Audrey Hepburn's granddaughter reveals the "best kept secret" of the star

Emma Ferrer spoke of the privacy of her famous grandmother in a documentary.


Audrey Hepburn recalls his many beloved roles of cinema, his style and his humanitarian work. But, according to family members, being themovie star The adored audience was only part of whom she was really. The actor, who died in 1993, treated a lot of pain at the start of his life, including difficulties during the Second World War and his father leaving his family when Hepburn was young.

In the 2020 documentaryAudrey,,Granddaughter of Hepburn,Emma Ferrer, was interviewed about her famous family member and shared what she considers the "best guarded secret" of Hepburn. Read on to find out more.

Read this then:See the granddaughter of Elizabeth Taylor, who continues her heritage.

Hepburn had a difficult childhood.

Audrey Hepburn photographed holding an umbrella in Switzerland in 1954
Archive Photos / Stringer / Getty Images

Hepburn lived two major events when she was young who shaped the rest of her life. First, his father left him and his mother at the age of six. Then, around the age of 11, the Netherlands, where she lived at the time, became occupied by Germany during the Second World War. During this time,Hepburn suffered from malnutrition.AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

"The reason for her thinning was because from the age of nine to 16, during the Second World War, she was extremely malnourished",Luca Dotti, with the second husbandAndrea Dotti, ToldPeople In 2015. "The time she needed food most, she didn't have enough food."

Ferrer said Hepburn had kept part of his secret life as his fame grew.

Emma Ferrer at the 15th Annual UNICEF Snowflake Ball in 2019
Michael Loccisano / Getty Images for USAF USA

In the documentaryAudrey, Ferrer said of his grandmother (Going throughObserver), "The best kept secret on Audrey was that she was sad."

Ferrer, 28, has never met her grandmother, because she was born a year after her death, but she heard memories and stories shared by her family. His father,Sean Hepburn Ferrer—When Hepburn welcomed with the first husbandMel Ferrer- is also interviewed in the film.

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Hepburn has opened more in its last years.

Audrey Hepburn at the 1992 Oscars
Zuffing Vinnie / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

Hepburn was very private, but she thought about the difficulties of her youth in an interview of 1992 withLife who appears inAudrey.

"[My leaving father] was the first big blow I had when I was a child, it was a trauma that left me a very big brand, it left me unsure for life," said explained Hepburn (via the observer). "He disappeared one day, mother explained that she had gone on a trip and would not come back. Mother kept crying, I would just try to be with her, but like a child, you can't really to understand."

She also said in a clip shown in the film: "The feeling of family is terribly important. Having my father cut, or he cut himself off, was desperate. If I could see him regularly, I would have felt him loved me and I would have had a father ... I desperately tried to avoid it for my children. You become very unsure of affection and terribly grateful and you have a huge desire to give it. "

Helena Coan, the director of the documentary, saidObserver"[Hepburn] suffered massively from insecurity on his appearance and with men, and to hear them bind them to his relationship with his father and his problems of deep abandonment, hearing these intimate details was so strange. It was a such a turn for someone who had always been so private. "

Ferrer is inspired by the way her grandmother has treated his pain.

Audrey Hepburn photographed holding flowers in 1961
Standard / Getty evening images

Ferrer also opened on Hepburn and his inheritance in an interview in 2021 withHarper bazaar.

"There is a truly intrinsic aspect of the experience of a woman I witnessed in the film," said Ferrer about the documentary. "What it means for her father to go to such a young age and the way she tries to fulfill this role later with men throughout her life and a series of failed relationships and what it means to have A failed pregnancy and miscarriage. These are things that are now more in the public domain and in conversation at the moment. But at the time, was certainly not. "

She concluded from the film: "I really think that the message to withdraw from this is Audrey took pain and transformed it into something really revolutionary. Many other people in her situation would have just tried to numb This pain. "

Ferrer, who worked with Unicef to support children as her grandmother did, added: "She really used empathy that derives from this pain to turn around. She had the opportunity to Make a big difference, because she was a big person, she was a big figure. But I always think that the impulse of using this empathy to really make a difference was so revolutionary for her time. "


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