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Fame Burst

Who Were Audrey Hepburn Parents? Actress Family Background And Latest Photos

Author

Abigail Rogers

Updated on March 29, 2026

Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and a person who helped people. She was nominated for the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. The American Film Institute called her a fashion and film icon, and she was ranked as the third greatest female screen legend from Classical Hollywood movies.

Before making cameos in a number of movies, she started out as a chorus girl in West End musicals. Audrey Hepburn’s parents were always very encouraging and helpful.

Hepburn won three BAFTA Awards for being the best British actress in a lead role

She got the Special Tony Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globes, the BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award for her work in movies.

Funny Face: Ella van Heemstra and Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, who raised Audrey Hepburn, are her parents.

Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929, in Ixelles, which is a neighborhood in the Belgian city of Brussels. Baroness Ella van Heemstra, her mother, was a Dutch noblewoman, and Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, her father, was a British citizen.

Her parents got married in September 1926 in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. Ruston was working for a trade group at the time, but soon after he got married and moved to Europe, he started working for a lending company, which turned out to be the London-based tin merchants MacLaine, Watson & Company.

After living in London for a year, they moved to Brussels because he had to open a branch office there. After living in Brussels, Arnhem, The Hague, and London for three years, the family moved to Linkebeek, which is near Brussels.

Hepburn was raised in a wealthy and safe place. Because of her father’s job, she and her family moved between three different countries, which gave her a more diverse upbringing.

Her parents were members of the British Union of Fascists and backed the Nazis. Ella pushed her very anti-Communist husband to join the B.U.F. and was friends with Unity Mitford.

Last Picture of Audrey Hepburn

In 1992, Audrey Hepburn was told that she had cancer of the appendix. Hepburn spent her last days at her home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland. As her condition got worse, she kept getting hospice care while staying in her bedroom.

On the night of January 20, 1993, Hepburn died in her sleep. People all over the world were sad about the death of this talented artist and kind-hearted person.

Doctors told her she was too sick to go back to Switzerland, which was her last wish. A close friend helped make it happen, which was lucky.

Hubert de Givenchy, a fashion designer, lent Hepburn a private jet so she could get back to Switzerland.

Who is Audrey Hepburn?

Audrey Hepburn was born in Belgium and grew up in the Netherlands. She was a British actress, model, dancer, and philanthropist. Audrey said she was half Dutch and half Irish.

Audrey’s mother, Ella, Baroness van Heemstra, was from the Netherlands. Audrey’s mother had some non-Dutch roots from a long time ago, but she was mostly of Dutch and especially Frisian ancestry.

Audrey’s father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, had English, Austrian, German, and probably Czech ancestry. He was born in Auschwitz, which is in the Bohemia region of Austria-Hungary.