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French Biographer Explores Life of Audrey Hepburn in New Book

Audrey Hepburn poses with her Oscar for best actress for the film "Roman Holiday" on March 25, 1954 | AFP Photo
Audrey Hepburn poses with her Oscar for best actress for the film "Roman Holiday" on March 25, 1954 | AFP Photo
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French Biographer Explores Life of Audrey Hepburn in New Book

Audrey Hepburn poses with her Oscar for best actress for the film "Roman Holiday" on March 25, 1954 | AFP Photo
Audrey Hepburn poses with her Oscar for best actress for the film "Roman Holiday" on March 25, 1954 | AFP Photo

Audrey Hepburn has been the star of many books before and after she left this world. French biographer Guillaume Evin has recently released a new book revolving around the journey of the British star whose movies still charm cinema lovers 50 years after she ended her career, and around 30 years after her death from cancer. Evin wrote many popular books about several stars including Steve McQueen, Brigitte Bardot, and Alain Delon, in addition to many others about the Scottish actor Sean Connery and his character in the James Bond movies.

Hepburn, who was born in Belgium, amazed Hollywood with her exceptional talent in the 1950s, although she wasn't blonde and chubby actress like the stars of that time. She was so skinny, with black hair, two wide eyes, and the uncanny fitness of a ballerina. These characteristics caught the attention of many famous fashion designers, mostly the French Hubert de Givenchy who built a strong decades-long friendship with her.

Thanks to her unique personality, she managed to break into the exclusive club of actresses who won the four top cinema awards: Emmy, Grammy, Tony, and Oscar. She was awarded the 1954 Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in "Roman Holiday" directed by William Wyler and co-starred by Gregory Peck. She also won a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for her performance in the same movie. In 1955, she was awarded a Henrietta Award for World Film Favorite. She was also a prominent humanitarian activist who focused on helping children as a UNICEF ambassador. After her death, Hepburn won a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her humanitarian work.

The book highlights many phases of the British star's journey, starting from a miserable childhood in a boarding school, the Second World War, and her struggle with her father, who was a Nazi supporter and abandoned his family and divorced her mother. However, the skinny girl who never thought she could survive the war found her way to the big screen, fame, and stardom. Yet, the 38-year-old Audrey decided to give up on acting at the peak of her success to dedicate her life to her two sons, and used her fame to serve the children care associations in poor countries.

Released by Casa editions, the 200-page book was issued with a box including a brochure and a CD of the "Love in the Afternoon," one of Hepburn's iconic movies. It was directed by Billy Wilder and screened in 1957. She co-starred it with the great Gary Cooper, playing a young woman who falls in love with a manipulative older man. The CD features a new edition of the movie restored by Carlotta Films.

Hepburn also inspired a series produced by the Wildside Company. Her son Luca Dotti co-wrote the script of the series which depicts the amazing life of an unforgettable actress and her subtle roles in movies like Funny Face and My Fair Lady. Luca, Hepburn's son from her Italian husband took his ideas for the series from a 2015 book entitled Audrey at Home. The series followed a movie about Hepburn starred by Jennifer Love Hewitt in 2000.

In a recent interview with The Sun, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, 60, her other son from her American husband, actor Mel Ferrer, said his mother lived many emotional failures despite her outstanding career. The interview discussed a documentary entitled "Audrey: More Than an Icon" that explores the "deep pains she hid behind her beautiful smile." Ferrer added that his mother always opened up to him about what she was facing with teary eyes, and asked for his advice, but he was a little boy and he didn't know how to help her.

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Game 'Reloots' African Artefacts from Western Museums

'Relooted' tasks players with taking from Western museums cultural artefacts that were stolen from Africa during the colonial era. EMMANUEL CROSET / AFP
'Relooted' tasks players with taking from Western museums cultural artefacts that were stolen from Africa during the colonial era. EMMANUEL CROSET / AFP
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Game 'Reloots' African Artefacts from Western Museums

'Relooted' tasks players with taking from Western museums cultural artefacts that were stolen from Africa during the colonial era. EMMANUEL CROSET / AFP
'Relooted' tasks players with taking from Western museums cultural artefacts that were stolen from Africa during the colonial era. EMMANUEL CROSET / AFP

Under the cover of darkness, Nomali jumped over a wall, burst into a museum and snatched a human skull from a pedestal before escaping through a window to the wail of an alarm.

The daring heist was not the work of a real-life criminal. Nomali is the protagonist of a new action-packed video game where players "reclaim" artefacts taken from African countries to be displayed in the West.

Developed by Johannesburg studio Nyamakop, "Relooted" is set in an imaginary future but tackles a topical issue: calls for Western institutions to return to Africa the spoils of colonization.

Players are tasked with taking back 70 artefacts -- all of which exist in real life -- with a "team of African citizens", said producer Sithe Ncube, one of a team of 30 working on the game.

The items include the "Benin Bronzes" sculptures removed from the former kingdom of Benin more than 120 years ago, and which The Netherlands officially returned to Nigeria on June 21.

Another is the sacred Ngadji drum from Kenya's Pokomo community, which was confiscated by British colonial authorities in 1902.

"Its removal destabilized the community," Ncube said as an animated drawing of the wooden instrument flashed on her computer. Players "can see where it's from... and read about the history," she said, giving a demo.

“Is it stealing?'

On the screen a crew of characters in Afrofuturist costumes debated a plan to recover the remains of Tanzanian chiefs hanged by German colonial forces.

One asked: "Is it stealing to take back what was stolen?"

"We are going to do whatever it takes to take back Africa's belongings, and we are going to do it together," said the character Nomali.

"Sometimes the stories behind these (artefacts) are actually very upsetting," Ncube told AFP. "It makes you see how much colonialism has affected... and shaped the world."

Growing up in Zambia, she knew of her country's iconic "Broken Hill Man", a skull about 300,000 years old held in London's Natural History Museum and which is also featured in "Relooted".

But it was only when working on the game that Ncube realized how many African cultural artefacts were held abroad, she said.

In France alone, museums stored about 90,000 objects from sub-Saharan Africa, according to a 2018 report commissioned by the government.

"Africans, to actually see these things that are part of their own culture, have to get a visa, pay for flights and go to a European country," Ncube said. "My whole life, I've never seen 'Broken Hill Man'."

Skewed identity

The looting of artefacts over centuries robbed communities of their "archives" and "knowledge systems", said Samba Yonga, co-founder of the digital Museum of Women's History in Zambia.

"Our history predates colonization by millennia," she told AFP, but many people "don't even realize that we have a skewed sense of self and identity."

Reclaiming these objects would enable "a shift in how the next generation views their culture and identity," she said.

The same hope underpinned "Relooted", which was unveiled this month at Los Angeles's Summer Game Fest where it attracted a lot of interest from the diaspora and other Africans, Ncube said.

"I hope that the game encourages people from other African countries to want to tell their own stories and bring these things to light," she said.

One character felt personal for the producer: Professor Grace, Nomali's grandmother and described as "the brains behind the mission".

"I started seeing my own grandmother in her," Ncube said with emotion. "She represents a connection between our generations, fighting for the same thing we've always been fighting for."