The New York Times. Born on May 4, 1929, in Brussels, Belgium, Audrey Hepburn was a talented performer known for her beauty, elegance and grace. Often imitated, she remains one of Hollywood’s greatest style icons. A native of Brussels, Hepburn spent part of her youth in England at a boarding school there. During much of World War II, she studied at the Arnhem Conservatory in The Netherlands. After the Nazis invaded the country, Hepburn and her mother struggled to survive. She reportedly helped the resistance movement by delivering messages, according to an article in

After the war, Hepburn continued to pursue an interest in dance. She studied ballet in Amsterdam and later in London. In 1948, Hepburn made her stage debut as a chorus girl in the musical High Button Shoes in London. More small parts on the British stage followed. She was a chorus girl in Sauce Tartare (1949), but was moved to a featured player in Sauce Piquante (1950).

Here, below is a collection of rare photos of Audrey Hepburn as a child and a teenager from the 1930s and 1940s, before she becomes famous .

Ella Van Heemstra photographed with her daughter Audrey Hepburn, 1929. At the time this photograph was taken, baby Audrey wasn’t even one years old.

Audrey Hepburn with her father Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston in Linkebeek, Belgium, 1933 (left) and 1934 (right).

Audrey Hepburn, ca. 1938.

A young Audrey Hepburn, 1939. Photograph by Manon van Suchtelen.









Audrey Hepburn at the age of 12 in one of her very first professional photo shoots. April 14, 1942.





Audrey at the beach in 1937, 8 years old, before the war.

















Audrey Hepburn’s first passport, 1936.









Audrey Hepburn, sitting, far right on the radiator, in the ballet studio of Sonia Gaskell in Zomerdijkstraat, 1945

This photograph was taken by a Dutch photographer in Arnhem, in 1946, probably at the Arnhem Conservatory where Audrey took dancing lessons when she was 16.

Audrey Hepburn’s photograph from her British passport, 1946.











































