Audrey Hepburn's Real Name: Audrey Kathleen Ruston

Quick answer: Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929, in Brussels, Belgium. "Hepburn" came from her father, who later adopted the surname Hepburn-Ruston. She won the best actress Academy Award for Roman Holiday (1953), starred in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and later became a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. She died on January 20, 1993, in Tolochenaz, Switzerland (Library of Congress; Britannica).

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority files her as "Hepburn, Audrey, 1929-1993," lists "Ruston, Audrey" as a variant, and cites "b. Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium; d. Jan. 20, 1993 in Tolochenaz, Switzerland." Britannica says her parents were Dutch baroness Ella van Heemstra and Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston. Ruston later adopted the more aristocratic-sounding surname Hepburn-Ruston because he believed he descended from James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell.

She held British citizenship through her father and went to school in England. Her father left the family when she was six. In 1939 her mother took her to the Netherlands, believing that neutral country would be safer. Britannica says she endured hardship there under Nazi occupation. During that time her mother temporarily called her "Edda van Heemstra" so her name would not reveal her British background. After the war she studied ballet in Amsterdam and London, modeled, danced, and took small film parts credited as Audrey Hepburn.

Career highlights

The novelist Colette chose her for the title role in the Broadway play Gigi, which opened in 1951. Roman Holiday, opposite Gregory Peck, won her the Oscar. She then won a Tony Award for Ondine (1954) with Mel Ferrer, whom she married that year. That was her last Broadway role. Films included Sabrina (1954), which began her association with designer Hubert de Givenchy, War and Peace, Funny Face, and The Nun's Story.

In the 1960s she played Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's, starred with Cary Grant in Charade (1963), and played Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964). Some viewers felt the role belonged to stage star Julie Andrews. After Two for the Road and Wait Until Dark (both 1967), she divorced Ferrer in 1968, married an Italian psychiatrist, and largely stepped away from acting until Robin and Marian (1976).

From 1988 she worked as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador and visited famine-stricken areas of Latin America, Africa, and Asia until shortly before her death from cancer. The Academy awarded her the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award after her death in 1993.

Name notes for searchers

Ruston was her birth surname, and "Hepburn" came from her father's later double surname, Hepburn-Ruston. "Edda van Heemstra" was a wartime name her mother used for safety. Library catalogs use Hepburn, her screen surname, as the main heading.