THE NATIONAL Portrait Gallery is gearing up to celebrate one of the world’s most iconic stars in an exhibition next year.
Sixty-five years on from her performance there, Audrey Hepburn’s life will be documented in a series of historic photographs.
It may be one of her lesser known performances but for the young film star, the daughter of an Anglo-Irish father, it proved to be a career changing one.
Hepburn took to what was then called Ciro’s nightclub — now the public archives in the National Portrait Gallery — as a West End chorus girl in her early career.
It was there in Ciro’s where Hepburn was talent-spotted which led to some minor film roles, giving her a platform from which to launch her critically acclaimed career.
Terence Pepper is the curator of the exhibition.
“We had featured photographs of her in previous exhibitions but we’ve never done one of her on her own,” he explains. “It’s the 65th anniversary of her performance in the club so it was the perfect time.”
The collection of 60 photographs details her early life through to her jobs as a dancer, model and eventually full-time actress.
Each photograph is, Terence says, one the gallery considered important portraits from her lengthy career.
Also included in the exhibition will be some of the iconic magazine covers she graced over the years.
Hepburn was born in Brussels in 1929 to an Anglo-Irish father and a Dutch mother.
In 1948, she arrived on British shores and spent the formative years of her career in London before becoming an international superstar.
Among her most famous roles are Eliza Doolittle in 1964’s My Fair Lady and her career-defining portrayal of Holly Golightly in 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
The exhibition opens in July next year.
