Was Audrey Hepburn a respected actress in her day?

I was surprised to read she had five Oscar noms.

• And an Oscar win for her first Hollywood movie. Yes, I would say she was respected, much more so than Marilyn Monroe, who was never nominated for one.

• Didn't she get a Tony nom for the play Gigi as well? She left a Hitchcock film because of a miscarriage and aspparently he was a total dick about it.

• Which movie r2?

• R2, No, she didn't get a Tony nom for [italic]Gigi[/italic], but she did win a Tony for [italic]Ondine[/italic] (1954). Hepburn was actually one of the select few to receive the grand slam of creative awards - Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy, plus Golden Globes, BAFTAs, etc. So, going back to OP's question -- yes, I would say she was a respected actress in her day. R3, I believe the movie was to be "No Bail for the Judge," but Hitchcock lost interest once Hepburn dropped out. Supposedly, Hepburn was turned off by a scene where her character is dragged to Hyde Park and nearly raped. Anyway, the official word was that Hepburn bailed on the project when she found out she was pregnant (which ended in miscarriage).

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_honours_received_by_Audrey_Hepburn

• Wait Until Dark and Charade are so like Hitchcock films. Love them both. Hepburn broke her back filming Unforgiven and blamed the later miscarriage on the accident. What did she get a Grammy for? Funny Face?

• The Nun's Story - OP. You can't get more respected than that. Oh, and she led War And Peace, and Breakfast At Tiffanys.

• Don't forget Love in the Afternoon. Such a totally different role, and she's fantastic in it.

• Correction, Two For the Road. Love in the Afternoon, not so much.

• R5, the Grammy was for [italic]Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales[/italic] for Best Spoken Word Album for Children(!)

• Well they named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney and Mickey, at least in his time was cool. They named Lil Audrey the cartoon after Hepburn You do the math

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DawR0NUZtRks

• Never cared much for her.

  Emma%20Thompson

• She had charisma and screen presence for days. Nun's Story is her best, I think.

• [quote]And an Oscar win for her first Hollywood movie. In which Gregory Peck insisted she receive equal billing as he, above the title. No doubt that made quite a difference, rather than "Introducing Audrey Hepburn" below the title. Can you imagine Elizabeth Taylor is this role? This was certainly kismet, when it came to final casting. "Roman Holiday" would have had a whole other vibe with Liz.

• I prefer Pol Pot.

• She was worse than Hitler.

  Emma%20Thompson%20

• She got her back broken by a lot of dudes in her time.

• SHE CERTAINLY WAS RESPECTED! WHAT A BIZARRE QUESTION! AUDREY HEPBURN WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST BACK THEN AND SHE IS CONSIDERED STILL ONE OF THE GREATEST.

  http://x2d.xanga.com/803e547310631270373311/z206192288.jpg

  Anonymous

• No mention of The Children's Hour?

• R8, I saw the movie, did not recall who the woman was, so in love with Albert Finney were I. Albert as a young man looked so tasty, so finger licking good. So plump and ripe. Finney in "Tom Jones" !!!!!

• Audrey was ace! You think that little detail could escape other people?

  Anonymous

• Someone please get some smelling salts to R17! Two for the Road has some wonderful moments and I have a soft spot in my heart for it. She made some terrific movies. For some reason (can't remember what it was) I didn't like her when I was young but grew to appreciate her charm and talent.

• Why doesn't someone remake "Roman Holiday" and put a REAL actress in the lead, like Emma Thompson? WHY?!?!?

• She was sublime in A Nun's Story and Wait Until Dark.

• Mickey Mouse was not named for Mickey Rooney. Try again.

• Audrey Hepburn is still a respected actress in our day -- and always will be. FYI: Check out The Nun's Story and Wait Until Dark.

• The New York Film Critics certainly thought so. Best actress 1953 ROMAN HOLIDAY Best actress 1959 THE NUN'S STORY But why wouldn't anyone respect Audrey Hepburn as an actress or as a movie star?

• "Why doesn't someone remake "Roman Holiday" and put a REAL actress in the lead, like Emma Thompson? WHY?!?!?" Because William Wyler's ROMAN HOLIDAY is perhaps the perfect romantic comedy film ever made with brilliant performances by everyone especially Hepburn. And because the marvelous Emma Thompson would have been completely wrong for the part of Princess Anne when she was in her 20s. Let alone now. At 53! But other than that, it's really a perfectly reasonable question.

• Who's Emma Thompson?

• She was definitely respected, IMHO not just because she was a very good actress, but because Hollywood saw her as "classy". She was a European from a good family, and was Hollywood was run by yahoos who were easily impressed by a dancer's bearing and fluent French. These were the same people who thought of Marilyn Monroe was a common whore, or course.

• It has to be said that Audreys cockney accent in "My Fair Lady" was awful. Julie Andrews really should've been cast.

• I hope Emma Thompson's My Fair Lady never gets made. (Eat your heart out, Bitch!)

• Emma goes home to this every night, r31. I'm sure she will cope...

  http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01208/Greg_Wise_1208824i.jpg

• I think many of the old screen Hollywood legends didn't have the acting chops of today's actors. Watching Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master or Viola Davis in Fences is acting on it's highest level. None of the old screen legends were capable of giving those inspired performances.

  anonymous

• "None of the old screen legends were capable of giving those inspired performances." Right. Anna Magnani, Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Olivia de Havilland, Orson Welles, Greta Garbo, Deborah Kerr, Simone Signoret, Luise Rainer, Laurence Olivier, Barbara Stanwyck, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, James Dean, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Rosalind Russell, Lilian Gish, Montgomery Clift. These were all slouches. *** AKA WHAT THE FUCK?

• Have to agree with R33. On the other hand, nobody today has that special charisma, do they? They were stars, now they're actors.

• [quote]I think many of the old screen Hollywood legends didn't have the acting chops of today's actors. Viola and PSH aside, how many of today's "actors" and movie stars could not act their way out of a paper bag?

• She was very highly regarded. Odd you should ask. I am watching Charace on Netflix. I got curious about the little kid who played, well, the little kid. He grew up to be a highly regarded neurologist who lives not too far from me..

• She was the triumph of charm, looks, and personality over talent or range. She wasn't a bad actress, but she was a major star. And she was smart enough to know that there were many better actresses around.

• She never won an emmy. Audrey didnt do any tv work i believe.

• She received an Emmy for her work on a show where she toured the great gardens of the globe. I don't recall the title of the show, but it aired for a couple of seasons on PBS.

• I find Audrey Hepburn fantastically twee. Twee is whimsy without wit. It is mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite. And that's not for me. She can't sing and she can't really act, I'm afraid.

  Emma%20Thompson

• I find Emma Thompson fantastically cunty. Cunty is bitchy without wit. It's spiteful maliciousness without any kind of humor. And that's not for me. She can't sing and can't really act, I'm afraid.

  Zombie%20Audrey%20Hepburn

• R10 is full of hooey. Little Audrey was first introduced in the 40s when Audrey was still a teenager.

  Harvey%20Comics%20fan

• You really can't compare actors from different eras. Who's to say that if some of the great goldens (for lack of a better term) came of age today what kind of actors they would be? Just because being frequently OTT was required during their time, that doesn't mean they wouldn't have been capable of delivering a more naturalistic performance. Talent is talent. Conversely, many of the top stars of today may or may not have been able to make it back then.

• I can compare actors from different generations. Claude Raines was a genius. Tom Cruise is talent-free. Norma Shearer was embarrassingly bad. Michelle Williams is a great actress. See. There I did it. What I didn't do was generalize about the quality of acting in any particular era. There has always been superb acting. There has always been bad acting. But you all knew that.

• Many directors work in a different way with actors now than in the old Hollywood days. Actors are give more say in how they want to build their characters. Not to generalize, but actors were more like tools in a directors box - not necessary equal partners. I think alone this gives them more room for their performances and for intricate and sophisticated expression. Many old time directors were monsters.

  Anonymous

• [quote]Well they named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney and Mickey, at least in his time was cool.[/quote] That's a story that's been told by Rooney himself, and suffice it to say should be taken with a grain of salt. The story, according to him, is that he was a child actor in silent films (true) and one day he stumbled upon Walt Disney on the Warner Bros. lot hard at work on a sketch of a mouse. He told Rooney it was his next character creation and that he was going to name him Mortimer Mouse. According to Rooney, he asked Disney, "Why don't you name him after me?" and Disney thought a moment and supposedly said, "Okay, I will." Raise your hand if you believe this story! For the record, Disney always claimed it was his wife who suggested the name Mickey over Mortimer. Rooney has a tendency to put himself in historic of legendary situations. For example, he also claimed he came up with Marilyn Monroe's stage name when he befriended the young starlet.

• One of the best things about the old-school actors was their diction. Not only is it hard to hear what their saying now, but too many actors nowadays have lock-jaw: Candice Bergen was one of the first and then Jodie Foster, and on and on... They speak with clenched jaws and look so unnatural.

• Sorry - they're is what I meant, of course.

• That girl is single-handedly gonna make ba-zooms a thing of the past.

  Billy Wilder on Audrey Hepburn

• She was great. Period. The end.

  anonymous