Audrey Hepburn refused Anne Frank role due to personal trauma from Nazi occupation

A new biography, "Intimate Audrey," by her elder son Sean Hepburn Ferrer and co-author Wendy Holden, delves into the profound suffering Audrey Hepburn endured as a teenager under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. These harrowing childhood experiences left an indelible mark, shaping her life and leading her to refuse a role that could have defined her career: Anne Frank. During the war, the young Hepburn not only survived the infamous "Hunger Winter" but also witnessed the daily deportation of neighbors and friends, sights that seared themselves into her memory with enduring clarity. She recalled the "worst possible horror" of families with children being forced into cattle cars, a memory that haunted her and later inspired Steven Spielberg's recreation of a girl in a red coat in "Schindler's List."

Hebburn, born in the same year as Anne Frank, lived relatively close to her during the war. She encountered Frank's diary in 1946, finding the reading deeply disturbing. "She wrote everything I experienced and felt," Hepburn confided to her son, explaining that Frank's account of losing freedom, confinement, and the execution of innocent hostages, including her uncle Otto, felt like a personal replaying of the war. This profound identification with Frank's narrative was difficult for her mother to comprehend at the time.

The biography highlights that Hepburn's trauma extended beyond the psychological. She also suffered physically during the war. The profound impact of these experiences meant that when offered the role of Anne Frank, Hepburn felt she could not portray the character, as the fictional narrative so closely mirrored her own lived reality. The weight of these memories and her deep empathy for Frank's story made the prospect of acting out such a painful chapter of her past unbearable.

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Bio je to najgori mogući horor. Gledala sam obitelji s malom djecom, s bebama, kako ih trpaju u stočne vagone - vlakove velikih drvenih sanduka sa samo malim prorezom na vrhu kroz koji su provirivala sva ta lica. A na peronu su vojnici gurali nove židovske obitelji s njihovim siromašnim zavežljajima.