In her first and only meeting with the famous macho actor Marlon Brando, early in her career at Paramount, the two were seated next to each other at an Actor’s Guild luncheon. As they sat down, Audrey said a shy hello. Brando said not a single word to her during the entire dinner. For 40 years, Ferrer says, his mother believed that Brando had shunned her. But in the hospital near the end of her life, she received a letter from the famous actor. A mutual friend must have told him of Hepburn’s feelings, and he wrote to set the record straight. Although she might have been shy of him at that luncheon, he recalled that he had been so much in awe of her that he was speechless. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

—Excerpt from Audrey Hepburn:  A Son’s Reflections