Why Mel Ferrer Hated to Be the Husband of Audrey Hepburn?

Welcome Age of Vintage Society. Tall and dashing, the actor-director Mel Ferrer was once described as having the elegantly removed air of a renaissance nobleman. The air of detachment may have contributed to his failure to become a major star, though in the 50s he played several leading roles with flair and charisma. Why Mel Ferrer hated to be the husband of Audrey Hepburn? Make sure to watch the video until the end and leave your thoughts in the comments. If you are new here, join our wonderful community by subscribing to the Age of Vintage channel. Dashing actor-director disgruntled to become known as Mr Hepburn. Mel Ferrer will be remembered particularly for his moody puppeteer in the charmingly whimsical Lily and his cool, deadly aristocrat in the superb swashbuckler Scaramouche. For several years he was the husband of Audrey Hepburn and was often perceived as the receiving most of the blame for persuading her to star in a film version of Green Mansions that proved the biggest flop of her career, though he was also the producer of one of her later hits, Wait Until Dark. There was much about Mel Ferrer that resembled Robert Cohn, the elusive Hemingway character he played in The Sun Also Rises. Like Cohn, he was a cosmopolitan linguist and lover of all things Spanish. The lanky, sombre-looking Ferrer seemed a melancholy wanderer, moving from country to country, film to film, producing, directing and acting. Ferrer was born in Elboron, New Jersey, the son of a Cuban-born surgeon and a Manhattan socialite. His father, Dr Jose Maria Ferrer, was an authority on pneumonia and served as His American mother, the former Mary Matilda Irene O'Donoghue, was a daughter of a coffee broker, Joseph J. O'Donoghue, New York City Commissioner of Parks, a founder of the Coffee Exchange and a founder of the Brooklyn-New York Ferry. An ardent opponent of Prohibition, Irene Ferrer was named, in 1934, the New York State Chairman of the Citizens Committee for Ferrer had three siblings. His elder sister was Dr M Irene Ferrer, a cardiologist and educator, who helped refine the cardiac catheter and electrocardiogram. His brother, Dr Jose M Ferrer, was a surgeon. His other sister, Teresa Ferrer, was the religion editor of the New York Herald Tribune and education editor of Newsweek. His mother's family, the O'Donoghues, were prominent Roman Catholics. Mel Ferrer's aunt, Mary Louise O'Donoghue, was named a Papal Countess and his mother's sister, Teresa Riley O'Donoghue, a leading figure in American Catholic charities and welfare organizations, was granted permission by Pope Pius XI to install a private chapel in her New York City apartment. Ferrer was privately educated at the Beauvais School in New York, one of his classmates, the future author, Louis-Auchinclos, and Canterbury Prep School in Connecticut. He grew up in comfortable surroundings, attending private schools and Princeton University. Ferrer began acting in summer stock as a teenager, but he originally planned to be a writer. I don't think he ever really wanted to be an actor, his son said. He had kind of a stunning face and it got him typecast. After winning a Playwrights Award in his sophomore year, Ferrer left Princeton to write a novel in Mexico. He then was contracted to Columbia Pictures as a director, along with several other potentials who began as dialogue directors, Fred Sears, William Castle, Henry Levin and Robert Gordon. He wrote a children's book, Tito's Hats, which was published by Doubleday. He spent a year as a book editor in New York and then began his acting career as a dancer in Broadway musicals and was a disc jockey. He acted in plays and on radio and directed a Hollywood movie, Girl of the Limbalost. In 1940 he was struck down with polio which left him with a shrivelled arm, but by force of will he exercised it back to strength. He drew on this experience for his role as the bitter, lame puppeteer in Lily, secretly in love with Leslie Caron. After conquering his infirmity, Ferrer resumed his varied career. Besides acting, he directed a film for Columbia, The Girl of the Limbalost, a 60 minute melodrama starring Ruth Nelson as a vengeful mother who persecutes her daughter and assisted John Ford on The Fugitive, in which he also had a bit part. After spending time in where he was assistant to John Ford, he helped found the community theatre at La Jola, California, with Joseph Cotton, Gregory Peck, Jennifer Jones and Dorothy Maguire. Returning to Broadway, he had a leading role in Strange Fruit, a turgid tale of miscegenation and murder in the Deep South. The play was directed by José Ferrer, not a relation, and the following year their roles were reversed when Mel directed a renowned and highly successful revival of Cyrano de Bergerac starring José. One of Broadway's legendary productions, it won acclaim for José Ferrer, who won the first Tony Award for a dramatic actor. The New York Times critic, Brooks Atkinson, described the show as, "...rattling good theatre in the cloak and dagger-all vein." And Mel Ferrer was praised for coaxing a brilliant set of performances from the cast, a colourful production with vivid swordplay, and in particular his beautiful staging of the moving final scene. In the meantime, he had gone through three marriages to two women. He had divorced Frances Pilchard, the mother of his first child, and married Barbara Tripp. They had two children, but then he remarried Frances and had two more children with her. His first major film role was in the 1949 film Lost Boundaries, playing a light-skinned African-American doctor who passed for a white in a New Hampshire town. Ferrer's commanding presence and well-modulated voice made him ideal for characters of certitude and decision. He then worked as one of several directors on the Howard Hughes fiasco Vendetta, before making The Secret Fury, a swift-moving and exciting thriller, and his only successful film as a director. The 1950s were Ferrer's most productive period, as well as the time when he was most in the public eye. The latter was due mainly to his marriage to Audrey Hepburn in September 1954. Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer met at a London party in 1953, with actor Gregory Peck making the introductions. Ferrer recalled, she knew all about the La Jolla Playhouse and said she'd seen Lily three times. Finally, she said she'd like to do a play with me. According to friends at the party, it was love at first sight. I was enchanted by meeting him. The thing I remember most about that first meeting was that I thought he was so serious, Hepburn later said. The two discussed working on a play together sometime and went their separate ways. The pair reunited the following January for the play On Dine. Ferrer and Hepburn co-starred in this drama about a knight who falls in love with a water fairy. He immediately recognised the play as a perfect vehicle for Hepburn's otherworldly qualities, and saw himself as Hans the Knight, who falls for the water sprite. Directed by Alfred Lunt, with whom Ferrer argued constantly during rehearsals, the play opened on Broadway in February 1954. On the first night, Lunt was asked, did you learn anything about working with a movie star like Mel Ferrer? He replied, yes, I learned that you can't make a knight-errant out of a horse's ass. Hepburn got glowing reviews, while the New York Post wrote of Ferrer, to my mind his playing is curiously uninteresting. Hepburn and Ferrer's on-stage collaboration eventually turned into a real-life romance. They were an unusual pair, with Ferrer being a more seasoned actor and 12 years older than Hepburn. But they both had dance backgrounds and were multilingual. There was no doubt the pair were an odd match, but Hepburn quickly developed a fondness for Ferrer. Their romance bloomed and Hepburn's star continued to rise. Hepburn was going to be a leading lady, but behind the scenes, she and Ferrer were falling even more in love. On the big screen, Ferrer was most recognisable for his performance as Prince André in War and Peace in 1956 with Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. He was paid the then princely sum of $100,000. He appeared in The Sun Also Rises alongside Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn. His acting was often wooden and soporific, but he could be soulful, intelligent and even witty. As Mexico's leading matador in Robert Rosson's The Brave Bulls, Ferrer's melancholy face is in constant close-up, while he mumbles about doom and the fear that is in my heart after being gored by bulls. Among his best roles was the swashbuckling villain in Scaramouche, the climax of which is a sword fight between Ferrer and Stewart Granger, one of the most outstanding in movie history. He was often cast in big pictures during the late 50s and early 60s, The World, The Flesh and the Devil with Harry Belafonte and Inger Stevens, Sex and the Single Girl with Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis, Paris Does Strange Things with Ingrid Bergman and The Longest Day with an all-star male cast. But professional issues soon cast a shadow on the couple. Hepburn was a rising star in Hollywood, earning an Academy Award for Roman Holiday, the same year she and Ferrer tied the knot. She was more in demand than her husband, and rumours soon surfaced that Ferrer was very controlling. Ferrer used Audrey's crush on him to rule her with an iron fist, director Alfred Lunt once said. The stories circulating about their relationship got so intense that Audrey Hepburn gave an interview about how Ferrer didn't run her career. After getting married, she had things other than work on her mind. Hepburn really wanted a family, something that she had missed growing up. She travelled almost everywhere with her husband to locations such as Italy, where Ferrer took the title role in the risible El Greco, but he found it difficult to cope with her fame, wealth and success as his career moved into the doldrums. Their marriage should have cemented their status as a Hollywood golden couple, but behind the scenes, their marriage was anything but simple. Though Hepburn insisted that they were happy together for years, Ferrer was reportedly jealous and controlling. But the couple experienced a lot of heartbreak before welcoming their son Sean in 1960. Hepburn had an earlier miscarriage and a stillbirth, after a horse-riding accident on the set of the Western Unforgiven. Not long after her son's birth, Hepburn went to work on one of her most famous films, Breakfast at Tiffany's. This proved to be a very popular film with moviegoers and critics and earned her an Academy Award nomination. Ferrer insisted that he didn't resent his wife's success, however actor Robert Fleming, a friend of the couple, said it did eventually get to Ferrer. He was not pleased to be Mr Hepburn, he said. Other problems also ate away at the couple's relationship. Another source of tension between Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn was Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, Hepburn's mother. It ate away at me that they couldn't get along, Hepburn reportedly said. In fact, her mother once described her son-in-law as a frog-faced delinquent with spindly legs. Her mother probably wasn't thrilled about Ferrer's marital track record. He had already been married three times before. Cheating was rumoured to be present on both sides. In some ways, Mel Ferrer was probably a rebound for the famous actress after the heartbreak from William Holden. Nonetheless, she fell for the new beau. Both Ferrer and Hepburn strayed from their marriage vows. She had reportedly become involved with screenwriter Robert Anderson during the making of The Nun Story. Mel Ferrer had a girlfriend. As for Audrey Hepburn, she cheated on him with her co-star Albert Finney. Though their marriage was clearly struggling, they were hesitant to end the relationship. Eventually they divorced after 14 years of marriage. Mel only spoke twice after the divorce with her. Their son, Sean Ferrer, wasn't surprised by the news, later remembering that my parents never argued in front of me, but I was aware from quite a young age that something just wasn't quite right, that something between them didn't quite jive. Hepburn was deeply disappointed in having her marriage to Ferrer end, despite her best efforts. She once explained that I tried and tried. I knew how difficult it had to be to be married to a world celebrity, second build on the screen and in real life. She and Ferrer only spoke a few times after the divorce, but he attended Hepburn's funeral in 1993 in Switzerland. He appeared in more than 100 films and made for television movies, directed 9 films and produced 9 more. Ferrer never achieved major stardom and later turned towards television, doing some directing for the series The Farmer's Daughter, starring Inger Stevens, but is best remembered in television work for his role opposite Jane Wyman as Angela Channing's attorney and briefly her husband, Philip Erickson, in Falcon Crest, as well as directing a few of the series' episodes. He also played a blackmailing paparazzi reporter in the Columbo episode Requiem for a Fallen Star, starring Anne Baxter, and a few years later in 1979, Dr Broglie in an episode of Return of the Saint. He made his final screen appearance in Catherine the Great before retiring to his home, a ranch in Carpinteria, California. Failing health forced him to move to a convalescent home in Santa Barbara in 2008, where he died of heart failure on the 2nd June of that year. If you liked this video, don't forget to give it a thumbs up, subscribe if you are new here and if you want to support my work, please visit my Patreon page. If you really want a realistic picture of what happened between Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn, then I highly recommend this video. It will give you an even more intimate insight and reveal the truth about finding love was never easy, even for a Hollywood icon.