Why Audrey Hepburn Spent 29 Years Looking For Her Dad 

There’s a moment in 1964 at the Shelborn Hotel in Dublin. Audrey Hepburn, age [music] 35, international movie star, fashion icon, Oscar winner, walks into [music] the lobby. She’s elegant as always. Gioveni dress, perfect hair. But her hands are shaking because across the room, [music] sitting in a chair, is the man she hasn’t seen in 29 years.

 Her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Heepburn Rustin, the man who abandoned her when she was 6 years old, the man she’s been searching for her entire adult life. And when he sees [music] her, his daughter, the most famous woman in the world, he doesn’t [music] stand up. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t open his arms. He just sits [music] there, cold, distant, emotionally detached.

Audrey, [music] desperate for the hug she’s waited 29 years for, steps forward. She takes the initiative. She reaches for him and he gives her a handshake. A handshake. Not a hug, not an embrace, not I’m sorry, not I missed you. Just a cold formal handshake. Like she’s a business associate. Like she’s a stranger.

This is the story of the most traumatic event in Audrey Heppern’s life. The [music] abandonment that shaped every relationship she ever had. The father who left when she was six. The 29-year search to find him. And the [music] devastating reunion that proved she was never enough. 1929. Audrey Kathleen Rustin is born on May 4th in Brussels, Belgium.

 Her mother, Baroness Ella Vanstra, is Dutch aristocracy, descended from royalty, refined, educated, sophisticated. Her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Rustin, is Britishborn, raised in Bohemia, modern-day Czech Republic, son of an English banker and a German Austrian mother. He’s charming, ambitious, a social climber. He adds Heepburn to his surname in the 1920s, claiming falsely, as it turns out, that he’s descended from James Hburn, the fourth Earl of Bothwell, third husband of Mary, [music] Queen of Scots.

It’s a lie, but it sounds impressive. And Joseph Rustin, now Joseph Heepburn [music] Rustin, is all about appearances. He works as an honorary British consul in the Dutch [music] East Indies, then as a businessman for a tin company in London. The family lives well. Audrey’s early childhood is privileged, [music] secure, happy.

She has two older half brothers from her mother’s first marriage. She’s doted on called Adriante by her family. She speaks five languages by age 5: Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Italian. She studies [music] ballet. She’s bright, curious, beloved, and she worships her father. I worshiped my father, she’ll say later [music] in interviews.

 I missed him terribly from the day he disappeared. That word disappeared is important because that’s exactly what he did. One day, Joseph Hepern Rustin was there. The next day, he was gone. And Audrey, age six, had no idea why. May 1935. Audrey’s sixth birthday is May 4th. But her parents aren’t there to celebrate with her.

 They’re in Germany on a tour with the British Union of Fascists. Along with Unity Mittford, one of Hitler’s most devoted British admirers and a delegation of BUFF members. Joseph and Ella tour Nazi Germany. They visit autobonds, factories, schools, [music] housing developments. They’re there to see what a wonderful job Hitler has done restoring [music] the German economy.

They’re impressed, deeply impressed. And then they meet him, Adolf Hitler, at the Brownhouse headquarters in Munich. There’s a photograph taken of the group, Joseph, Ella, Unity, Mittford, her sister Pamela, and others standing in front of the Brownhouse. When Ella returns to Belgium, she has the photograph framed, a silver frame, expensive, prominent, and she displays it on the mantelpiece in their home for years through the war, through everything.

The photograph of her meeting Hitler stays on the mantlepiece. But here’s what happens immediately after they return from Germany. Here’s what nobody talks about. May [music] 1935, Joseph and Ella return from Germany. And within days, maybe hours, Ella [music] discovers something. She finds Joseph in bed with the nanny, the woman they hired to take care of Audrey and her half brothers.

 Joseph is having an affair, and Ella catches him. There’s a scene, as it’s described in historical records, a confrontation, an argument. And Joseph leaves just like that. No explanation to Audrey. No goodbye. No, I’ll see you soon. He just walks out. Audrey is 6 years old. One day her father is there. The next day he’s gone and nobody tells her why.

 Audrey’s mother tells her Joseph has gone away on a trip, that he’ll be back soon. But days pass, weeks pass, months pass, and Joseph doesn’t come back. Audrey hears her mother crying through the walls at night. I thought my mother was never going to stop crying, Audrey recalls in a later interview. She sobbed through the night.

 I would hear her sobbing in the next room. I would just try and be with her. Ella is devastated. This is her second failed marriage. Her first husband, a Dutch nobleman, left her years ago. Now, Joseph, her charming, ambitious, social climbing second husband, has also abandoned her, and she has three children to raise alone.

But Audrey doesn’t understand any of this. She’s 6 years old. All she knows is daddy’s gone and [music] he’s not coming back. As a child, you can’t quite understand, Audrey says decades later. That sense of helplessness, the strangeness of it, too. Not really understanding [music] and just knowing daddy’s gone away.

That was the first big blow I had as a child. It was one of the traumas that left a very deep mark on me. Years later, when asked about the most traumatic event of her life, Audrey won’t say the war. She won’t say starvation in occupied Netherlands. She won’t say watching her uncle executed by Nazis.

 She’ll say, “My parents’ divorce was the first big blow I had as a child. I worshiped my father and missed him terribly from the day he disappeared.” That’s the word she uses again. Disappeared. Like he vanished into thin air. Like he was taken from her without warning, which in a way he was. 1935 to [music] 1939. Joseph settles in London.

 He doesn’t attempt to contact Audrey. Doesn’t send letters. Doesn’t visit. He’s too busy with his new life. his new politics because after leaving Ella and Audrey, Joseph throws himself fully into fascism. He becomes a fundraiser for Oswald Mosley’s British [music] Union of Fascists. He accompanies Mosley on trips to Germany. He dines with Hitler again.

[music] He’s deeply passionately committed to the Nazi cause. And in 1938, his activities [music] catch the attention of both the Belgian Parliament and the British House of Commons. Joseph is investigated for his involvement with the European Press Agency, a corporation with financial ties to the Third Reich.

Records show he received 110,000 approximately £7 million in today’s money from German industrialists closely connected to Joseph Gerbles Hitler’s propaganda minister. His two business partners at the European press agency are a Nazi lawyer and a member of the Gestapo. Joseph Heepburn Rustin isn’t just sympathetic to the Nazis.

 He’s working for them. Meanwhile, Audrey is seven, eight, n years old. She sees her father occasionally. [music] Brief visits when she’s at boarding school in England. Awkward formal meetings. [music] He’s distant, uncomfortable. He doesn’t know how to talk to her. And she’s desperate for his attention. Desperate for him to explain why he left.

desperate for him to love her, but he never does. September 1939, Britain declares war on Germany. Joseph makes a decision. He takes Audrey out of her English boarding school and puts her on the last flight to the Netherlands. [music] He believes mistakenly that the Netherlands will remain neutral, that it will be safe.

It will be like the last war, he tells her. The Dutch won’t be involved. He’s wrong. In May 1940, the Nazis invade the Netherlands. Audrey, age 11, will spend the next 5 years under brutal Nazi occupation. She’ll suffer starvation, [music] malnutrition. She’ll eat tulip bulbs to survive. She’ll watch her uncle executed in the street [music] as punishment for resistance activities.

She’ll perform ballet in secret to raise money for the Dutch resistance. And through all of it, through 5 years of occupation, terror, near death from starvation, her father is absent. June 1940, Joseph is arrested in London under defense regulation 18B. He’s classified as an enemy of the state for his membership in the British Union of Fascists and his associations with foreign fascists.

He’s interned on the aisle of man, [music] a detention camp for British fascists and Nazi sympathizers for the entire duration of World War II. 5 years 1940 to 1945. He spends the war writing a history of the Celtic peoples, taking walks, [snorts] organizing camp activities. He’s treated relatively well.

 It’s detention, not prison. But he’s cut off from the outside world. cut off from Audrey, who is starving in occupied Netherlands, who nearly dies in the winter of 1944 to 1945, the hunger winter, when 22,000 Dutch people starve to death. Her weight drops to 88 lb. She’s so malnourished that she develops jaundice and edema.

 Her body will never fully recover. >> [music] >> The malnutrition will cause lifelong health problems, including contributing to the five miscarriages [music] she’ll suffer later in life. And where is her father during this? Safe. In detention on the aisle of man, writing his history of the Kelts. 1945. The war ends.

 Joseph is released from detention. He doesn’t return to Belgium. He doesn’t look for Audrey, doesn’t write to her, doesn’t try to find out if she survived the war. Instead, he moves to Dublin, Ireland. With the help of the Carmelite Order in Dublin, an organization known for helping former fascists find work after the war. Joseph gets a job in the insurance industry.

 He thrives. She’s 30 years his junior, beautiful, young. They marry at a dinner in the Shellborn Hotel. They move into a smart flat [music] in Fitz William Square, one of Dublin’s most prestigious addresses. Joseph, now known to his Dublin friends as Colonel Heepburn, a title he invents. He was never a colonel, lives well, comfortable, respected.

And Audrey, she has no idea where he is. She hasn’t seen or heard from him in 15 years. For all she knows, he could be dead. 1946. Audrey’s life has changed dramatically. After the war, she moved to London with her mother, studied ballet, worked as a model, started acting in small roles in British films, and then in 1953, she’s cast in Roman Holiday opposite Gregory Peek. The film is a sensation.

 Audrey, age 24, becomes an overnight star. She wins the Academy Award for best actress. She’s suddenly the most famous actress [music] in the world. And Joseph Hepburn Rustin, reading newspapers in Dublin, sees his daughter’s face on magazine covers. Audrey Hepburn, she’s dropped Rustin from her name, doesn’t want to be associated with him, is a movie star.

And Joseph is terrified. Because if anyone connects Audrey Heppern to Joseph Heppern Rustin, if anyone discovers that this beloved actress’s father was a Nazi sympathizer, a fascist, a man investigated for financial ties to the Third Reich, it will destroy her career. Americans in the 1950s have no tolerance for Nazis.

The revelation would be catastrophic. So, Joseph stays quiet. doesn’t reach out, doesn’t try to capitalize on his daughter’s fame, just watches from Dublin as she becomes [music] more and more famous. Roman Holiday, Sabrina, funny face, breakfast at Tiffany’s, Oscar nominations, magazine covers, fashion icon, and still he doesn’t contact her.

Meanwhile, Audrey is searching. Not publicly, [music] not obviously, but she’s looking for him. She hires [music] people, makes inquiries, asks the Red Cross to help. I wanted to know where he was, whether he was still alive, she’ll say later. Through the Red Cross, I found where my father was, and that was in Ireland.

Ireland, Dublin, alive, remarried, living well. All those years, Audrey imagined he was dead or suffering or lost somewhere unreachable. But no, he’s been in Dublin the entire time, comfortable, married to a woman younger than Audrey, living as Colonel Heepburn in a nice flat near Marian Square. and he never once tried to find her.

Never once wrote to her, never once acknowledged that his daughter was alive. 1954, Audrey marries Mel Furer, actor, director, 12 years older than her, and Mel, seeing how much Audrey’s father’s absence hurts her, makes it his mission to find Joseph. With the Red Cross’s help, they track him down.

 Dublin, Sydnam Road, Ballsbridge, and Mel arranges a meeting. The Shelborn Hotel, the same hotel where Joseph married Fidelma in 1950. The same hotel where years later Audrey will come to meet the father who abandoned her 29 years ago. If you’re starting to understand why Audrey Hepern spent [music] her entire life looking for love in the wrong men, subscribe because this story gets worse before it gets better.

1964 August. Audrey is 35 years old. She’s at the peak of her career. She’s just finished filming My Fair Lady, the role of Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney Flower Girl. transformed into a lady. The film will be released in October 1964 to massive success. But right now, in August 1964, Audrey isn’t thinking about her career.

She’s thinking about her father because she’s about to see him for the first time [music] in 29 years. The meeting is arranged for the Shelborn Hotel in Dublin. Audrey flies to Dublin. She’s accompanied by Mel Ferrer. RTA, Ireland’s national broadcaster, reports on her arrival at Dublin airport. She’s a celebrity, a star.

 Everyone wants to see her, but she’s not there for publicity. She’s there for one reason, to see her father. [music] She arrives at the Shelborne Hotel. The lobby is elegant, oldworld. And across the room, she sees him. Joseph Heepburn Rustin, age 75, [music] tall, well-dressed, distinguished looking, the man who left when she was six, the man she’s been searching for since she became famous.

 And when he sees her, he doesn’t move, doesn’t stand, doesn’t rush toward her. He just sits there. Audrey, desperate, takes the initiative. She steps forward. She opens her arms. [music] She’s ready to hug him. And Joseph extends his hand for a handshake. That’s it. A handshake. Cold, formal, [music] distant. Audrey’s photographer friend, John Isaac, will later recount what she told him about this moment.

When she [music] was telling me the story, she was crying. She said he was so cold. He did not receive her. And she said that really hurt her. The meeting lasts maybe an hour. They sit, they talk. Audrey tries to connect, tries to ask him questions, tries to understand why he left, why he never contacted her, why he abandoned her for 29 [music] years.

 And Joseph gives her nothing. He’s emotionally [music] detached, reserved, uncomfortable. He doesn’t apologize, doesn’t [music] explain, doesn’t say, “I’m sorry,” or, “I missed you,” or, “I’m proud of you.” He just sits there formal and cold like he’s fulfilling an obligation, like this meeting is a chore. Audrey’s son, Shawn, years later, will try to explain his grandfather’s behavior.

I think he felt very sheepish when he finally did meet her. I think he was a very reserved man. But that’s generous [music] because reserved doesn’t explain 29 years of silence. Reserved doesn’t explain refusing to hug your daughter. Reserved doesn’t explain never once reaching out. Joseph Hepern Rustin wasn’t reserved.

 He was cold. He was selfish. He was a man who cared more about his political beliefs, his social standing, his new wife, than he cared about his daughter. After the meeting, Audrey returns to her hotel. She’s devastated. She cries. She tells Mel what happened and she realizes the father she’s been searching for, the father she imagined all these years, kind, [music] loving, regretful, doesn’t exist.

The real Joseph Heppern Rustin is exactly who he showed [music] himself to be in 1935. A man who walks away without looking back. But here’s what makes this even more heartbreaking. After that meeting, Audrey doesn’t give up. She keeps trying. She exchanges letters with her father. She signs them Monkey Puzzle, the nickname Joseph gave her when she was a child.

 She’s 35 years old, an international movie star, and she’s still using a childhood nickname because she’s desperate for her father to see her as his little girl again. She writes to him in August 1964, right after their meeting. I wanted to write much sooner, but left almost immediately for Paris. just got back and had to plunge instantly into the packing for Rome.

Trunks and all as we suddenly have to go soon as Mel starts in Rome on Monday. She’s explaining herself, apologizing, trying to maintain contact. And Joseph, he writes back occasionally. Brief [music] formal letters, nothing emotional, nothing warm. But Audrey keeps trying. In July 1980, she writes to Fidelma, [music] Joseph’s wife.

 My marriage to Andrea Doy is in bad shape, but I hope I can perhaps come to Dublin for the day. She’s offering to visit to see her father again, even though he’s been cold to her for 16 years, even though he’s never once shown her the love she desperately needs. And here’s the crulest part. Joseph does tell someone he’s proud of Audrey, just not Audrey herself.

He tells Robert Walders, Audrey’s partner in the 1980s. I’m proud of her. Joseph says, “I regret not being more of a father.” But he says this to Robert, “Not to Audrey. Never to Audrey.” Because even at the end of his life, Joseph Hepburn Rustin can’t bring himself to be vulnerable with his daughter.

 Can’t bring himself to tell her directly what she’s needed to hear since she was 6 years old. I love you. I’m proud of you. I’m sorry. And through all of this, through 45 years of distance and coldness, Audrey financially supports her father. From the mid 1950s [music] when she becomes famous until his death in 1980, Audrey sends money to Joseph, pays his bills, keeps him [music] comfortable.

Why? Because she’s still hoping, still believing that maybe if she’s good enough, if she’s generous enough, if she’s successful enough, her father will finally love her. It’s the same pattern she repeats in all her relationships. Mel Ferrer is controlling and cold, but she stays for 14 years because leaving feels like admitting failure.

 Andrea Dy cheats on her with over 200 women, but she stays for 13 years because she can’t bear to break up Luca’s family. She tolerates bad behavior. She accepts scraps of affection. She stays in relationships that hurt her because she learned at age six. That the people you love can leave without warning. So if they stay, even if they’re cruel, even if they’re unfaithful, [music] even if they refuse to hug you, at least they’re there.

 At least they didn’t [music] abandon you. October 16th, 1980. Joseph Heepburn Rustin dies in Bagot Street Hospital, Dublin. He’s 91 years old. He’s been living in a ground floor flat [music] on Sidenham Road in Ballsbridge with Fidelma. His health has been declining for months. In September [music] 1980, Audrey visits him.

 It’s their last meeting. She’s 51 years old. He’s dying. And even now, even at the very end, there’s no emotional breakthrough. No tearful reconciliation. No, I love you. Joseph is the same as he’s always been. Distant, formal, emotionally unavailable. A week after Audrey’s visit, Joseph dies, and Audrey makes a decision.

 She doesn’t attend his funeral. She tells people it’s because she’s afraid of a media circus. afraid that reporters will turn her father’s funeral into a spectacle about her. But the real reason is simpler, more painful. She already grieved him. She grieved him in 1935 when he left. She grieved him in 1964 when he refused to hug her.

 She grieved him every time he failed to say, “I love you.” The man in the coffin at Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin isn’t the father Audrey searched for. He’s the man who abandoned her. Joseph is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Herald’s Cross, Dublin. His grave is simple, a bright slab of marble. The inscription mentions Audrey, beloved husband of Fidelma, father of Audrey Hepburn.

Even in death, his identity is tied to hers. The daughter he abandoned is the only reason anyone remembers him. And Audrey never visits Dublin again. After her father’s death, she never returns. She has no reason to. The man she was searching for was never there. Here’s what we need to talk about. Here’s the part that explains everything about Audrey Heppern’s life.

Sean Hepern Ferrer, Audrey’s son, says this in an interview years after her death. She was looking for a father figure in every husband. Think about that. Mel Ferrer, 12 years older, controlling, jealous, demanding, but he stays. For 14 years, he stays. And Audrey interprets his controlling behavior as love because at least he didn’t leave.

 Andrea Doy, nine years younger, so not a father figure in age, but a psychiatrist, a man who’s supposed to understand emotions, supposed to care for people. And Audrey stays with him through 200 plus affairs because leaving means admitting she failed again. means admitting that even when she tried something different, it still didn’t work.

Her entire [music] life, Audrey is trying to fix what her father broke when she was six. [music] She’s trying to prove that she’s lovable, that she’s enough, that if she’s just good enough, kind enough, beautiful enough, successful enough, someone will stay, someone will love her the way her father never did. And the tragedy is this.

 She was always enough. She was always lovable. The problem was never Audrey. The problem was Joseph. The man who caught in bed with a nanny and walked out without explanation. The man who spent 5 years in comfortable detention while his daughter nearly starved to death in occupied Netherlands. The man who moved to Dublin and built a new life and never once reached out to the daughter he abandoned.

 The man who when finally confronted with his international movie star daughter couldn’t bring himself to give her a hug. This is why Audrey quit acting in 1967 at age 38. Why she walked away from Hollywood at the height of her career. because her father abandoned her and her husbands disappointed her. And the only relationships that never let her down were with her children.

Shawn and Luca, the two sons she had after six pregnancies, five miscarriages, years of heartbreak. Those boys were the only people in her life who needed her unconditionally, who loved her without reservation, who would never leave. So she dedicated herself to them. Being a mother is my greatest role, she said.

 Not an Oscar [music] winner, not a fashion icon, a mother. This is why Audrey became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1988. Why she spent the last 5 years of her life traveling to the worst places [music] on earth. Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, holding starving children, crying for them, using her fame to force the world to pay attention.

 Because every child she held [music] was the child she used to be. The little girl in occupied Netherlands, starving, terrified, wondering why her father didn’t come to save her. She couldn’t save herself in 1944. But she could save them now. And maybe in some way that was enough. There’s a photograph from August 1964. Audrey and her father reunited in Dublin.

It’s one of the few photographs that [music] exist of them together as adults. In the photo, Audrey is smiling. She’s wearing a light colored dress. Her hair is perfect. She looks radiant. And next to her, Joseph looks uncomfortable, stiff, like he’d rather be anywhere else. You can see it in his posture. the way he’s not quite leaning toward her.

 The way his face is neutral, no warmth. And if you know the context, if you know that this is their first meeting in 29 years, that she’s just won an Oscar, that she’s one of the most famous women in the world, that she’s been searching for him since she was a child. The photograph is devastating because it shows exactly what John Isaac said.

 He was so cold he did not receive her. That coldness is visible, frozen in a photograph from 1964. A permanent record of the moment Audrey realized her father would never love her the way she [music] needed. January 20th, 1993. Audrey Heppern dies at home in Switzerland. She’s 63 years old, surrounded by her sons, Shawn and Luca, and her partner Robert Walders.

She dies from appendix cancer. She’s been sick for months. And in her final weeks, when she knows she’s dying, does she think about her father? about the man who abandoned her 58 years ago, about the cold meeting in Dublin, about the hug he never gave her. Maybe. Or maybe she thinks about what she built despite him. Two sons who loved her.

 A humanitarian legacy that saved thousands of children. A life lived with grace and purpose and kindness. Even though she was never shown those things by the man who should have loved her most. Robert Walders, holding her hand as she dies, tells people later she was at peace. And maybe that’s true.

 Maybe in those final moments, Audrey finally understood that her father’s coldness was never about her, that she was always enough, that the problem was him. Or maybe she died still wondering, “What did I do wrong? Why wasn’t I enough for him?” We’ll never know. Because that’s the cruelty of abandonment. It leaves questions that can never be answered. Wounds that never fully heal.

And a six-year-old girl inside a 63-year-old woman still waiting for her father to come home. Here’s what Joseph Heppern Rustin’s legacy is. He taught Audrey that love is conditional. That people [music] leave without explanation. That you can be good and kind and beautiful and successful and still not be enough.

He taught her to tolerate bad behavior from men because at least they’re staying. He taught her that her worth is determined by whether people choose to love her, not by who she is. And it took her 51 years, 51 years to meet Robert Walders and finally understand what real love looks like, what partnership without coldness feels like.

But by then, she only had 13 years left. 13 years of the love she should have experienced her whole life. And Joseph, he spent 35 years in Dublin, comfortable, married to a woman 30 years younger, living as Colonel Heepburn, a fake title for a fake [music] man. He died at 91, having never apologized, having never explained, [music] having never once told his daughter he loved her.

And he’s buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery. A bright slab of marble, a simple [music] grave. And the only reason anyone remembers him is because of the daughter he abandoned. That’s his legacy. That’s all that’s left. The father who refused to hug Audrey Hepburn. Thanks for watching. See you in the next one.