The definition of what constitutes a star in 21st century Hollywood has changed. The real reason why some actors stand out in the entertainment industry and others don’t is, unfortunately, not so glamorous. The studios manufactured stars to fit the fears and fantasies of the time.

This is how the book of the Californian journalist, Sam Wasson, begins. “Fifth Avenue, 5 AM: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman”. The book, written in 2010 and revised in 2021, focuses on the creation of a female archetype from the film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, which surpassed Audrey Hepburn herself and bears little relation to the Holly Golightly described by Truman Capote in his original novel.

Capote himself was the first to trash the film and never stopped complaining about the adaptation. The author wanted to bring the story to the screen when he wrote the novel in 1958, but this spirit was impossible to capture by the film industry of the time. There were other problems: Hepburn initially turned down the role, the censors almost “sunk” the script, the producers didn’t want to use the song “Moon River”, George Peppard never understood the story (in fact, he didn’t understand that wasn’t her star), Blake Edwards shot two endings because he didn’t know how to end the film, and Paramount generally suffered during production because everything seemed aligned against the film.

Audrey Hepburn she received the offer to star in the film when she was at the first major crossroads in her career, which was in full swing, after poor nutrition during World War II prevented her from becoming physically fit and realizing her dream: to become a dancer.

Hepburn’s first impulse, fueled by her manipulative husband, Mel Ferrer, was to turn down the role. Ultimately, she accepted the role for a number of reasons, one of which was George Axelrod’s script, which may have played a lesser role in the initial decision, but ultimately proved instrumental in its success.

Many of Holly’s characteristics from the novel were discarded in the film, to bring out her dreamy side. The film emphasized her innocent past as a Texas girl and eliminated her pregnancy and abortion, as well as her trips abroad to escort men for work.

Journalist and activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin, who founded the magazine “Ms.” along with legendary feminist Gloria Steinem in 1971, just starting her first career as an executive in the publishing world: “When Breakfast at Tiffany’s came out, it blew me away. In those years, I really considered myself an alter ego of Holly Golightly. First of all, because she was so different from the usual Hollywood caricature of a woman. She was a woman you wanted to be. Of course, she didn’t have a profession and I was career-oriented, so that was a bit of a bummer, but the fact that she was living alone in a time when women just weren’t living was very disruptive.”

And then there was the simple, perfect black dress designed by Hubert de Givenchy for Audrey Hepburn. “Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn gave us a very realistic, very accessible kind of class,” designer Jeffrey Banks says in the book. “Suddenly, at Breakfast at Tiffany’s, elegance was no longer this distant thing only for the rich.” Givenchy based his dresses on the female figure as it was, not on idealizations of it. “This was kind of a fashion first and took glamor from the distant and unattainable and made it practical. After Tiffany’s, everyone, regardless of their financial situation, could be chic every day and everywhere.”

Audrey Hepburn

Previously, black clothing was restricted to nighttime and mourning periods. Because of the effective simplicity of the little black dress, thousands of urban working women bought one or had it made for them in the following years: it was the uniform of the new woman.

Audrey’s iconic character as Holly changed the lives of Western women, showing them independence on screen and opening the door for them in real life.