Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929 - 20 January 1993) was an iconic Academy Award-winning British actress, fashion model and humanitarian. Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston in Brussels, Belgium, she was the only child of Joseph Anthony Ruston, an Anglo-Irish banker, and Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch aristocrat descended from French and English kings. Her father later appended the name Hepburn to his surname, and Audrey became Audrey Hepburn-Ruston. She had two half-brothers, Alexander and Ian Quarles van Ufford, by her mother's first marriage to a Dutch nobleman.
Hepburn's reputation was as a humble, kind, witty and charming person, who lived the philosophy of putting others before herself. She showed this side particularly towards the end of her life in her work for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).