Education - the real elegance!

         May is a very special month. Besides the Mother's Day, Maypole tradition and other celebrations, it's also Audrey Hepburn's birthday, on May 4th.

The second sentence to describe her when you google for her is: "Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century."

 What else could I say? She is an icon and she will always be. Not only because she was a talented actress, but also due to the way she conducted her life and the exemplar attitudes that guided her life. Nobody is perfect and we know that, but it's perfectly possible to assert that some people can get very close to it. She was one of these people.

Although being beautiful can play a great role to became a legend, it takes much more than beauty to be an icon.

She was astonishing beautiful and her fascinating "magic" is that she was so polite and kind as she was beautiful.  The American Film Institute ranked her as the third greatest female screen legend in the history of America cinema. She inspired Givenchy and was inducted in the International Best Dresses List Hall of Fame. In the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (Bonequinha de Luxo), as in many others, she wears a very elegant outfit but her elegance was far beyond the character's wardrobe. Clothes can make you very well-dressed but they can't speak for you, they can't behave for you. It's necessary to fill the dress with grace, delicacy and lightness...in other words, to fill it with femininity, exactly like her. 

Waren G. Harris wrote her biography, a book which I strongly recommend - Audrey Hepburn - Uma Biografia, Editora Nova Fronteira. It's a very nice book to read, beautiful photos and for sure it helps to understand all the fascination that surrounded her while she was alive and that keeps on surrounded the icon that still lives. It's a great number of attitudes and facts that it's hard to explain and even if I tried I would have to write the longest post ever written! So, reading the book will make it easier!

But a point worth mentioning is her education, her politeness.  Her mother was a baroness but she didn't refuse to work menial jobs in order to support her and her daughter. That's dignity. For sure, good examples from her parents shaped her life and contributed to her human development. 

Due to her passion for humanitarian work, she worked as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in Africa, South America and Asia.

Audrey died in 1993, at her home in Switzerland, aged 63 and with her beloved ones. 

She went away but left a great lesson behind: education is the real elegance! What about you, is there anyone you admire? What has this person done (or did) that, in your opinion, makes her/his a very special person? How and where did you get the information about this person? Answer the questions and add a photo of the person you decided to write about.