Happy Birthday, Audrey Hepburn!

Photo: Philippe Halsman, ©Halsman Estate

Today would have been my favorite style icon Audrey Hepburn's 79th birthday.

Audrey's Little Pink Dress

I caught the flu that every else has and spent all weekend at home not doing much. I did watch a lot of movies, including Breakfast at Tiffany's, one of my favorites. I never really noticed this pink cocktail dress until today, but now I love it. It sold last spring for $200,000.

"Charade" — Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn & Philately

"Charade", starring my two favorite actors, is a 1963 thriller set Paris. It also has the benefit of a subplot about philately — the study of postage stamps, and a favorite word at pimmsoclock. It's the stamp angle that makes it a perfect film for the National Postal Museum to screen on January 12 at 1:30 p.m.

Hepburn plays Regina, a rich woman whose husband was murdered and who has several men trying to steal her fortune. Grant plays Peter, a man Regina meets on holiday, who deigns to help her. You quickly discover that nothing is as it seems, and that all the characters are part of a charade. "Charade" is one of my favorite Hepburn/Grant films.

After the screening, Postal Museum Research Chair Daniel Piazza will lead a discussion of the film’s philatelic connections.

Happy 2008!

We're giving a party tonight, and where better to seek inspiration than from Breakfast at Tiffany's and Tender is the Night?


“I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there’s a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette.” — Dick Diver, Tender is the Night