Bob Willoughby: Audrey Hepburn, Photographs 1953-1966

Our Fair Lady: The many facets of Hepburn's beauty, on and off set In his distinguished career as a Hollywood photographer, Bob Willoughby captured Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda, but remains unequivocal about his favorite subject: Audrey Kathleen Ruston, later Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston, best known as Audrey Hepburn. Willoughby was called in to shoot the new starlet one morning shortly after she arrived in Hollywood in 1953. It was a humdrum commission for the portraitist often credited with having perfected the photojournalistic movie still, but when he met the Belgian-born beauty, Willoughby was enraptured. She took my hand like well a princess, and dazzled me with that smile that God designed to melt mortal men s hearts, he recalled. As Hepburn s career soared following her Oscar-winning US debut in Roman Holiday, Willoughby became a trusted friend, framing her working and home life. His historic, perfectionist, tender photographs seek out the many facets of Hepburn s beauty and elegance, as she progresses from her debut to her career high of My Fair Lady in 1963. Willoughby s studies, showing her on set, preparing for a scene, interacting with actors and directors, and returning to her private life, comprise one of photography s great platonic love affairs and an unrivalled record of one of the 20th century s touchstone beauties. Text in English, French, and German