I found this book rather difficult to rate. On one hand, I thought the author's style was a bit dull and lacking in excitement. It didn't really engage me in the way I had hoped. However, when we look at the overall picture, Audrey Hepburn had an incredibly interesting life. She was not your typical actress. Oh yes, she had her fair share of love affairs and bad marriages, and she made both good and bad movies. But what set her apart was her upbringing during World War II in Europe. She didn't have a glamorous 'jet set' lifestyle. Instead, she lived in many different places and the majority of her movies were made in Europe. She seemed like a very kind and gentle person, perhaps a bit insecure about her life and feeling that she didn't deserve the stardom that came her way. What really impressed me the most was how much she gave and worked for UNICEF. Her dedication to helping children in need was truly remarkable and something that I will always remember.

It was a truly boring experience.

I found myself sitting there, feeling completely unengaged and uninterested.

There was nothing exciting or stimulating happening around me.

The minutes seemed to pass by slowly, as if time had come to a standstill.

I tried to find something to do to pass the time, but everything I thought of seemed equally dull.

I couldn't wait for this boring situation to end.

I was sorry that I had to endure such a lackluster moment.

Maybe next time, things will be more interesting and engaging.

But for now, all I could do was sit and wait for the boredom to subside.

I have always had a profound love for Audrey Hepburn. However, I was not overly impressed with this particular book about her.

The author seemed to convey the impression that she was never happy. Whether this was indeed the case or not, only Audrey herself would truly know for certain.

For the majority of this book, the author concentrated on the Hollywood movie-making aspect rather than on Audrey herself. I had the distinct feeling that she got lost in the chaos and shuffle of a book that was ostensibly supposed to be about her.

It was somewhat disappointing to see that the focus was not more centered on Audrey's life, her experiences, and her true essence. Instead, it seemed to be more about the glitz and glamour of the Hollywood industry in which she was a part.

I had hoped for a more in-depth exploration of Audrey Hepburn, but unfortunately, this book did not quite meet my expectations.

I have an intense love for Audrey Hepburn ❤. However, I find myself in agreement with other reviewers of this particular book. At a certain point, it gives the distinct impression of being more like film criticism rather than a traditional biography. There is one specific thing that truly irked me. Spoto's statement that Audrey played "a primitive" in the movie Green Mansions. A "primitive"? Well, that is just rather (extremely) racist.

I had hoped to read more in-depth about her remarkable work with UNICEF. Nevertheless, I did really enjoy the chapters that delved into her early life. Those chapters provided valuable insights into her later attitude towards fame, her career, and her overall life. I also liked the photographs that were chosen. They are lesser-known images of Audrey that beautifully complement every aspect of her life that is covered in the book. That being said, however, as the book progressed, it unfortunately became a chore to read. I craved more of Audrey's own thoughts and words and less of Spoto's opinions and his ranking of her movies and co-stars.

It's a bit of a disappointment because Audrey Hepburn is such an iconic figure, and I was hoping for a more comprehensive and personal account of her life.

The image of Audrey Hepburn has endured through time as an icon of beauty and elegance, perhaps more prominent than her on-screen portrayals.

However, behind the image of the stunning woman was a girl who had always desired to have a happy family. Abandoned by her father, she lived with her mother who was strict and demanding and didn't know how to express the love she felt for her daughter.

Audrey survived the brutality of World War II but suffered physical after-effects due to the long period of hunger. It was then, in her adolescence, that her determination to help the most helpless began.

The years of success in Hollywood did not lure her into a life of glamour. She preferred to retreat to Switzerland whenever possible.

Amidst her cinematic successes, she raised two sons, endured hurts, betrayals, and shattered dreams.

She stepped away from the cinema and joined Unicef as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund. It was the calling of a lifetime. She used her status for the benefit of the most disadvantaged, especially children. Sadly, five years later, she was diagnosed with cancer and passed away at her home in Switzerland, where she is also buried. Twenty-five thousand people filled the streets of the town to attend her funeral.

The 5* that I gave to this book are not only for the work of the author but especially in memory of the woman behind the actress; an altruistic human being who deserved to have had more happy moments.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed delving into the details of Audrey's early life, her captivating romances, her remarkable movies, and her noble work with UNICEF, I couldn't help but notice that the author seemed to devote a significant portion of the book to the production of the movies. It was as if the interworkings of movie producers, directors, and production companies took center stage.

This focus on the movie production side provided an interesting perspective, but at times, I felt that it overshadowed other aspects of Audrey's life that I was equally eager to learn more about. I would have loved to have seen a more balanced exploration of all the different facets of her extraordinary journey.

Nonetheless, the information presented about the movie industry was still valuable and added depth to the overall narrative. It gave me a better understanding of the complex processes and personalities involved in bringing Audrey's iconic movies to the big screen.

“Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn” steps into a crowded arena. Barry Paris's comprehensive “Audrey Hepburn” emerged in 1996, Alexander Walker's perceptive “Audrey” in 1994, and Diana Maychick's chatty “intimate portrait” in 1993 – just to name a few of Donald Spoto's predecessors. At this juncture, the impatient reviewer might be inclined to gripe, “Do we truly need yet another biography of Audrey Hepburn?”

This is nearly always the wrong query. Biography, by its very essence, is incomplete. It is a genre like Rashomon, especially when movie sets are involved and conflicting versions of events multiply rapidly. Mr. Spoto, the author of over a dozen biographies, is well-versed in this problem of proliferation. He seems to rely judiciously on the work of previous biographers, correcting their mistakes, offering some original film criticism, revealing one major new story about his subject, and writing with an incisive elegance that places him near the top of his class.

To assess Mr. Spoto's merits, I compared his account of “Sabrina,” the romantic comedy where William Holden and Humphrey Bogart vie for Audrey Hepburn's hand, to other competing versions. As in other Hepburn biographies, Mr. Spoto's Bogart plays the offscreen villain. At 54, he looked 65, “weathered and dyspeptic and ill with the first symptoms of the cancer that would claim his life four years later.” Next to the handsome 35-year-old Holden, how could Bogart possibly win the girl?

This question troubles Mr. Spoto far more than other biographers. Even though reviewers have praised Bogart's performance, Mr. Spoto insists he was dreadfully miscast in a role originally intended for Cary Grant, who dropped out because at 50 he felt too old to play opposite the 24-year-old Hepburn. Yet, as Mr. Spoto notes, the following year Grant was triumphant in Alfred Hitchcock's “To Catch a Thief,” playing opposite Grace Kelly, who was precisely Hepburn's age.

Mr. Spoto portrays a sullen Bogart who envied Holden and Hepburn, rising stars and lovers during the film shoot. According to Bogart's agent, Irving Lazar, Bogart also expected Billy Wilder to humble himself, but “on a Billy Wilder picture, there is no star but Billy Wilder.” The director chose to socialize with Holden and Hepburn, increasing Bogart's animosity towards everyone, including the film's writers. In the Spoto scenario, Hepburn remains coolly professional and diplomatic when Bogart baits her. Other biographers depict a stalwart Holden protecting a terrified or cautious Hepburn.

Several aspects of Mr. Spoto's account gave me pause. Why would Bogart take a Cary Grant role? Why would he compete with Holden, with whom he had had a difficult time on an earlier film? Was Bogart really already suffering from cancer? Why would Bogart do a Wilder film when the director was infamous for his sharp tongue and autocratic ways?

To answer these questions, I had to consult not only other Hepburn biographies but also those about Grant, Bogart, Wilder, and Holden – and even then, certain mysteries persist. Marc Eliot in “Cary Grant” (2004) makes it abundantly clear that the actor could not abide Wilder. On the other hand, several Wilder biographers note that Bogart and Wilder had been friends before “Sabrina,” and Bogart did not even bother to read the script, telling Wilder he would just shake on it and trust that the director would take care of him. When Wilder明显 began to snub Bogart, the actor took his nasty revenge – at one point even calling the Jewish Wilder (who had lost family during the Holocaust) a Nazi.

No biographer seems to have considered the possibility that Bogart felt competitive, perhaps wanting to prove that he could excel in a role meant for Grant. Even if Bogart had not read the script, it is hard to believe that he did not have a general idea of what the film was about, especially since it was based on a successful Broadway play. Despite Mr. Spoto's view, several biographers and critics have lauded Bogart's performance, suggesting he gave the role a depth and color beyond Grant's capabilities.

There is no credible evidence that Bogart was already suffering from cancer, although other biographers also offer the same overreaching explanation for his behavior. He may have been peeved at being Wilder's second choice, but then why do the film at all?

I emailed Jeffrey Meyers, a Bogart biographer, who responded: “Wilder, rather desperate, persuaded Bogart. And Swifty Lazar, who thought his [Bogart's] career would be enhanced if he could play high comedy, also talked him into it. Wilder later felt he did it mainly for the money.” Bogart received $300,000, more than Hepburn's and Holden's salaries combined.

Perhaps Mr. Spoto should have done a bit more sifting through the evidence. Economy of phrasing is a virtue, but not at the expense of doing less than full justice to events.

Now for the one major new story that other biographers might have noticed since it was right under their noses. Mr. Spoto does not boast about his fresh material, perhaps because Robert Anderson, a playwright and screenwriter who had an affair with Audrey Hepburn and wrote about it in his novel, “After” (1973), provided it to him.

Whenever writers associate with actors, look at the writer's work. It astonishes me that no biographer before Mr. Spoto followed this fundamental rule. So accurate is Mr. Anderson's novel that Mr. Spoto often prefers to quote from it rather than from Anderson's testimony about Hepburn: “The first thing you noticed was ‘style.' She was tall and slender and held herself beautifully, almost like a dancer. Her dark hair was worn in her own particular style, not the style of the day... I saw her large dark eyes... The entire effect of her was striking. She had style, dedication, real excitement.”

Audrey Hepburn was unlike any other star of her era – nothing like Ava Gardner or Elizabeth Taylor or Marilyn Monroe. She would have been the first to admit she had little acting technique. But she had been trained as a ballet dancer, and it was a delight just to watch her move. She brought intensity and elegance to every role she undertook, and the same dedication she would later show when she became UNICEF's “ambassador-at-large.”

Anderson's novel and his conversations with Mr. Spoto make this book. When Mr. Anderson speaks to Mr. Spoto, we get a sense of both the everyday Audrey and her allure: “She was a very tidy girl” who cleaned up Mr. Anderson's kitchen, and she was “sad – beautiful and sad and romantic.” Hepburn, a young girl in Nazi-occupied Holland, nearly starved during the war, escaped from a truck transporting children to a Nazi camp, and endured an unhappy marriage and a spreading cancer that ultimately took her life.

This graceful, indomitable figure captivated William Holden, who never ceased regretting her loss (she ended their romance when she learned his vasectomy, then irreversible, meant he could not father children), and fascinated millions who gazed at her movies and photographs and emulated her exquisite taste in fashion.

What ultimately sets Hepburn apart is her sense of proportion. She never succumbed to star tantrums; she never overvalued her work. Consequently, her performances exhibit a degree of integrity and honesty seldom matched on the screen. To that Audrey Hepburn, Mr. Spoto is admirably loyal.

After reading the book "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" this year, I decided that I should read a biography of a movie diva and "Audrey" came just in time. I was very happy to get into the story, but I have to say that it left me with a bit of a meh feeling.

I liked the first part of the book, where the author tells about Audrey's childhood and youth, when the young girl had to experience very difficult times during World War II in Europe. And I also liked the last part of the book, where there was a chance to learn about the actress's life when she was no longer involved in movie projects, but dedicated her name and seemingly inexhaustible energy to charity, working for UNICEF – this part was inspiring and really had an emotional message that gave the reader a chance to learn about Audrey Hepburn as a person and made one think about how much innocent children in poor countries of the world suffer from the neglect and alcoholism of adults.

However, I have to say that the part of the book that was dedicated to the actress's career and was the largest part of the book was rather cold and I would even say dry. For example, it turns out that Audrey had five spontaneous abortions and one of her children was stillborn, and each of these heart-wrenching events and Audrey's emotional world was dedicated to just one clear line. Immediately turning back to the movie world.

I assume that if there is a closer relationship with Audrey Hepburn's films, then the part of the book where a lot of technical details are told about movie shootings, the "buying and selling" of actors and similar things, might seem engaging, but as I have seen, in my opinion, only "Breakfast at Tiffany's" did not particularly engage me in this part of the book.

Of course, one cannot expect that a biographical story that was born from the memories of others and research materials will be as emotional as a story that was born using diary materials or interviews with the person, but still, I wanted more "soul".

I recommend it to those who are interested not so much in Hepburn's personality, but in movie art itself.

This was some light reading for me after I took my master's degree comprehensive exams.

The author shows great admiration for his subject, Audrey Hepburn, and treats her sympathetically throughout the text. He maintains a respectful tone even when describing some of her more questionable habits. For instance, she seemed to have difficulties in not falling in love with other men while she was already married.

However, there are some不足之处 in the author's writing. Sometimes, his use of quotes from interviews with Hepburn or perhaps from her writing is inserted into the narrative in an awkward manner. As an academic, I am used to proper citing of sources, so I couldn't help but wonder where these quotations came from.

Moreover, the author has a tendency to find fault with nearly every movie Hepburn was in, often in ways that seem rather irrelevant. I found it quite laughable when he judged "Paris--When It Sizzles" to be a superior movie to "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

Nevertheless, the early chapters that detail Hepburn's experiences during WWII and the later chapters that describe her involvement with UNICEF beautifully showcase both the source and the results of her humanitarianism and kindness.

I've been delving deep into all the available materials about this iconic figure for my research related to my YA series, NO MORE GODDESSES. It's truly an enchanting exploration. Let's just say that I'm completely and utterly falling in love with Audrey. Her story is nothing short of amazing. It's like a beautiful tapestry woven with threads of determination, grace, and charm. Every aspect of her life and career seems to hold a certain allure that keeps drawing me in. From her early beginnings to her rise to stardom, there's a magic about Audrey that is simply irresistible. I can't wait to incorporate the essence of her into my work and share her captivating story with my readers.

Audrey Hepburn is someone I really like. I find her very beautiful and elegant. The most appropriate name that could be given to the book that tells about her would be "Elegance".

Although I really like the actress visually, I realized while reading the book that I haven't watched many of her movies and I know almost nothing about her life. Therefore, the book was full of interesting information for me. For example, I learned from this book that the famous actress's mother was a baroness. So that princess-like air must be coming from her genes :-)

It also really interested me that a woman who is seen as one of the beauty icons of the whole world doesn't think she is beautiful. While reading the sentences taken from her interviews, I saw that the actress had a serious self-confidence problem. In fact, at one point she says: "I never thought I was beautiful. I would have preferred to have a bit more chest. I wish my shoulders weren't so wide, my feet and my nose weren't so big."

It's sad that such a beautiful woman finds happiness in love so late. As our ancestors said, I guess beautiful people don't have luck. Although she was a complete love woman. She never had any greed in acting. The thing she wanted most in her life was a happy marriage and many children. When she lost her first child, in an interview she said: "It was the moment when I came closest to losing my mind."

There were many names of actors, screenwriters, producers, directors, etc. in the book. If the names of that period are known, the book will be read with more pleasure.

At the end of the book, there are examples from the actress's photographs. The printing of this section on glossy paper has increased the quality of the book.

As beautiful as she is, she is also sensitive and talented. She was nominated for the Oscar twice at the age of 25 and won one. For those who want to get to know this actress closely, Elegance is a great opportunity.

Footnote: In the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's, the author of the book on which the film was based, Truman Capote, wanted Marilyn Monroe for the role, but Audrey Hepburn took the role. I think it was very good. What do you think?

You can read my detailed review on my blog: https://suleuzundere.blogspot.com/201...

It's Audrey Hepburn, so naturally, it was great.

I truly adored how closely this work adhered to her films and the time she spent on those sets. The details were captivating, and it gave a wonderful insight into the behind-the-scenes world of her cinematic masterpieces.

I especially cherished the parts dedicated to The Nun Story. It was so fascinating that it has now inspired me to rewatch that particular film.

However, I do have a slight wish. I would have liked it to follow her private life a bit more closely. At times, it felt rather impersonal and seemed to present only a public perspective, as if saying, "This is how it was from the public eye."

Nonetheless, despite this minor drawback, it was a lovely piece and is absolutely perfect for any die-hard Hepburn fans out there. It offers a unique and engaging look into the life and career of this iconic actress.