Here's the details for the stamp's unveiling:
- Sean Hepburn Ferrer, Audrey's eldest son, will be presenting at the ceremony, which takes place at the Children's Hospital in L.A.
- The stamp's release date was pushed back from May 4th (Audrey's birthday) to June 11th. No official reason was given, but I think it was so a bigger release could be given tying in with the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund.
- The Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund has recently moved its headquarters from New York to Santa Monica, hence the ceremony being held in L.A., rather than the Tiffany's branch in New York like some fans originally speculated.
- Jennifer Love Hewitt is supposed to appear. Some reports say as a guest speaker, while others just tell of her showing up.
- Stay tuned to Fab Audrey for exclusive pictures and more!
The Unveiling
Today was the big day, and I've got it all! My first roll of film is at the grocery store, and they'll be ready Saturday evening (after I take mum and sis to the airport). In the meantime, here's my personal experience at the unveiling from the notes I took, and scans of some goodies. :) *updated: I'm just adding the highlights from my first roll of film.*
My sister, her boyfriend and I all showed up at about 9:45 and waited outside for a while. I bought my stamps
and a souvenir cache envelope for the first day release
At about 10:30 they let us all into the auditorium, and I sat next to three ladies from a First Day Release stamp organization. I gave one my site's business card and she took down my name, so we might see some stamp collectors in here (hi!). We started seeing some VIPs come in with these really nice cloisonne pins that looked like the stamps. I couldn't get out (one of the ladies was kinda sitting on my skirt), so my sister went over to a man nearby and asked where he got his pin. He said someone just handed him one, and he'd see if he could get her one. He came back a few minutes later with two, and it turns out that he was the executive of the Post Offices! So here and now I want to give a huge thank you to John DiPeri, for being so kind and getting us pins. I thanked him on the way out and told him he'd get a big mention here. ;)
In the downtime we managed to grab a few extra programs, and I have one here that no one's claimed. I'm thinking that I might have some sort of contest here and give it away as a prize. What do you think? It's rather nice. It's a two-sided paper in a nice embossed creme envelope, and on both sides of the program is a blue-tinted picture of the stamp portrait.
So it's about to start, and suddenly I see Sean Hepburn Ferrer in front of me. I'm in the third row back (because the first two rows were reserved for the bigger media people and the VIPs), but this place is so small that he's right in front of me. I snapped off some pictures, and right before the show starts, Jennifer Love Hewitt bustles in. I think she had her boyfriend with her, but I'm not sure. He was very underdressed in ratty jeans and an open flannel shirt, but it appeared that he saved her seat.
Al Iniguez, the V.P. of Operations, opened up the presentation. He gave a short welcome, then the Hollywood High School Vocal Pros sang the national anthem.
Next up was Karen Imagawa with a speech on Audrey and her work with children. Karen is the director of Audrey Hepburn CARES, and her speech was really very nice. Both she and Sean quoted Audrey when she was speaking about abused children who "cannot speak for themselves, children who have absolutely nothing but their courage and their smiles, their wits and their dreams." She introduced Sean Hepburn Ferrer, Audrey's eldest son and director of the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund.
Sean started off by saying that he knew his mother would have been "squirming" under all this attention that the stamp was bringing, but if anyone was worthy of that attention, it was her. He said she was also always thinking of the field workers in every mission, like the mail deliverers in the whole body of the postal service.
He then started in on the Children's Fund and how they united with the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, their only L.A. sponsor, and Longines watch company to form Audrey Hepburn CARES. He then introduced Michael Beneverte from Longines in Switzerland, who presented Jennifer Love Hewitt with a limited edition diamond watch to accompany her new honorary posistion as "Godmother" to Audrey Hepburn CARES. This was obviously a surprise to Jennifer, who said "Oh my god!" very loudly when she saw the watch, and promptly ran off to the wings to look at it.
But Jennifer had work to do. Sean called her back up to present Karen Imagawa with a check for $200,000, the proceeds from a November fundraiser at the grand reopening of the Roosevelt Hotel.
After this the choir came back out to sing their rendition of "Moon River" and an inspirational song called "If You Believe."
Then Al Iniguez introduced the chairman of the Board of Governors, S. David Fineman. He talked a little bit about the stamp and the demand it's already having before its nation-wide release, and then he, Karen, Sean, Al, and Jennifer unveiled a large print of the official stamp. There was a bevvy of photo ops after this, and the conclusion, where there would be an autograph session in the lobby afterwards.
We made our way down to the floor (not hard, since the auditorium was so small) and I was trying to get to Sean to give him a very important letter when I passed Al. He said that I looked a lot like Audrey, and I was floored! I thanked him profusely and honestly told him that he'd made my day, and he was very kind to me. But Sean got pushed out to do more photo ops, and we got in line for the autographs. But Jennifer left right after the photos (she didn't look happy the whole ceremony), so the people signing were Al, Karen, Sean, and S. David Fineman. When we got up to the table, Al remembered me and told Karen that I looked a lot like Audrey, and Karen said "Especially the eyes. I want her eyes." I really dorked myself up by telling her that I'm half-blind from reading too much, then moved on to really dork myself up to Sean himself. Actually, I just said "It's an honor to meet you" and stuck out my hand, and he smiled and shook it. I was starting to get moved on to the last fellow when I stuttered out something like "I have a letter for you that I wrote on behalf of myself and my friend," and handed him the envelope. He took it and nodded and I started to walk away, but he asked "Is the contact information in here? So I can contact you?" I dorked "Yes, oh yes, of course!" and shuffled quickly over to the last man. The president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was sitting next to S. David and he said "Oh, you have that Audrey Tatou haircut, like 'Amelie.'" I said yes, my mum really liked it on her and thought it'd look cute on me, and he said "I like it. Audrey Tatou is really cute." That was enough elbow-rubbing for one day, so we took off across the street to the Children's Hospital Thrift Shop, then went home so I could run my film off to be developed.
And there's the scoop! I think I'm going to open up a mini-section on this site just for the Children's Fund and all that's going on with it, and I'll put a drier, more official version of this coverage on it. But this one will stay up for those of you who want to see what really happens at these shindigs and how normal goofuses like me feel at them. :)
June 11, 2003 -- Los Angeles