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During them she obtained, through Aylmer, bit parts in Laughter in Paradise and The Lavender Hill Mob, two of Britain’s best post-war comedies. By working on the latter she attracted the inter(est of Alec Guinness, who introduced her to Mervyn LeRoy, in the hope that LeRoy would cast her as Lygia in Quo Vadis. The part went to a “name” (Deborah Kerr).

When Dickinson at last tired of waiting for Padovani, and substituted Valentina Cortesa in the role of the intelligent but world-weary refugee who is blackmailed into participating in a political assassination, Miss Hepburn was given the part of Cortesa’s younger, ballet-trained sister. Although THE SECRET PEOPLE did not come up to Dickinson’s hope that it would be as memorable as John Ford’s THE INFORMER, it is not without cinematic interest. Miss Hepburn’s notices, at the time of the picture’s release, were favorable.

While THE SECRET PEOPLE was in production Miss Hepburn became engaged to James Hanson, a young and upcoming owner of a northern England trucking firm, whom she had known only a few months. Their marriage was scheduled for early ’52, but the date was postponed when Miss Hepburn accepted a role in MONTE CARLO BABY, which was produced on the French Riviera by bandleader Ray Ventura as a showcase for himself and his musicians. During its production Miss Hepburn was quartered in Monaco’s Hotel de Paris. The novelist who called herself Colette was also staying there. After watching Miss Hepburn working on MONTE CARLO BABY, Colette arranged a meeting with her.

GIGI had just been adapted for the stage by Anita Loos, and Gilbert Miller, anxious to give it an immediate production, was looking for a young, unknown actress talented enough to make Colette’s will-of-iron child-woman a believable creature and not a theatrical curiosity. Colette believed Miss Hepburn to be that actress, but producer Miller and Miss Loos did not share her enthusiasm. Neither did Miss Hepburn, who later told an interviewer: “When Colette proposed it I replied that I wasn’t equipped to play a leading role since I’d never said more than one or two lines on stage. But she said, ‘You’ve been a dancer, you’ve worked hard, and you can work hard and do this, too.’ Her conviction encouraged me and when I returned to London I signed a contract with Mr. Miller.”

Her doing so caused a second postponement of her marriage to Hanson and while touring the US in GIGI she broke the engagement. “We decided we weren’t meant for each other,” she announced, adding: “It was a mutual decision and a very personal matter about which I have nothing more to say.”

The press in London made so much of Gilbert Miller choosing a practically unknown actress to star in a potentially important play that several films in which Miss Hepburn had had bits were ballyhooed anew. Paramount screen-tested her at its London facilities, and some of its executives became quite excited about her possibilities, despite their comments about her hair style being all wrong, her teeth being crooked, her eyebrows being too thick. They agreed these faults could be corrected easily and that “properly showcased” she would be enchanting. So Paramount got her to sign an exclusive contract. It was agreed that the contract would not be publicized until after GIGI had premiered.

It opened on Broadway in November ’51 and the critics were unanimous in saying that Miss Hepburn made GIGI seem a first-rate play. They compared her to Maude Adams and Laurette Taylor and suggested she revive PETER PAN. The public was also impressed by her unique facial structure, her vitality, and her radiant acting. Collier Young bought the US rights to MONTE CARLO BABY and quickly released it through his Filmakers Company. Several New York “art houses” imported some of her early films, which made those who had not seen GIGI wonder what the shouting was all about.

When GIGI, after touring the Mid-West, opened in Los Angeles a year later, Paramount gave her a gala party at which William Wyler, who had just acquired the film rights to ROMAN HOLIDAY from Frank Capra, officially announced that she would star in that film.

ROMAN HOLIDAY turned out to be exactly the right kind of tale for the launching of the Hepburn image on the screen. Filmed in Italy, it utilized for background some of Italy’s most interesting architecture, including the 18th century Palazzo Brancaccio (for the ball sequence). On the first day of filming Miss Hepburn told the press she was grateful for the opportunity to do a picture with Wyler “so early in my career”, and on the last day of filming she told an interviewer that “Gregory Peck always put me at ease before starting a scene. He’s very professional and thorough when it comes to work. It was a happy company without anybody going temperamental or putting up emotional barriers. I soon learned to relax, to look for guidance from Peck and William Wyler. I trusted them and they never let me down.”

Because the story-line of ROMAN HOLIDAY seemed to parallel newspaper accounts of the adventures of England’s Princess Margaret, Paramount gave it a splashy London premiere, and, at the reception afterward, Gregory Peck introduced Miss Hepburn to his friend and colleague at the LaJolla Playhouse, Mel Ferrer. The latter told Miss Hepburn how beguiling he thought her performance. She expressed her admiration for his performance in LILI, and confided that it was her favorite film.

Tall, charming, twelve years older than Miss Hepburn, Ferrer was then considered an enigmatic figure in the entertainment world. Born in Elberon NJ on August 25, ’17, he had been married three times twice to the same woman. His father, Dr. Jose Ferrer, was a Cuban who had become a prominent NYC surgeon, and his mother, the former Irene O’Donohue, had circuited in the Manhattan-Newport orbit. He had attended the Canterbury Preparatory School and in his sophomore year (’35) at Princeton, after winning a playwright’s award, he had quit to try his luck in the theatre. He twice married Frances Pilchard, a socialite sculptress, and had two children by her. After their first marriage they lived in Mexico, where she studied native sculpting while he worked on a novel and finished a children’s book, Tito’s Hats, which Doubleday published with moderate success. He later quit a post as editor for the Stephen Day Press in Brattleboro VT to try for a chorus spot in Cole Porter’s YOU NEVER KNOW. When, after an awkward audition, he was hired, Clifton Webb said to him: “I do hope you learn the rudiments of the dance before opening night.”

He did, and Marc Connelly gave him a bit in EVERYWHERE I ROAM. Two subsequent stage assignments were non-musical: the juvenile lead in KIND LADY, and a small part in CUE FOR PASSION, which Otto Preminger directed, none too well, as his first Broadway endeavor.

Then poliomyelitis laid Ferrer low for over a year. Through a rigid therapy program supervised by his father, and will-power, he regained limited use of his semi-paralyzed arm. Stage work was still beyond his capabilities, but he developed a knack for radio commentary and disc jockeying, and he worked in network stations at Long View TX and Little Rock AR.

After his first divorce from Frances Pilchard he married Barbara Tripp, a non-professional, by whom he had two children. In ’43, after divorcing Miss Tripp, he remarried Miss Pilchard.

Between his second marriage to Miss Pilchard and his divorce from Miss Tripp NBC hired him as a producer-director for such toprated radio shows as “The Hit Parade”, “Durante-Moore Comedy Hour”, “Hildegarde Show” and “Mr. District Attorney.” But he gave that up when Columbia Pictures gave him a free-wheeling, optional contract that allowed Harry Cohn to exploit him however the studio thought most advantageous – as story consultant, dialog director, director, or actor.

Ferrer got to direct a low-budget re-make of THE GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST in which, against front-office objections, he starred Dorinda Clifton, Elmer Clifton’s daughter. She had worked on many NBC daytime soaperas but lacked film experience. Because of this THE GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST ran over schedule and budget, which violated Harry Cohn’s stringent policy of never going over budget.
Cohn did not renew his option on Ferrer’s services and in ’47 Ferrer turned up on Broadway as the star of a short-lived dramatization of Lillian Smith’s STRANGE FRUIT, which the non-related Jose Ferrer directed. The following season Mel Ferrer directed Jose Ferrer in a revival of CYRANO DE BERGERAC, but Guthrie McClintic re-staged it before its Broadway opening. The undue praise Mel Ferrer received for CYRANO’s direction led David 0. Selznick and RKO to give him a contract as freewheeling as the one Harry Cohn had cancelled.

Soon after Ferrer’s return to Hollywood he began to be regarded as a sort of bush-league Orson Welles. RKO sent him to Mexico to assist John Ford on THE FUGITIVE, but they didn’t get along. Howard Hughes put him to work trying to salvage the multi-million dollar VENDETTA, which, it turned out, was beyond salvation. Then, after co-starring with Joan Fontaine in BORN TO BE BAD, Louis de Rochemont starred him in LOST BOUNDARIES, and Robert Rossen borrowed him to star in THE BRAVE BULLS, which everyone thinks contains his best performance. Before the termination of his RKO contract he directed Claudette Colbert in THE SECRET FURY, and costarred with Marlene Dietrich in RANCHO NOTORIOUS.

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