing is that her fame has never been allowed to die and will outlive her. Her film career, apart from a couple of efforts, finished at the end of the ‘60s. But people always remember her and always say how beautiful she was.

In later life, this beauty became more fragile. The face, with skin the finest crepe-de-Chine, was older, yet just as inimitable. No one looked like Audrey Hepburn (which didn’t stop many from trying).

For the past few years she worked tirelessly as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. Somalia and Ethiopia are a long way from the banks of th Seine or the Coliseum, but somehow Audrey Hepburn invested her new career with the same dignity and grace, allied with conviction and concerns. “I am not interested in promoting Audrey Hepburn these days,” she said, in Melbourne late 1989. “I am interested in telling the world about how they can help.”

#audrey #audrey hepburn #1990s #obituaries #death #vintage #old hollywood #classics #newspapers #readings #magazines

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