Unmet expectations. Accusations of infidelity. Exacting demands. These are just some of the
reasons Audrey Hepburn's marriage to Andrea Dotti came crashing down. Keep watching for the details.
In 1967, iconic actor Audrey Hepburn temporarily quit acting because she
could not bear to be away from her son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer. Sean told The Sun in 2020,
"She had waited her whole life to have a family. It's what she wanted out of her life."
"I sort of stopped wanting to travel around because it did mean
leaving my sons. So I stayed home."
The following year, Hepburn divorced her first husband, actor Mel Ferrer, who was known to be a
"neurotic" perfectionist, Sean told The Sun. Then, Hepburn met the Italian psychiatrist
Andrea Dotti on a cruise and married him on January 18, 1969, according to Harper's Bazaar.
Could Hepburn's second marriage help her build the family she so badly wanted? At first,
it seemed so: the retired actor settled with Dotti and Sean in Rome,
and Hepburn became pregnant just four months into the marriage.
On February 8, 1970, Hepburn welcomed her second son,
Luca Dotti. She seemed to finally be living the life she had longed for, away from Hollywood
and her controlling first husband, with her time fully devoted to being a mother.
Sean Hepburn Ferrer told The Sun that his mother's second husband,
Andrea Dotti, had been a great stepdad, cooking up games and experiments to keep
Sean entertained. But Hepburn and Dotti had married as the 1960s became the 1970s,
and with the new decade came a continuing rise of progressive ideals.
According to The Sun, Dotti regularly went out clubbing in Rome
while Hepburn stayed at home with her sons. To make matters worse,
Hepburn had a history of miscarriages, which continued during her marriage to Dotti. She
had another miscarriage in 1974. The trauma only added extra stress to an already precarious union.
Throughout the 1970s, rumors swirled about Dotti's alleged infidelities,
including with much younger women. The psychiatrist was photographed with up to
200 women during his marriage to Hepburn. One day, Hepburn's maid revealed that Dotti would
regularly entertain women in their home while Hepburn was traveling. Her son Sean told The Sun,
"She was as delicate as she could be, and my mother had suspicions already,
and this was the [...] sexual revolution."
Hepburn's marriage to Dotti officially came to an end in 1982,
after 12 years. At first, she remained in Italy so Dotti could see their son Luca,
but according to Sean, Dotti never made use of his visitation rights.
Hepburn didn't shy away from telling her sons harsh truths. She told Sean, only 12 at the time,
that Dotti had been unfaithful to her. He remembers her bloodshot eyes as they
had this difficult conversation. He told The Sun that at the time he wasn't sure how to help her.
In addition to Dotti's infidelity, another source of conflict in their relationship
was his expectations. According to People, he expected her to stay home while he went out,
playing the role of the traditional Italian housewife, entirely dedicated to the home and
children. After their divorce, Hepburn spoke out about the lack of help she
received from Dotti during their marriage. The Guardian quoted her as saying on a talk show,
"Doctors are great with their patients, but they never want to take care of their families."
Hepburn may also have had slightly unrealistic expectations of her own
in marriage. Sean commented that she was looking for someone to take care of her,
almost more than a father than a husband, because she had been abandoned as a child by her own
father. Hepburn considered that abandonment a defining moment in her life. Though she pursued
a relationship with her father later in life, he wasn't interested, according to The Guardian.
Since Dotti wasn't interested in parenting, Hepburn moved with her two sons to Tolochenaz,
Switzerland, on Lake Geneva. She had lived there previously in the late 1960s and found a respite
there from the paparazzi. According to Swiss Info, she enjoyed the town because she could go out
and about without being hounded. She also enjoyed speaking French — one of five languages she knew.
After acting a bit more in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hepburn retired for good. By then,
she had fallen in love with fellow actor and businessman Robert Wolders, who,
like Audrey, was Dutch. People notes he was the widower of British actress Merle Oberon.
Although they never married, Hepburn considered him her husband, according to The Sun.
"I have a wonderful man in my life. I have my Robert. We have so much in
common. He's so good to me. He takes great care of me."
Hepburn dedicated the last years of her life to working with UNICEF,
becoming a Goodwill Ambassador in 1988. Over the next five years, she went on 50 trips for UNICEF,
including to Sudan, El Salvador, Vietnam,
Ethiopia, and Somalia. After her death from cancer in 1993, she was buried in Tolochenaz.
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