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American Morning
"Audrey, An Intimate Collection" Will be Issued For First Time in U.S.
Aired May 06, 2002 - 08:48 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The late actress Audrey Hepburn will always be remembered for her great screen roles "Holly Go Lightly (ph)" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Eliza Doolittle" and "My Fair Lady." But today, she's being remembered for perhaps her greatest role of all. That is a special ambassador for the United Nations Children Fund. And UNICEF unveils a statue of Audrey Hepburn today at its New York headquarters to honor her for her tireless efforts on behalf of the fund, from 1987 to her death in 1993.
The public fascination with Hepburn began nearly half a century ago with her American screen debut in "Roman Holiday" in 1953.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUDREY HEPBURN, ACTRESS: Don't you just love it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Love what?
HEPBURN: Tiffany's.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: And continued long after a career that included more than 30 films.
Later this month, a book of photographs, "Audrey, An Intimate Collection," will be issued for the first time in the United States. Renowned Hollywood photographer Bob Willoughby, who did much of the still photography on many of Hepburn's films, and he joins us now.
Good morning, Bob. Good to see you.
BOB WILLOUGHBY, PHOTOGRAPHER: Thank you for letting me be here.
ZAHN: Our pleasure.
So you met Audrey when she was about 24 years old, and we're going to show pictures of her from that moment of time, "Roman Holiday" and you can describe to us what you see. She was so beautiful. What do you remember about meeting her for the first time? And we'll roll through these, so people can see as many of these pictures as possible. WILLOUGHBY: This was at Paramount studios, and she came to do the Hollywood publicity after she made the film. And it was -- I had never seen her before. My agent said, go and photograph this young starlet, she is maybe going to be hot after being in this film. But no one had ever seen her before. And she was -- every one had a reaction to her. She had a style that is hard to describe. She was like a princess, so people gave her that feeling.
ZAHN: She was strong.
WILLOUGHBY: Yeah, but also -- you know, there's something about -- Audrey had an amazing ability to look at somebody and make them feel that that was the only person that she cared about, and you just felt warm inside. Amazing.
ZAHN: Let's fast forward to "Green Mansions," which was the time you hooked up with her professionally.
WILLOUGHBY: '58, yeah.
ZAHN: We'll show some pictures from that period of time now, and you were the still photographer on that job at that time.
WILLOUGHBY: Well, I was the magazine photographer. They always had a still photographer on. But I see you have the picture of her with Ip, the little deer. And this is to get the deer to follow her, she had to live with the deer. When I heard this, I thought, that's a great story, and photographed her in Beverly Hills with the deer, doing all these different things. Here, you see her shopping at Gelson's (ph) market in Beverly Hills, and the deer, it just was attached.
But Audrey had a very interesting quality of calmness that animals on that film really related to. This deer thought it was -- Audrey was its mother. I mean, it was amazing to see.
ZAHN: Not only in Hollywood would you not see 100 people standing why to watch this deer in the aisle way there.
Let's move on to "Paris When It Sizzles," tons of costume changes.
WILLOUGHBY: Oh, yes, mad, mad film. Great deal of fun. Audrey was at her most delicious best. I think if you see the book, you'll see she was -- I say in there that you could just wrap her up in a blanket and steal her away. A lot of people would like to have done that, I think.
This is "My Fair Lady."
And that's "Paris When It Sizzles" there, shooting the gun.
It was such an incredibly mixed up film that it was very hard to follow what the storyline was.
ZAHN: As long as everybody followed her, I guess it just didn't matter.
WILLOUGHBY: That's really what it was.
ZAHN: Let's come back to "My Fair Lady" for a moment, because we have a little bit of sound we'd like to share with the audience right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SINGING)
ZAHN: Now, this had to be a fun one, to watch the physical transformation from this little flower girl to the proper English woman.
WILLOUGHBY: Well, actually, to me, one of the real problems of Audrey was that when she was made up -- made down, really -- here, you see her with her little dog, Asum (ph), in the makeup room, the fact is, she was made as dirty as possible, but she always was Audrey. I mean, you may feel that she was the street urchin, but somewhere underneath, it was hard to disguise that quality that she has.
ZAHN: But she nailed this performance, though.
WILLOUGHBY: I don't think I've ever seen a bad movie with Audrey, I mean her performance. She was great.
ZAHN: And in the end, as we close off with some of these pictures, talk just briefly about how she looked at UNICEF, in that mission, as what defined her legacy in many ways.
WILLOUGHBY: I think this is literally, she sacrificed her life for what she felt about those children. I think the last time she went for UNICEF, it really -- she knew she was ill. I think this is the -- it was so -- it affected her so badly that I think it contributed to the end faster.
But her presence, she felt, had such a greater news worthiness that she continued. I was talking with the lady who went on all her travels with her, with UNICEF, and Audrey never was a strong person, and she was indomitable. She went through all the things. And if you know how she's affected by children being sick or starving...
ZAHN: You can see it in her face in those pictures.
WILLOUGHBY: Oh, yes. I mean, it just really -- she was such a human being, that the simple things like this, every little thing, affected her very, very much.
ZAHN: Well, thank you for letting us take a trip in your archives this morning.
WILLOUGHBY: It's a pleasure.
ZAHN: Congratulations on the book, and it's really quite beautiful. WILLOUGHBY: Thank you.
ZAHN: Once again, the name of it is "Audrey: An Intimate Collection," by Bob Willoughby.
WILLOUGHBY: Thank you.
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