Audrey Hepburn was a 24-year-old waif (born this day, May 4, in 1929) who made a good impression in Hollywood and on the stage but had yet to solidify her fame. She had only had one major film role—in 1953’s Roman Holiday—when photographer Mark Shaw spent a day with her. Director Billy Wilder, and others worried that she was neither a sex goddess or the girl next door.
Shaw produced this spread for Life magazine (the People of its day) including these lost outtakes seen here. In it you can see she was focused on her workaday life. She got up early for work, went to the studio, got ready to film Sabrina, practiced ballet and got ready for another day of work. The day was a good subject for a photo essay, Life noted,
“not because there is anything so remarkable about it but because whatever Audrey does, she looks pretty remarkable doing it.”
In the decades that followed the release of Sabrina, Hepburn has become one of the 20th century’s most iconic stars, just as Shaw predicted. At the beginning of the issue, he commented that she was a “monster” when it came to productivity and that the studio technicians who worked with her said that she would have a long and illustrious career. They told Shaw,
“We can tell when someone has got it.”
She had “it” for sure.
(T/Y Tad; Photos, Mark Shaw; via Time)