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Audrey: The Girl Before The Girl
In 1953, the world watched as a star was born.
Audrey Hepburn became an instant Hollywood icon whose style and talent instantly captured the public's imagination. In the ensuing decades, she has gone on to become one of Hollywood's most enduring legends. But many are unaware of the story leading up to her introduction to the world; a tale of survival, of tragedy, and the triumph of the human spirit.
The life of Audrey Hepburn began not upon the screen, but in a small corner of Europe, and under the wing of a family that was to see their world torn apart by the storm of war, and by the legacy of a dark family secret. In Audrey: The Girl Before The Girl, hear the incredible true-life story of Hollywood's most resilient and iconic survivor, and of the sometimes unbelievable childhood that shaped her.
As an Audio Show - free to members - when you add Audrey: The Girl Before The Girl to your library, you'll get all 15 episodes, with runtimes varying from between 25-45 minutes.
(Taken From The Audible App/Website)
Audrey Hepburn became an instant Hollywood icon whose style and talent instantly captured the public's imagination. In the ensuing decades, she has gone on to become one of Hollywood's most enduring legends. But many are unaware of the story leading up to her introduction to the world; a tale of survival, of tragedy, and the triumph of the human spirit.
The life of Audrey Hepburn began not upon the screen, but in a small corner of Europe, and under the wing of a family that was to see their world torn apart by the storm of war, and by the legacy of a dark family secret. In Audrey: The Girl Before The Girl, hear the incredible true-life story of Hollywood's most resilient and iconic survivor, and of the sometimes unbelievable childhood that shaped her.
As an Audio Show - free to members - when you add Audrey: The Girl Before The Girl to your library, you'll get all 15 episodes, with runtimes varying from between 25-45 minutes.
(Taken From The Audible App/Website)
Audible Audio
First published August 1, 2018
4 people are currently reading
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 26, 2021
This is an amazing look at Audrey Hepburns childhood, and youth leading up to her worldwide acclaim. Audrey Hepburn has always been a cultural icon and I was aware that she was involved in charitable works later in her life. Having now learned about the foundations that lead up to this I am in no way surprised that she lent her fame to causes that must have been so close to her heart. Unlike Adam Roche's previous podcast this sometimes almost veer into fictional history but people's words are probably based on documentaion and anecdotal evidence. Always engaging and so the story so heart breaking and compelling this is a must listen.
January 25, 2019
The way the audio series is recorded is more similar to a show, breathing life into the events that are narrated. I've listened them breathlessly. It is a partial biography of Audrey up until she becomes famous and gets the Oscar prize. It is a story about family, war, famine, broken dreams, ballet failings; the silver lining across the story is that eternal longing for her father and also the contrast between her tenacity and the delicate physical aspect. Very educative, mesmerizing even- like a history chapter gracefully narrated by your favorite teacher.
January 1, 2019
All I knew about Audrey Hepburn was her film career and her work with UNICEF. I remember her death and the fact that Roger Moore was called upon most to discuss his dear friend. Now that I have listened to this, I feel I know Audrey like a sister. She was a lovely girl, deeply in love with her unconventional father and devoted to her mother, a proper Baroness oh Holland. She also doted on her grandfather, the Baron, and her older half brothers. And most of all, she wanted to be a ballerina. But Germany took away so much from this girl. Their family fared better than some but the risks they took meant that they didn't all make it. That she was able to take the negative and turn it to positive through hard work is miraculous.
But this audiostory is so much more than just Audrey. Interspaced are stories of individual family members, family friends and even those not specifically related, such as the tragic story of Franceska Mann. The best anecdote was when Audrey met David and Hjördis Niven. I don't want to ruin it for you so do listen. I am glad I took the time to listen, not hard because I am laid up with pneumonia, but it's good to have a story that encourages the brain when the rest of me can't move. (PS, Don't feel too bad for me. I have difficult asthma and pneumonia come every 6 months or so. I am not asking for sympathy, just a note that I am glad I have discovered Audible for when reading is difficult.) 😊
But this audiostory is so much more than just Audrey. Interspaced are stories of individual family members, family friends and even those not specifically related, such as the tragic story of Franceska Mann. The best anecdote was when Audrey met David and Hjördis Niven. I don't want to ruin it for you so do listen. I am glad I took the time to listen, not hard because I am laid up with pneumonia, but it's good to have a story that encourages the brain when the rest of me can't move. (PS, Don't feel too bad for me. I have difficult asthma and pneumonia come every 6 months or so. I am not asking for sympathy, just a note that I am glad I have discovered Audible for when reading is difficult.) 😊
September 14, 2018
Beautiful, emotive and compelling story of one of Hollywood's best known actresses. The story charts her childhood under Nazi occupation and tells the story in a linear way that is easy to follow in 15 episodes. Apart from a few wild tangents that eventually made sense this audio series was amazing and like I said incredible emotive due to the subject matter of the Holocaust especially of Dutch Jews as this is where Audrey was based in the war years. Due to this trigger warning for Holocaust subject however I do think this is vitally important not just to recognise the persecution of the Jews but also of other sectors of the Dutch community. Beautifully crafted real life story of how a war shaped a person's future. Truly Amazing!
November 19, 2018
This audiobook was an absolute chore to get through. I’m a recent convert to appreciating audiobooks but now that I’ve dipped my toes in the water it’s safe to say that I’ve caught the bug. I look forward to my next credit every month.
The only ‘Audible Show’ I’d listened to prior to this was Jon Ronson’s The Butterfly Effect but that was only because I am a complete fanboy of Ronson (not that my profile pic would give you that impression). After finishing A History of Magic and having a couple of weeks for my next credit on the site I downloaded most of the free shows and decided that a documentary series about one of my favourite actresses would be a good investment of my time.
Much like Gemma Arterton in Quantum of Solace and Faye Dunaway in Network, I fell in love with Audrey Hepburn when I first saw Roman Holiday. She was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen. The fact that she had amazing performances in Wait Until Dark, Charade and of course Breakfast at Tiffany’s (as I recall me and my girlfriend both kind of liked it) only added to it, and I was overjoyed to read she was a wonderful person when not in front of the camera with humanitarian causes and an all-around pleasant demeanour.
The content of this audiobook is mixed. It’s fascinating to hear about Audrey’s life growing up and you can tell that a lot of effort has gone into commenting on a lot of the details that don’t necessarily receive attention in a standard biography. I also like that it focused on her time before her stardom and not her life after she had received her Oscar and Stardom. It’s easy to find the stories regarding her being an introvert playing an extrovert as Holly, but I don’t often see her pre-star days detailed.
The biggest issue I had with the content was the lack of focus. There are extended pieces where it will focus on the world around her, and long periods about Hitler, without coming back around to how it related to Audrey. I appreciate that the author perhaps wanted to take the opportunity to remind us of the horrors of the Holocaust, but surely that would have been more fitting in a piece about the Holocaust itself. If Audrey had been in Auschwitz I would have understood it. It felt like padding the way it is presented though.
It was also inconsistent in tone. At times it will be written as a formal history textbook, the next it feels like a light-hearted comedy. If these were confined to separate parts of the book (ie formal history for the Holocaust related parts, light-hearted for romance) I could see it working but it changes so rapidly that it’s hard to readjust.
Some of the sections are written far more as a story than fact. At times I had to question whether or not I had put on the right audiobook as it was more an audio drama. The section that made me cringe was a section where Audrey is walking through a forest singing a nursery rhyme. This section took what could have been a tense part of the audiobook and made it tedious. If suspense was the bubble that was being blown, the author blew too much and popped the bubble.
I also disliked the narration. The person seemed to emphasis the wrong parts of sentences and it didn’t feel like someone was reading a book: it felt like it had been overly rehearsed. The performance was the biggest reason that my audio drama comment is a criticism: it isn’t very well done. Nowhere is this more apparent than the accents. Earlier on in the year I listened to Michael McIntyre’s audiobook and he gives a very distinct accent to his grandma. The audiobook is comedic in tone, so the exaggerated accent fits regardless of how accurate it is. This book on the other hand should have gotten alternate voice actors. Tone, sentence structure… they all came off as unnatural. As for sounding interested… the narrator varied from sounding bored to sounding aroused. It was a peculiar experience.
I’m giving it three stars because some of the content was interesting and, though I declared it was a chore, I did genuinely finish the book. Whether or not I would have listened to is in full if I wasn’t doing a lot of driving is a different question. I learned a bit but not necessarily about what I wanted to. Given the option I would sooner have read this in print than listened to it. I sincerely hope that if this is the narrator for other audiobooks from Amazon that he has significantly improved.
The only ‘Audible Show’ I’d listened to prior to this was Jon Ronson’s The Butterfly Effect but that was only because I am a complete fanboy of Ronson (not that my profile pic would give you that impression). After finishing A History of Magic and having a couple of weeks for my next credit on the site I downloaded most of the free shows and decided that a documentary series about one of my favourite actresses would be a good investment of my time.
Much like Gemma Arterton in Quantum of Solace and Faye Dunaway in Network, I fell in love with Audrey Hepburn when I first saw Roman Holiday. She was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen. The fact that she had amazing performances in Wait Until Dark, Charade and of course Breakfast at Tiffany’s (as I recall me and my girlfriend both kind of liked it) only added to it, and I was overjoyed to read she was a wonderful person when not in front of the camera with humanitarian causes and an all-around pleasant demeanour.
The content of this audiobook is mixed. It’s fascinating to hear about Audrey’s life growing up and you can tell that a lot of effort has gone into commenting on a lot of the details that don’t necessarily receive attention in a standard biography. I also like that it focused on her time before her stardom and not her life after she had received her Oscar and Stardom. It’s easy to find the stories regarding her being an introvert playing an extrovert as Holly, but I don’t often see her pre-star days detailed.
The biggest issue I had with the content was the lack of focus. There are extended pieces where it will focus on the world around her, and long periods about Hitler, without coming back around to how it related to Audrey. I appreciate that the author perhaps wanted to take the opportunity to remind us of the horrors of the Holocaust, but surely that would have been more fitting in a piece about the Holocaust itself. If Audrey had been in Auschwitz I would have understood it. It felt like padding the way it is presented though.
It was also inconsistent in tone. At times it will be written as a formal history textbook, the next it feels like a light-hearted comedy. If these were confined to separate parts of the book (ie formal history for the Holocaust related parts, light-hearted for romance) I could see it working but it changes so rapidly that it’s hard to readjust.
Some of the sections are written far more as a story than fact. At times I had to question whether or not I had put on the right audiobook as it was more an audio drama. The section that made me cringe was a section where Audrey is walking through a forest singing a nursery rhyme. This section took what could have been a tense part of the audiobook and made it tedious. If suspense was the bubble that was being blown, the author blew too much and popped the bubble.
I also disliked the narration. The person seemed to emphasis the wrong parts of sentences and it didn’t feel like someone was reading a book: it felt like it had been overly rehearsed. The performance was the biggest reason that my audio drama comment is a criticism: it isn’t very well done. Nowhere is this more apparent than the accents. Earlier on in the year I listened to Michael McIntyre’s audiobook and he gives a very distinct accent to his grandma. The audiobook is comedic in tone, so the exaggerated accent fits regardless of how accurate it is. This book on the other hand should have gotten alternate voice actors. Tone, sentence structure… they all came off as unnatural. As for sounding interested… the narrator varied from sounding bored to sounding aroused. It was a peculiar experience.
I’m giving it three stars because some of the content was interesting and, though I declared it was a chore, I did genuinely finish the book. Whether or not I would have listened to is in full if I wasn’t doing a lot of driving is a different question. I learned a bit but not necessarily about what I wanted to. Given the option I would sooner have read this in print than listened to it. I sincerely hope that if this is the narrator for other audiobooks from Amazon that he has significantly improved.
August 26, 2019
Amazing book. I knew very little about Audrey before the book. Only commonly known fact and of course admired her as an icon and legend. But what has made her the personality she was, what has lead her to choose the path and became who she was.
Very interesting story, she had lived tough times - her father had left them, she survived WWII, overcome the rejection and become one of the best known British actress.
Reading the book - I think could sense what she was feeling. And I had tears on my eyes reading the last part when her mum gave her a call just before the Academy award. “I never told you how much I admire you. I never seen such fearlessness in a person... you are the bravest person I ever known...”
And I know behind every great personality there are stories and tough work, which made them who they are.
Very interesting story, she had lived tough times - her father had left them, she survived WWII, overcome the rejection and become one of the best known British actress.
Reading the book - I think could sense what she was feeling. And I had tears on my eyes reading the last part when her mum gave her a call just before the Academy award. “I never told you how much I admire you. I never seen such fearlessness in a person... you are the bravest person I ever known...”
And I know behind every great personality there are stories and tough work, which made them who they are.
December 11, 2018
I've always loved Audrey Hepburn and the only difference after reading this book is that I now love her even more. This gives us Audrey's teenage years in wartime Denmark where she & her ballet class friends deliver messages for the resistance in their ballet shoes & she gives ballet recitals to raise money & facilitate meetings. The privations of war take their toll on Audrey's ambitions but her hard work wins through & the book ends with the triumph of Roman Holiday. A book as charming & likeable as it's subject.
September 10, 2020
Adam Roche is an excellent story teller and the production values of these are always great.
This is the Audrey story before she became a star. A child of a Dutch Baroness and an Englishman born in Austria. Her parents met and married in Batavia.
Her odd accent comes from the various places she lived, and when WWII broke out she and her mother had returned to Arnhem to live with her grandfather. She survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
4 stars
This is the Audrey story before she became a star. A child of a Dutch Baroness and an Englishman born in Austria. Her parents met and married in Batavia.
Her odd accent comes from the various places she lived, and when WWII broke out she and her mother had returned to Arnhem to live with her grandfather. She survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
4 stars
April 21, 2019
Very interesting. I had no idea about Audrey Hepburn's life before fame. She had such a tough time during the war but was an amazingly resilient person who survived such horrendously awful experiences
November 27, 2018
Incredible. So emotive. It flowed like fiction.
December 5, 2018
This was such an interesting book. I had no idea what she had gone through to get where she did.
December 8, 2018
I honestly couldn't finish this book!
Getting through it was very boring, it felt like reading a history book.
Didn't like it at all.
Getting through it was very boring, it felt like reading a history book.
Didn't like it at all.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews