Iremember Seeing a Photo of Her Jumping on a Trampoline. I
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he frst images I have of her are, interestingly enough, when she was quite young,” Emma Ferrer says of her paternal grandmother, Audrey Hepburn. “I remember seeing a photo of her jumping on a trampoline—I believe this was before I understood that she was famous. But I remember thinking that she looked like a friend I wish I could have had.” Of course, Audrey Hepburn—or simply Audrey, as she will forever be known—has always been a luminous pres- ence: She was a brilliant actress, a timeless style icon, and a tireless crusader for the world’s underprivileged children as an International Goodwill AmbassadorT for UNICEF. She was also a devoted mother who put aside her career at its peak to raise her two sons, Sean Ferrer, whose father was Audrey’s frst husband, the actor Mel Ferrer, and Luca Dotti, from her second marriage (to the Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti). One thing that Audrey never had the chance to do, though, was enjoy the experience of being a grandmother. In late 1992, she fell ill during a UNICEF trip to Somalia and died a few months later, in January 1993, of a rare form remember seeing a photo of abdominal cancer. of her jumpingI on a trampoline. Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer, Audrey’s frst grandchild, was born in Switzerland in May of the following year to Sean and his then wife, Leila. I remember thinking that she looked Now 20, Emma is the eldest of Sean’s three children and spent most of her adolescence in and around Florence, Italy, where Sean, who runs an agency like a friend I wish that deals with intellectual property and is also a flmmaker and keeper of the Audrey fame, lives outside the city. (Luca, his wife, and their daughters I could have had.” occupy his mother’s former apartment in Rome.) “Muse” is an overused word these days, but that’s exactly what Audrey was for the legendary photographer Richard Avedon. She was, in a word, his inspiration, and their interaction played out over a number of years in the 1950s in the pages of Harper’s Bazaar. Avedon photographed Audrey on the streets of Paris, in fashion stories, and several times as a cover subject for the magazine. Even though he worked with some of the biggest models of all time—Suzy Parker, Dorian Leigh, Carmen Dell’Orefce—he was completely enamored with Audrey as a subject, and she loved sitting for him. Avedon, of course, was memorably fctionalized in the 1957 movie Funny Face. Though he didn’t appear in the flm, he served as an adviser. The part of the photographer, Dick Avery, was played by Fred Astaire. Audrey was cast as Avery’s muse—the mousy but promising bookstore clerk who, under his tutelage, blossoms into a glorious supermodel in Paris. I met Emma in Florence on a Monday in late June, but the week before, she sat for the photo shoot that produced the images you see here. In what might be considered life imitating art—or, perhaps, art imitating art—the man behind the lens was none other than Avedon’s 23-year-old grandson, Michael, now himself a young photographer, much like Dick was when he frst shot Audrey. Today Emma is four years younger than Audrey was when she appeared in 1953’s Roman Holiday, a breakout per- formance for which she won an Oscar. Emma herself has no designs on acting, though, like her grandmother, she has She’s got the studied ballet. Instead, Emma’s heart is set on becoming an artist. To that end, she is entering her third year as a student moves. THIS PAGE: of the Florence Academy of Art. Top and pants, Max Mara. As anyone who has been there knows, Florence is the sine qua non of Italian cities: the birthplace of the Renaissance, Earrings, Tifany & the center of art and culture, the home of the Medicis and of Dante Alighieri, and, not incidentally, the original Co. Scarf, Lanvin. base for the fashion houses of Gucci, Pucci, Cavalli, and Ferragamo. Florence looks remarkably as it did during the Shoes, Church’s. 15th century, the enormous cathedral, its dome engineered by Brunelleschi, dominating the cityscape. Michelangelo’s OPPOSITE PAGE: David has resided in the Accademia Gallery since 1873. Where better for an art student to study? Gown, Lanvin. Earrings, Tifany & Sean reminded me that I’d met Emma before, in May 2003. She was only nine at the time. I was then editor in chief Co. Shoes, of To w n & C o u n t r y, and we’d just done an entire issue on Audrey, accompanied by a special exhibition at Sotheby’s, Manolo Blahnik. timed to the 10th anniversary of her death. But when Emma walked through the front door of the hotel where I was ➤ 612 hen I watched staying, the Portrait, I recognized her instantly. First there was her gait—she fairly foated. Then I noticed the unmistakable, graceful posture of a dancer. Though Breakfast W at Tiffany’s, she is not her grandmother’s doppelgänger, there are defnite similarities—the arched brows, the almond eyes, the long lashes, the full mouth, the radiant smile. I enjoyed it the same way And like Audrey, Emma is tall, with the legs and bearing of a gazelle. any young girl would.” Before Emma and I got together, I visited the new Gucci Museo in Piazza della Signoria. There, amid the vintage handbags, apparel, and shoes was a framed photograph of her grandmother taken in the 1960s. Later, while waiting for Emma in the lobby of the Portrait, I spotted two books on display: Audrey a Roma, based on an exhibition that Luca had curated documenting her years in Rome, and Audrey 100, a volume consisting of 100 images of Audrey chosen by the family, by everyone from Philippe Halsman to Mel Ferrer. Clearly, Audrey was in the Florentine air. For the better part of the next two days, Emma and I did what we both love to do in Florence: We wandered the streets—some glutted with tourists, others positively deserted—and took in the scenery. We had lunch at the Trat- toria La Casalinga, walked to Via Tornabuoni, Florence’s Rue du Faubourg, and popped into the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, housed in Palazzo Spini Feroni. Dedicated to the works of the founder of Ferragamo, the museum has on display an array of wooden foot molds designed for the brand’s most renowned clients. On one row hang the lasts of Gloria Swanson, Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, and, naturally, Audrey. mma was born in Morges and spent her frst year at La Paisible, the Hepburn family’s country house in the Swiss village of Tolochenaz, near Lausanne, where in her later life Audrey lived with (though never married) the Dutch-born investor and former actor Robert Wolders. When Emma was two, Sean and Leila relocated with her to Los Angeles. Even as a child she liked to draw. She also took art and ballet classes and attended Crossroads, the private arts school. “Growing up there felt entirely normal, since I was only a child,” Emma recalls, although she admits that had she remained in L.A., she might well have become that dreaded Hollywood brat. “I know kids who had to go into rehab,” she tells me. “It’s only now that I realize certain elements of a Hollywood lifestyle are, in fact, not entirely healthy.” Sean and Leila divorced when she was six. At 14, Emma moved with Leila to Florence, mostly so Emma could be closer to Sean, who had settled in the Tuscan countryside. (Leila has since returned to L.A.) Sean remembers Emma as “a sunny child, always looking for something new to keep her interested,” and because of her parents’ breakup, probably mature beyond her years. E As we walked and talked, Emma spoke of the deep impression that art school had made on her. “I always drew and liked to take art lessons,” she explained, “but I needed intellectual skills to learn about balance and structure.” She showed me some of her drawings on her iPhone: charcoal portraits and sketches of human fgures and plaster casts, all done from life. She listed some of the painters she admired—Rembrandt, Titian, Velázquez, and Zurbarán—and talked about learning to imitate the work of other artists. “At frst I resisted the process of copying because I felt it wasn’t original,” she says. “But the truth is, I drew in a very naive way.” The conversation inevitably leads to the subject of Audrey. “I still have that image of her on the trampoline very clearly in my mind—strangely enough, a lot more clear in ways than images that I see of her every day in shopwindows,” says Emma. “I’ve been questioning a lot lately what she means to me. I knew her image, of course, and that I happened to be, by pure chance, related to her. But as a child I couldn’t really relate to Audrey Hepburn, the actress. To me, she was family. I can live with her through my father. His stories are all about his growing up. But honestly, I haven’t seen all of her movies. When I watched Breakfast at Tifany’s, I enjoyed it the same way any young girl would. I’ve seen My Fair Lady and Roman Holiday, but I suppose my favorite is Funny Face.” I suggested that we fnd a way to watch an Audrey Hepburn movie together.