Ella Van Heemstra

Personal

Family

Dutch aristocrat and the mother of the actress Audrey Hepburn. Ella van Heemstra was the third of five daughters of Baron Aarnoud van Heemstra, who was mayor of Arnhem from 1910 to 1920 and served as Royal Governor of Suriname from 1921 to 1928. Ella's mother was Elbrig Willemine Henriette, Baroness van Asbeck (1873–1939), who was a granddaughter of jurist Count Dirk van Hogendorp. She spent much of her childhood at Huis Doorn. Van Heemstra was married and divorced twice, and had three children. In the early 1960s she lived in Los Angeles with her friend Leonard Gershe and then later in San Francisco where she did volunteer work for soldiers coming back from Vietnam. When she visited Los Angeles she was entertained by friends like George Cukor, Mrs. Mildred Knopf (wife of Edwin H. Knopf) and Veronique Peck. She spent the rest of her life in her daughter's house in Tolochenaz, Switzerland where she died on 26 August 1984, aged 84. Link to Wikipedia biography