Description
Why should Audrey Hepburn matter today? This lively and engaging book revises the contemporary view of Hepburn that sees her primarily as a fashion icon and style guru, frozen in images from Breakfast at Tiffany''s and My Fair Lady. Author Steven Cohan argues that her films, more than her biography or her likeness in stock images and magazine photos, are essential to understanding both her importance as one of the all-time major stars to emerge in Hollywood after World War II and her lasting fame in the 21st century. On Audrey Hepburn examines the key elements--her expressive face, her distinctive voice, her unorthodox body-that contributed to her persona and led to her charismatic presence onscreen. While pointing to the many contradictions inhering in her star image, Cohan emphasizes the liminality Hepburn represented, demonstrating how her characters'' mischief, intelligence, and desiring supplied the primary motor for the Cinderella plots, resisted the films'' patriarchal template
