“If a girl asks you who the most beautiful actress ever is, the correct answer is Audrey Hepburn.

“Always,”

My brother recently told me.

“A lot of good that does me now,” I laughed.

“Every time I’d tell a girl that Audrey Hepburn is one of my all-time favorites, she’d say I was just saying that because it’s the correct answer,” he rolled his eyes.

“Women,” I grinned.

We’d gotten on the topic because I had just finished reading Audrey Hepburn’s  biography written by her son.  It’s not my usual reading material (exhibit A: The Space Wolf Omnibus, exhibit B: the 500+ page Fallout 3 strategy guide).  The book was actually Amy’s – she has immaculate taste in classy women – Jackie O, Princess Di, Audrey Hepburn.  I think she identifies with them in some way.  Anyways, I happened to see the book while I was on the toilet, so I picked it up.

My first impression was – Wow, I guess the 1950s wasn’t a total suck after all.  Audrey was hot for any era, easily more beautiful than the Carmen Electra and Megan Fox sexbots  shovelled onto us today.  She aged so gracefully.  And all this with no nudie pics - I don’t even want to see her naked, it would spoil it somehow.

Even through her son’s rose-colored momma’s boy glasses, I did get a sense of her flaws, from father issues to pathetic fragility (afraid to drive??) to Victorian coldness.  Like my wife, Audrey was a great mother (and not in a Hollywood Seven-Nannies-for-Seven-Adopted-Babies kind of way).  Most impressive was her late-in-life passion for UNICEF and helping third world children, along with the realization that what help she gave was ultimately insignificant and pointless.  It crushed her heart to the end.

It was inspiring to a point, but I could never voluntarily leave my own kids for even a couple of weeks.  To quote The Patriot, “I’m a parent.  I haven’t got the luxury of principles.”  Someday, maybe when I’m retired, I’d like to do some charity work, not for a resume, or an award, or those excruciating doctor dinners.  As a physician, little things I could do, could do a lot.  Just not until my kids are their own guardian angels.

The book ends with Audrey’s favorite poem, and while I am no student of poetry, it moved me and I felt a rare need to repeat it:

TIME TESTED BEAUTY TIPS

(by Sam Levenson)

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone.

We leave you a tradition with a future.

The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.

People even more than things have to restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and

redeemed and redeemed and redeemed.

Never throw out anybody.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself,

the other for helping others.

Your “good old days” are still ahead of you, may you have many of them.

-

When you care what is outside, what is inside cares for you.*

-

*Okay, that last line is actually a quote by The Sphinx in the movie Mystery Men.  I was amused that it fit the pattern.

[Audrey Hepburn in Somalia, 1992]