Before her death in 1993, Audrey Hepburn requested that three jackets be made for those she loved. Her long-term partner, Robert Wolders, and other close friends of Hepburn were tasked with fulfilling her last wish. Hepburn was diagnosed with cancer of the appendix in 1992 and would sadly pass away in January of the next year.
“She was desperate to get back to Switzerland,” Wolders, who died in February 2023 at the age of 81, explains. “She would probably have succumbed during the flight from L.A., so we went by private jet made possible by [designer and close friend] Hubert de Givenchy and her friend Bunny Mellon, and the pilots descended carefully to reduce the pressure slowly. She was basically on life support.”
Once in Switzerland Hepburn requested that three jackets be made for Hubert de Givenchy, her son Sean, and Wolders. Wolders recalled the night saying, “She said, ‘Please think of me when you wear them.’ Later on, when we went to bed, she said, ‘It was the most beautiful Christmas I ever had.'”
According to Wolder, Hepburn’s terminal illness did not stop her from wanting to continue her humanitarian work either. Hepburn grew up in Nazi-occupied Holland and was committed to helping the world through her UNICEF work. Wolder’s recalled a conversation he had with his partner about how the work might have impacted the fight against her illness.
“Because she had had a very busy period for UNICEF prior to her illness, in fact, I said to her once, ‘Would it have been better if we hadn’t exhausted ourselves to this extent traveling as much for UNICEF as we did,'” he recalls. “And she was slightly perturbed and she said, ‘Robbie, think of all we would’ve missed.’ So I know that in her last day she regretted that she could not carry on the work because she was very passionate about it.”
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