- - Who Were Audrey Hepburn's Husbands? All About Mel Ferrer and Andrea Dotti

Julie TremaineDecember 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM

0

Ernst Haas/Ernst Haas/Getty ; Bettmann/Getty

Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer on their wedding day ; Audrey Hepburn and Dr. Andrea Dotti after their wedding. -

Audrey Hepburn was married twice, to Mel Ferrer and Dr. Andrea Dotti

She welcomed her older son, Sean, with Ferrer, and her younger son, Luca, with Dotti

The Breakfast at Tiffany's actress remained in a relationship with businessman Robert Wolders until her 1993 death

One of Hollywood’s most enduring symbols of glamour, Audrey Hepburn was married twice in her life: to actor Mel Ferrer and to Dr. Andrea Dotti.

The Breakfast at Tiffany’s star married Ferrer, an actor and director, in 1954, welcoming her older son, Sean, in June 1960. After her 1968 divorce, she met Dotti, an Italian psychiatrist, whom she would wed in 1969. In February 1970, she and Dotti added her younger son, Luca, to the family.

After her second divorce in 1982, Hepburn was in a long-term relationship with businessman Robert Wolders, but they never married. Hepburn died of cancer on Jan. 20, 1993.

“After she had such a tumultuous childhood, her dream in life was to have a happy home life and children,” Audrey Style author Pamela Keogh told PEOPLE in May 2019. “Her goal was not to be famous but to have a happy private life. And to be a present and loving mom to her two children.”

Here’s everything to know about Audrey Hepburn’s two husbands, Mel Ferrer and Andrea Dotti.

Mel Ferrer

Bettmann/Getty

Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer.

Ferrer was an actor, director and producer who was born in New Jersey on Aug. 25, 1917, per the Los Angeles Times. He and Hepburn met in New York, when they were co-starring on Broadway in Ondine.

The couple wed in Switzerland on Sept. 25, 1954, after only knowing each other for eight months. The ceremony was kept a secret to avoid the press, but Hepburn’s tea-length wedding gown has since became one of the most iconic bridal styles of all time.

“We lived in a fairyland on top of a mountain,” Ferrer told PEOPLE in May 1984. “We stayed for 10 years.”

The two welcomed son Sean Ferrer on June 17, 1960.

“With my first child, I always took him with me in his formative years. His father was always working and moving too. We moved together," Hepburn told PEOPLE in April 1976. “I don’t think he’ll go into acting. He’s interested in writing and in medicine right now.”

Talking to PEOPLE in October 1994, Sean recalled learning his parents were separating when he was 8 years old, which he described as “a deep wound.”

“She said, ‘We’re not happy together, and it’s not going to affect you right now, but we’ve chosen not to live together anymore,’ ” Sean said.

In 1971, Ferrer married for a fifth time to editor Elizabeth "Lisa" Soukotine. Over the course of his career, he had roles in over 100 films, directed nine films and produced nine others. He also had a starring role on Falcon Crest and in films like Lili and The Sun Also Rises.

Ferrer died on June 2, 2008, in Santa Barbara, Calif., per the Los Angeles Times.

Andrea Dotti

Henry Clarke/Condé Nast via Getty

Audrey Hepburn and Dr. Andrea Mario Dotti

Dotti was an accomplished psychiatrist who published extensively, especially in the psychology of eating disorders. Hepburn met the Italian native on a Mediterranean cruise in 1968.

They married on Jan. 18, 1969, in a town hall ceremony in Switzerland. Hepburn wore a blush-colored mini dress by Givenchy for the wedding.

The couple welcomed son Luca on Feb. 8, 1970. Speaking to PEOPLE in April 1976, Hepburn speculated that the then-6 year old Luca would “be a sea captain or something like that” when he grew up.

Talking to PEOPLE in June 2015 ahead of his book Audrey at Home, Luca said his childhood was relatively peaceful.

“To me, my mother was Audrey Dotti,” he said. “I never realized she was Audrey Hepburn. I didn’t know she was a movie star. She always looked at my father like he was the center of attention.”

However, Dotti and Hepburn faced a number of issues during their marriage, including infidelity rumors and threat of kidnapping for ransom in Rome. In her 1976 PEOPLE story, Hepburn said that Dotti had evaded an attempt to push him into a car earlier that year. As a safety precaution, Hepburn wouldn’t reveal her address to anyone except trusted friends.

“Rome is such a beautiful city, but it is so sad too,” she said at the time. “This violence that’s been unleashed gives me great anguish.”

During her marriage to Dotti, Hepburn didn’t work as much as she had in the past.

“I never said I was quitting—’Goodbye, that’s it!’—and I won’t make any promises about continuing,” she told PEOPLE. “I love doing pictures, but I enjoy the luxury of a married life more.”

Ultimately, the couple divorced in 1982. In October 1994, Dotti candidly told PEOPLE that he had been unfaithful in the marriage.

“I was no angel — Italian husbands have never been famous for being faithful,” he said. “But she was jealous of other women even from the beginning.”

Dotti died in Rome on Sept. 30, 2007, per The Times.

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”