HOW’S THE SCRIPT COMING?” ASKED BILL HOLDEN, ANXIOUS, as always, when the time to begin a new film was at hand. “Great!” Wilder replied. “It’s going to be your best part so far!”
“And Audrey—what’s she like?”
“You’re going to love her. She asked me what you’re like!”
Holden, for personal reasons, was not happy about the Bogart casting. Bogart and Holden had worked together years before, not harmoniously, in Invisible Stripes, which was made the year Holden did Golden Boy. Bogart, a showbiz veteran even back then, proved to be no Barbara Stanwyck as far as offering help and support to neophyte Holden, who was top-billed. Perhaps there was more to the animus between them. Bogart was always tuned in to the gossip that permeated the filmmaking world and was most likely aware that young Holden had, in Holden’s own words decades later, “serviced” some older actresses to further his career. In response to probing questions from his psychoanalyst, Holden further explained: “I’m a whore. All actors are whores. We sell our bodies to the highest bidder.”
Artistic temperaments aside, Wilder reassured him that Sabrina would be a triumph for all concerned. Paramount had paid top dollar for the screen rights to Samuel Taylor’s play, Sabrina Fair, before it even opened. It became a great Broadway success for Margaret Sullavan, who was forty-four—Audrey’s senior by twenty years. Sullavan was magical onstage, critics loved her, and she would be a hard act to follow. She was aware when she’d signed for the play that she would not have the film role—that would be for either twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Taylor or twenty-five-year-old Jean Simmons.
Some said Audrey had read the play and asked Paramount to buy it for her. Roman Holiday director William Wyler was Sullavan’s ex-husband. “Now Willie’s discovery gets the role that I have made a success,” remarked Sullavan. “C’est la vie!” she joked, but one assumes she wasn’t laughing; nor were Joseph Cotten and Scott McKay, both losing the roles they originated to Bogart and Holden.
The film adaptation of Sabrina had become a chaos of rewrites. Billy Wilder had been collaborating with playwright Taylor in rewriting his creation to make an appropriate vehicle for the film’s stars, trying to craft it to work for audiences in Omaha as well as New York City. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman was hired to further rework the material, especially Audrey’s role. A mild nervous breakdown awaited Lehman at the completion of his assignment.
Bill Holden had no problem waiting for a final shooting script. He trusted Wilder; Wilder was a man who understood and knew how to use the contradictions in Bill’s nature. Bill’s agents, no doubt, would raise holy hell about any delays. They had Bill booked years into the future. But Bill welcomed an occasional respite from the sound stages; the thrill of acting was beginning to wear thin.
Meanwhile, Audrey was in the midst of fighting a crucial pre-production battle. She was extremely conscious of her clothes, and that “simple” look she achieved was the result of careful thought and lavish, time-consuming attention to invisible detail. She had no illusions that she would look beautiful no matter who did her clothes. Quite the opposite; she was self-conscious about her skinny upper
body (refusing ever to wear “falsies”) and felt she was awkwardly proportioned. It was a source of wonder to her that so many women envied her figure.
Audrey ended up being aided and abetted by Billy Wilder. For plot reasons, Wilder wanted the character of Sabrina, from a certain point on, to wear a genuine Paris couture wardrobe. Audrey was looking forward to her costumes being created by her beloved new friend, twenty-six-year-old rising French couturier Hubert de Givenchy, whose family tree bore similarities to Audrey’s, Givenchy being a marquis. Theirs had been a meeting of souls. He was very tall and towered over Hepburn, but he was soft-spoken, charming, and handsome. He totally understood, sympathized, and empathized with Audrey’s doubts and fears. “I feel protected in his clothes,” she said.
Designer approval was not in her contract. Diminutive Edith Head had created Audrey’s Oscar-winning wardrobe for Roman Holiday. Although the neophyte had insisted, politely but firmly, on many refinements, Edith had done a masterful job. She was not only the undisputed empress of fashion on the Paramount lot, having been there since the 1920s, but she fiercely maintained and guarded her position. “One did not cross Edith Head without fear of reprisal,” noted fashionista-executive Anita Colby. “There were things she could do. . . .”
Audrey used all her considerable diplomatic skills dealing with Edith Head. It was tense and tedious work. On top of it all, Givenchy had told Audrey he could not do her costumes for the film: “There are too many of them. I have only eight seamstresses, and I have other clients.”
“You will do them,” Audrey said.
“You’d better learn fast to roll with the punches, or you’re cooked,” Bill Holden once said. “That is, if you expect to have a long career.”
Hepburn was learning to do just that—even if she had become the prima ballerina she had always yearned to be, Audrey would have discovered the same jealousies, competitiveness, intrigue, and backstabbing that lurked in the movie world, as it lurks in every profession. This was a pivotal time for her; by the time she’d been nominated for an Oscar and was making her second big studio film, she was not the unknown wonder anymore. She had to prove herself—prove that Roman Holiday had not been a flash in the pan. While appearing capable and calm, inside she was deeply insecure, which made her nervous. Waiting for a start date on Sabrina, to keep panic at bay, she chain-smoked and gave in to an occasional crying spell, a sure sign of the underlying tension that is often present in artists.
The delays kept Audrey on edge. She liked to reflect on the character she was playing, and the situations the character was involved in; she wasn’t able to switch her emotions on and off before and after playing a scene, as, for example, Bette Davis could. Billy Wilder was aware of this and did his best to put her at ease. When he met with her to discuss the evolving script, in which he was tailoring the character of Sabrina to reflect Audrey’s personality, Wilder would tell her tales of old Hollywood. His Mitteleuropa delivery made her laugh, and with Audrey, laughing was always the best medicine. It helped to get her through this difficult time.
Audrey would be required to sing a brief song in Sabrina—an intimate rendition of the French ballad “La Vie en Rose.” No orchestral or even piano accompaniment would be added on the soundtrack. It was a song that, as Audrey’s character explains, was the French way of saying “looking at life through rose-colored glasses.” The singing scene would take place with her seated alongside Bogart as he drove a convertible. She worked as hard on learning how to sing as she did on studying ballet. Frederick Hollander, who worked with Marlene Dietrich on developing her abilities as a chanteuse, was Audrey’s coach. When the time came to pre-record the song, she delivered a flawless rendition, pitch-perfect and seemingly effortless. Her singing voice sounded exactly like her speaking voice, and Billy Wilder was delighted—Audrey had that something extra, even when she sang.
She viewed her hair-and-makeup tests with a highly critical eye, cognizant that hers was not a perfect face—nor was she crazy about the way her teeth looked when she smiled. She knew how vital a film’s cameraman was—he was the person who determined how she looked on-screen. It was no accident that some stars, such as Jean Harlow and Merle Oberon, had married their cameramen.
Audrey was very pleased with veteran cinematographer Charles Lang, whom the front office had cautioned to “watch out for Ms. Hepburn’s bony shoulders.” She’d been so unhappy on seeing photographs of herself during Roman Holiday that she chose not to watch daily “rushes” of the film. She was fortunate to be working with Lang; these early films established the basis for her on-screen image, one that would endure for the next several decades and beyond.
Audrey’s insecurities about her looks were not totally unfounded. Cecil Beaton, the renowned, at times controversial British photographer/set-and-fashion designer, who was the ultimate word on taste, had privately assessed newcomer Audrey. He thought it “a rare phenomenon to find a young girl with such inherent ‘star’ quality,” her stance a combination “ultra-fashion plate and ballet dancer.” He further described her as “a new type of beauty: huge mouth, flat Mongolian features, heavily painted eyes, a coconut coiffure, long nails without varnish, a wonderfully lithe figure, a long neck, but perhaps too scraggy.” He noted that her great success in Roman Holiday had made “little impression on this delightful human being,” and he was impressed that she responded to the adulation “with a pinch of salt: gratitude rather than puffed-up pride. . . . In a flash I discovered [her] sprite-like charm, and she has a sort of waif-ish, poignant sympathy.” Beaton and Hepburn would work together a decade later, on My Fair Lady.
Although many young stars resented the strictures of the studio system, Audrey was comfortable with it. It was in harmony with her innate discipline. Paramount was both effective and efficient in dealing with many of her concerns; the studio was immensely helpful handling matters regarding her passport, working papers, and so on. At a moment’s notice, there was transportation by limousine; tickets—for the theater, airline, and so on—could be obtained that wouldn’t be easily available otherwise, with VIP treatment across the board; the publicity department kept unwanted news hounds away (and finessed them when unwanted questions arose) and routinely planted laudatory stories in the press. Studio photo sessions “killed” unflattering images (cigarettes were usually airbrushed out of approved on-set photos). One could count on the studio to recommend and set up appointments with the proper dentist, or doctor, or, if emergencies arose, “take care of things.” Jean Howard Feldman, as high on Hollywood’s “in” list as one could get, said that, during this period, studios could arrange literally anything: “Certain actors, and others, obtained their drivers’ licenses without ever having to take a driver’s test.” Audrey, along with Monroe, Kim Novak, James Dean, Rock Hudson, Grace Kelly, and a select few others, would be among the last to flourish under this system.
Yet, amid all this attention and activity, Audrey was aware of something missing: a special man.
Audrey was a woman who needed the man to make the first move. A potential new prince charming, pre–Bill Holden, had appeared in Audrey’s life, and though he did move first, he didn’t sweep her off her feet. They had met in London prior to her coming to Hollywood for Sabrina. Gregory Peck introduced them, and she definitely found him attractive. He was thirty-six, a lean six feet three, and American (born in New Jersey). An ambitious actor-writer-producer-director, everything about him was cosmopolitan, and many people assumed he was European.
Recently he’d starred in one of Audrey’s favorite movies (she saw it three times), a charming musical fantasy, Lili, about a puppeteer in love with a young woman who is unaware of his deep feelings for her; he expresses his feelings through his puppets. The picture was a hit, running for over a year at an art house in New York, but it had not made him a major star. Leslie Caron, a young French actress not unlike Audrey in gamine appeal, played the girl; Mel Ferrer was the puppeteer.
Although there was mutual attraction between them, it was hardly love at first sight for Audrey. Ferrer was persistent, though, and accompanied her to New York for the opening of Roman Holiday. She found his ideas about her career, the kind of roles she should play, challenging and interesting. But there was a complication: Mel was married, with children. Anticipating a possible future with Audrey, he contemplated divorcing his third wife, who had, in fact, been his first wife; they had remarried after he divorced wife number two. (Talk about the complication of having a wife!)
The Cinderella Girl faced an additional dilemma: others before her had to contend with it, often with disastrous results, as would future Cinderellas. When a young actress ascends to breathtaking career heights, she becomes a magnet for all sorts of individuals eager to move in on and capitalize on such success—people who will say or do anything. The wise novice learns to trust no one; if she can cope with that anxiety-producing fact, without plunging into a pit, she is lucky. Audrey’s luck, to some extent, was her mother. The baroness wasn’t crazy about Mel.
In any case, he was pushed to the back of Audrey’s mind—and he certainly was not in her heart—as she steeled herself for her first day’s work on Sabrina.