Sean Ferrer

Audrey Hepburn Stamps Fetch $606,000 at German Charity Auction

Filed under: Auctions

A rare sheet of 10 stamps depicting Audrey Hepburn brought €430,000 ($606,000) at a charity auction in Germany on Oct. 16, two-thirds of which will go to educating children in sub-Saharan Africa, a cause about which the late actress was deeply committed.

The sheet of 10 stamps features Hepburn with her typical waifish smile, and a long, black cigarette holder dangling from her lips. The stamps are rare because they are part of a to a botched stamp series that were to have been destroyed many years ago.

The image of Hepburn was meant to evoke her role in the 1963 thriller "Charade," in which she co-starred with Cary Grant and the characters are seeking a set of rare stamps.

Two-thirds of money raised will go to the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund, and one-third to UNICEF Germany.
The German postal service printed 14 million of the Hepburn stamps in 2001 actually showing the actress in her most famous role as Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's. Only after the stamps were printed was Sean Ferrer, Hepburn's son and the chair of the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund, contacted to grant copyright. He refused, arguing that the image had been altered in a way that he did not approve of.

In the original photo, Hepburn has got sunglasses hanging from her mouth, but they had flipped the negative and replaced the glasses with the cigarette holder, Ferrer said.

Ferrer suggested using either the original photo or an alternative, but the postal service ended up scrapping the stamp and ordering those produced destroyed.

Tags: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Cary Grant, Charade, Sean Ferrer