Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston (known to her family as Adriaantje) in Belgium in 1929. Since you don’t automatically become a Belgian citizen by being born there, she inherited the nationality of her parents, a British father and Dutch mother. Her family moved to Britain, but when her father abandoned the family in 1935, her mother moved back to the Netherlands – then a neutral country. Her mother worried that an “English-sounding” name might be dangerous under Nazi occupation, so when Germany invaded, her mother changed Audrey’s name to “Edda” and her last name to “van Heemstra” (which was her maternal grandfather’s name and her mother’s maiden name).
When the war ended, Audrey moved to the United States, took up acting and won Best Actress Oscar for her role in Roman Holiday in 1953, followed by another Academy Award nomination for her performance in Sabrina in 1954. She went on to star in so many memorable movies such as Funny Face, Love in the Afternoon, Charade, My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (another Oscar nomination). She garnered yet another Oscar nomination for her 1967 performance in Wait Until Dark but ultimately retired from acting in the late 1980’s. In 1988, Audrey Hepburn became a special ambassador to the United Nations UNICEF fund, providing aid to children in Latin America and Africa, a role she continued to fulfill until passing away in 1993.