On this day in 1929, Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston–who will one day be better known to legions of film fans as Audrey Hepburn–is born near Brussels, Belgium. The daughter of an English banker and a Dutch baroness, Hepburn was attending school in London when World War II erupted in Europe. During the war, the Nazis occupied Holland, where the young Audrey and her mother were staying, and the family suffered many hardships. Hepburn continued to pursue her ballet studies, and at war’s end, she returned to London, where she modeled and began acting in small parts on stage and screen. In 1951, Hepburn was “discovered” by the French writer Colette while in Monaco shooting a film. Colette insisted Hepburn be cast in the title role of the Broadway version of her novel Gigi, and the young actress made her Broadway debut that same year.
