By David Wigg

PUBLISHED: 15:30 EST, 16 August 2013 | UPDATED: 15:30 EST, 16 August 2013

Audrey Hepburn had come a long way from her early days as third chorus girl on the left in the line-up for a 1950 musical called Sauce Piquante at London’s Cambridge Theatre.

Her take-home pay then was a modest £8 a week, but she had gone on to become the toast of Broadway in Gigi, won an Oscar for her first big Hollywood movie Roman Holiday, and played a string of other major roles in films such as Breakfast At Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady.

In short, she’d become a millionaire and a world star. But in private, she lived a simple life with her husband, Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti, and to her five-year-old son Luca she was just Mama.

‘So imagine my surprise,’ recalls Luca, now 43, ‘when I saw her on TV kissing a strange man. I didn’t know she was an actress. I didn’t even know what an actress was. All I knew was that Mama was doing something I was sure was wrong. I ran to my father and told him what I’d seen. “You must be very upset,” I said.

'But he just laughed and swept me up in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “Your mother is just acting.”

I didn’t understand, but if Papa didn’t mind, it must be all right. And as I grew older I realised why I’d been so confused – the real Mama who took me to school, cooked my supper and read me a bedtime story was exactly like the Mama I had seen on the screen. She was perfectly natural on and off it. There was nothing forced or actressy about her whatever she did.’

Audrey was born in Brussels, but had British citizenship through her banker father and went to school in the Kent village of Elham.

She fell in love with Rome at the age of 24 while making what was to become the classic movie Roman Holiday in 1953, and it later became her home for more than 20 years. And now, to mark the 60th anniversary of Roman Holiday, the film has been re-released in cinemas and Luca, a graphic designer, is publishing a book about his mother. Through 200 intimate photographs, Audrey In Rome focuses on her career and the lifestyle she led in the city.

With her elfin face, big brown eyes, high cheek bones, swan-like neck and slim figure, she became a fashion icon as much as she was a movie star. Not that Luca realised.

‘We would only see her in jeans and a top. The glamorous side of her life was something that she never flaunted. Eventually I realised she was special, because photographers would follow her around, and strangers would call out compliments in the street.

‘It took me some time to see that this didn’t happen to everyone’s mama, just mine. When I asked her about it, she would laugh and play it down. She didn’t like clothes that were over the top, because she was aware of what she regarded as her defects. She’d never wear revealing dresses, saying “I’m too skinny. Not enough breasts.” She thought her nose and feet were too big and sometimes she’d look in the mirror and say, “I don’t understand why some people say I’m beautiful.”’

The discovery that his mother was a famous film star opened up a whole new world for Luca. ‘Until then, I’d never realised her friends who used to visit us were famous. There would be people like Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, James Stewart and the designers Givenchy and Valentino.

She helped me and my brother with our homework and would come to school to speak with teachers, who sometimes got unsettled. One teacher was busy dealing with one parent after another, and then she looked up and there was Audrey Hepburn. She was speechless, as my mother said, “Hello, I’m here to talk about my son.” 

'That sort of thing has followed me all my life. Once, when I had to fill in a tax form in France, I had a meeting with this lady official, and where I was asked for mother’s name I of course wrote Audrey Hepburn. She said, “What is this? Are you making fun of me?” It’s something people didn’t believe.’

The level of his mother’s fame hit home when Luca met Sean Connery, who was playing Robin Hood to her Maid Marion in the film Robin And Marion. ‘Mama took me to the set because she didn’t want to be apart from us. I was very excited to meet Sean because for me he was James Bond.

He was nice to me, but apparently I was a pain, because I wanted to have a sword and helmet like the men in the movie. Mama told me off. Not so much with words, but with her eyes. I could see that she was upset with me.’ Luca shocked his mother by suggesting she should play a Bond villain.

‘I told her, “Your films are boring and you should change this impeccable image and be the one in the Bond movies who wants to destroy the world.” She said, “You have to understand that I lived through World War II and I saw people dying. I don’t want to be the one who does anything like that.” But in a way I’d still have liked her to be a baddie!’

Born in 1929, Audrey was ten and had moved to Holland from Kent when war broke out as her family thought it would remain neutral. But, surrounded by Nazis, they were often close to starvation.

Her elder brother was taken to a slave camp in Germany and her uncle was shot by the Nazis in reprisal for a troop train being blown up. ‘These are things you never forget,’ she told Luca.

Luca believes the enchantment with Rome really grew after she married actor Mel Ferrer the year after making Roman Holiday – although they later divorced – as he had a lot of friends there. Audrey married Luca’s father Andrea in 1969 after she and Ferrer split.

‘She always described herself as a Roman mother. One thing she discovered there was pasta and she became a real pasta addict. I remember many times we were going to restaurants and waiters wanted to make her happy and would say, “Madam, what can I do for you, something special?” She would tell them she’d just love a simple spaghetti with tomato sauce. And they were really surprised. Even when she travelled abroad she’d carry dried pasta along with her in her suitcase.’

But it was Roman Holiday that had changed her life. Audrey always felt luck played a huge part in her getting the role. ‘The studio wanted Elizabeth Taylor for it, as she was already a big star and had been acting since she was a child,’ says Luca.

‘But the director, William Wyler, insisted on having my mother because she was so natural. When they screen-tested her, they didn’t tell her they were keeping the camera running while she was doing unscripted things. Afterwards, the director said she was perfect.’

Halfway through filming, Gregory Peck contacted the studio bosses. He was meant to be the star, with his name at the top of the posters and first in the screen titles, but he asked that she should share equal billing with him. It was an extra-ordinarily generous gesture in the selfish, backbiting world of Hollywood, but it catapulted Audrey to the top.   

Luca says all the praise and respect and worldwide fame made no difference to her outlook. ‘She never had bodyguards or travelled in cars with blacked-out windows like celebrities do today. She would say “No, I’m perfectly able to walk. Keep it for the years to come when I’m old and frail.”’ Fame meant nothing to her, says Luca, unless it could be used for something positive, which is why she spent her final years working for the children’s charity Unicef.

‘She would tell us, “The human obligation is to help children who are suffering. The rest is luxury.”

Mama always talked about her work as a profession, a way to provide for her family. Her first career, she always said, was being a mother and her second one was her work for Unicef. She never saw herself as a movie star.  

‘She wasn’t afraid of growing old. She was looking forward to sitting around the fire and telling stories to the grandchildren. She always saw life as seasons – “I have been young, I’ve been a mother, and now I am old.” So to her the ageing process was normal.’

She died aged 63 from cancer in 1993 after returning from a trip to Somalia on behalf of Unicef. Says Luca sadly, ‘She had a check-up, and at first they didn’t spot the cancer, but it was very aggressive and she went very quickly. She had told us, “If I go, it means I am meant to. Everything comes at the right time.” And that was her philosophy throughout her life.’

Roman Holiday is on nationwide release. Audrey In Rome, edited by Ludovica Damiani and Luca Dotti, is published by Harper Collins, £19.99. Luca is giving a talk on the film and his book at the V&A, London, 10 September, 6.30pm, www.vam.ac.uk.