Few stars are as loved as Audrey Hepburn, today as much as ever. Her last years were dedicated to bringing succour to the starving children of Africa, even while her own life was being drained away. This biography traces the extraordinary combination of luck and talent that allowed a fragile little girl from a broken family, who nearly died in Hitler's occupied Europe, to conquer, in one miraculous year, the New York stage (as Colette's personal choice for the impish Gigi) and the Hollywood screen (as the truant princess in the classic Roman Holiday). The book analyses her ascent to power and world fame. She was paid a record-breaking sum for War and Peace; she rejuvenated a string of ageing heart-throbs, from Fred Astaire to Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Rex Harrison and Humphrey Bogart. The book also analyses the sadnesses of her life: two failed marriages, a broken engagement to James Hanson, an early ill-fated affair with William Holden, and the crushing disappointment that accompanied her triumph in My Fair Lady. Most importantly of all, this biography reveals what no one has known until now: the truly terrifying family secret that tore Audrey's childhood apart and kept her forever silent about her parents.