The films she touched turned to gold as they became instant classics. There was one role the actress would not take on and that was of Anne Frank.Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn And World War II.
The women were the same age and only lived 96 km apart. The German occupation affected both of them, the big difference being Frank was Jewish.While not a topic she often spoke about, Hepburn had to live in cellar due to the frequent bombing during the five-year German occupation, was dramatically underweight because of food shortages and experienced her uncle being executed for not supporting the regime.“I’ve marked where she said ‘Five hostages shot today,’ said Hepburn years later.
In 1959, George Stevens set out to turn Frank’s diary into a movie, Otto Frank, Anne’s father, requested that the famed actress play his daughter but Hepburn refused.“I was so destroyed by it again, that I said I couldn’t deal with it,” Hepburn recalled later on. “It’s a little bit as if this had happened to my sister . . . in a way she was my soul sister.”
Millie Perkins ended up with the part in “The Diary Of Anne Frank” which won three Oscars. Hepburn did eventually read from Frank’s diary to help raise money for UNICEF.