She was the most beautiful film and fashion statement of her era, with or without the Givenchy designs. She was a ballet dancer, who never performed in a ballet. She was the world's highest-paid film actress, who never took an acting lesson. She was Audrey Hepburn, and she had the aura of a beloved real-life princess.

With unprecedented access to family and friends, never-before-published photographs and meticulous research, biographer Barry Paris gives us a vibrant new portrait of Hepburn. Beginning with her childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland, he weaves the tale of her storybook career, its dizzying launch after the liberation, her title role on Broadway in Gigi, and her Oscar- and Tony- winning performances within the same year of her arrival in America.

In the late 1950s and the 1960s, her star shone brighter with leads in Sabrina, The Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Wait Until Dark and My Fair Lady.

In 1980 she met and fell in love with Rob Wolders, the widower of Merle Oberon. With his assistance, from 1988 until the end of her life, Hepburn became special ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund. Her trips to Ethiopia and Somalia demonstrated her whole-hearted and tireless commitment. Never before had so great a star so vigorously lent herself to such a crusade.