What Would Audrey Do Wednesday

Would Audrey...

Sign autographs? Yes. Within reason. When she shot Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn for PBS in 1990, executive producer Janis Blackschlager remembers her stopping briefly to sign autographs in front of the Plaza Athenee when she stayed there. "There were always people waiting out front, with thirty-year-old pictures," she recalled. "And Audrey got a kick out of seeing them again."

Be extremely low-key? You bet. A friend (granted, a rather clueless friend) was recently seated next to an older gentleman with beautiful blue eyes at a dinner party. "And what do you do?" she asked politely. "Oh, I sell salad dressing," he replied.

A few moments later she realized: Paul Newman.

Although it was practically impossible for her to go unrecognized as Mr. Newman sometimes could, Audrey was the same way.

Care what people said about her on the Internet? No. AH would never have Googled herself. For starters, she would probably be a little freaked out at her extreme popularity (2,110,000 pages in English alone, and counting - and that's not even including Japan or China).

Would the blogs have affected her? Would she have read something like TMZ, gawker, or (god forbid) Perez Hilton on the Internet? No.

Throw her weight around? (such as it was) No. She didn't have to. Because of her inherent grace (or star quality, or upbringing), people tended to listen to Audrey when she spoke. If anything, she was the anti-diva.

There is only one known instance of Audrey even mildly pulling rank, ever, and that was on the set of Two for the Road. Audrey and Albert Finney and Stanley Donen, the director, were ready to roll, and production was being held up for some reason. What was the delay? Audrey wondered. Jacqueline Bisset (in one of her first acting jobs) was having problems with her makeup and was not quite ready.

"Yes, but I'm ready," Audrey said quietly.

And...action.

Answer her own telephone? Absolutely. Social chronicler Dominick Dunne was with her in her hotel suite in the 1980s in New York City and he remembers her picking up her own calls, "Hel-lo" in her melodic voice. Her friends still miss that voice.

**all information comes from the book: What Would Audrey Do by Pamela Keogh