It was an odd and exhilarating feeling, coming face to face with Audrey Hepburn and having her flash that fabled VistaVision smile just for me.

It happened one morning in 1989 in Orlando, Florida, where Hepburn was appearing at Walt Disney World in her capacity as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. My companion and I happened into a hotel gift shop just as Hepburn was deliberating the purchase of a small silver picture frame. When the saleswoman excused herself for a moment, I took advantage of the pause to congratulate Hepburn on her poised handling of a press conference the day before, when several journalists including myself had the opportunity to question the actress about her career and UNICEF duties. To my chagrin, I had been so overwhelmed by being in this magical presence that I had failed to speak up with a single query.

But now I blurted out, "I'll never forgive myself if I don't tell you I've been in love with you most of my life!" It was this impulsive confession that prompted my personal demonstration of the movies' most enchanting smile--the one that won the hearts of movie audiences everywhere. At that moment, Robert Wolders, the Dutch actor who was Hepburn's companion for some years before her death in 1993, poked his head around the corner of an adjoining aisle and said to me with a grin, "I heard that!"

Hepburn said that her identification with the needy children she helped through UNICEF began as a youth in Arnhem, Holland, during World War II. The daughter of a Dutch baroness and an English banker, she endured considerable deprivation after her family lost all its money and the country was occupied by Nazis. At war's end, the 15-year-old Hepburn was suffering from malnutrition, hepatitis, jaundice and edema. Ironically, that unhealthy adolescence contributed to the perpetually pencil-thin figure that later made the actress a favorite clotheshorse of celebrated designers.

After becoming an international star with her performance as the runaway princess of Roman Holiday (1953), Hepburn continued to captivate audiences in such films as Sabrina (1954), Funny Face (1957), Charade (1963) and My Fair Lady (1964). One of her most iconic appearances was the result of a splendid bit of miscasting in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), in which she gives an irresistible performance as a hick from Texas who transforms herself into a sleek Manhattanite.

It sometimes seemed that the entire world had a crush on our Star of the Month. Her hold on audiences was such that most moviegoers can identify with the sentiments of actor Van Johnson, who once publicly thanked Audrey for "her class," then added, "If anyone said anything derogatory about her, I'd push them in the river!"

By Roger Fristoe