Joseph Hepburn-Ruston: A Personal Narrative Of My Life

I was born Edda Kathleen van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston in Brussels on May 4, 1929. My mother was Dutch whose own aspirations of being an actress and opera singer were discounted by our family because of our place in society. My father, Joseph Hepburn-Ruston was an Anglo-Irish businessman. My parents had a difficult marriage, made worse by my father’s strong Nazi inclinations and alcohol abuse. My father wasn’t the most affectionate, nor was my mother, but I was well looked after as a child.
In May 1935 my father did the unthinkable. He walked out on my mother and I. My father’s disappearance was the most traumatic event of my life. My mother’s hair turned white overnight. I recollect, looking into my mother’s face, covered with tears, I was terrified. I asked myself ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ The ground had gone out from underneath me… He really left. He just went out and never came back. I continue to harbour great love for my father and still mourn his absence.
Despite my father’s disappearance, there was a joy in my young life. Growing up in the Dutch town of Arnhem during World War 2, I had always loved ballet, which I began studying at the age of eleven. Dance was escape for me, …show more content…
Living under the Nazis isn’t what left me insecure. My father leaving us is what left me insecure. It has with me through my own relationships. When I fell in love and got married, I lived in constant fear of being left… Whatever you love most, you fear you might lose. The abrupt departure of my father, the terror of the Nazis, and wartime deprivation are not such history to recover from easily. I had scrounged the hard November ground for something to eat. I know firsthand what it is was to lose everything. I had seen my unbeatable mother weep with fear. My childhood made me both stronger and more vulnerable, also affecting my success in Hollywood