Born in Brussels, Belgium, Audrey Hepburn held British citizenship through her father and attended school in England. Her father left the family when she was six, and her mother, thinking it would be safer in the neutral country during WWII, returned with her to the Netherlands. Struggling to survive during this time, her name was changed to Edda Van Heemstra to hide her British heritage, she continued to attend school and studied ballet. After the war she studied acting, worked as a model and dancer, and in 1948 made her stage debut as a chorus girl in the musical High Button Shoes in London. At age 22 she went to New York where she starred in the Broadway production of Gigi. Two years later, she took the world by storm in the 1953 film Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck.
A passionate UNICEF ambassador, Audrey Hepburn died of colon cancer at the age of 63.
