Audrey Hepburn - Early Life

Early Life

Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston on 4 May 1929 at number 48 Rue Keyenveld / Keienveldstraat in Ixelles, a municipality in Brussels in Belgium. Her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston (1889–1980), was born in Úžice, Bohemia to a father of British and Austrian descent. Ruston had earlier been married to Cornelia Bisschop, a Dutch heiress he met in the Dutch East Indies. Although born Ruston, he later double-barrelled the surname to the more "aristocratic" Hepburn-Ruston, mistakenly believing himself descended from James Hepburn, third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Her mother, Baroness Ella van Heemstra (1900–1984), was a Dutch aristocrat of Frisian ancestry and the daughter of Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra, who was mayor of Arnhem from 1910 to 1920 and served as Governor of Suriname from 1921 to 1928. Ella's mother was Elbrig Willemine Henriette, Baroness van Asbeck (1873–1939), who was a granddaughter of Dirk van Hogendorp. At age nineteen, Ella had married the knight Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford, but they divorced in 1925. Hepburn had two half-brothers from this marriage: Jonkheer Arnoud Robert Alexander Quarles van Ufford, known as "Alex"(1920–1979) and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford, known as "Ian" (1924–2010).

Ruston and van Heemstra married in Batavia in September 1926. They moved back to Europe, to Ixelles in Belgium, where Hepburn was born in 1929. In January 1932 the family moved on to Linkebeek, a nearby Brussels municipality. Although born in Belgium, Hepburn had British citizenship through her father. Because of her mother's family in the Netherlands and her father's job with a British company, the family often travelled between the three countries. With her multinational background, she went on to speak fluent English, Dutch, French, Spanish and Italian. Hepburn participated in ballet by the age of 5.