Lisa de Moraes muses on Audrey and Survivor Race Wars. http://tinyurl.com/l5tpn

Audrey Hepburn is my favorite actress of all time. I took a look at the ad and it is nothing special, but I don't hold it against Gap. It is a clever marketing idea, just not carried off that well.

At least they didn't digitally insert a vacuum cleaner. It's still marginally less creepy than the phone company (since defunct?) that used MLK Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech, but this whole genre of commercial must be discouraged. Aren't there any living people who can be hired to dance in tight jeans?

I'm sure this is sacrilege to many, but I've never understood Audrey Hepburn's appeal. In every film of hers I've seen (the famous ones - four, maybe?), I've never found her that memorable.

She's not really in that "cult favorite" category though, where a minority of the audience think something's brilliant and the rest don't get it at all. I can't explain why I love "The Big Lebowski", but I don't see why anyone likes the Grateful Dead either.

But Audrey Hepburn doesn't seem to be one of those. She seems to genuinely be considered a Hollywood icon, and I've always felt like she had something I just wasn't seeing.

I haven't seen this commercial you've mentioned, but I'm going to take a wild guess that it won't provide an answer for me.

Maybe I'm way off base, but I think A. Hepburn's appeal is partly because of her off-screen activity too. She was extraordinarily active on UNICEF's behalf after she stopped acting.

http://tinyurl.com/el8m6

4 - If Roman Holiday didn't melt you, there's no point in exploring it further. To me, that movie is the foundation of her appeal.

Little known fact: my father and Audrey Hepburn were born on the same day.

Not a useful fact either.

4- Everybody else is being nice, but yes, I find that sacrilegious. And would burn you at the stake for it, if I had one. And knew who you were.

I just saw the commercial. It's disturbing.

8 - OK. And yet, like everyone else on the subject, you didn't explain her appeal either. This is what I mean: that her charisma works for some people in an intangible way.

10 - her beauty, her voice, her integrity, her grace

I find Audrey remarkably appealing, even if I don't love every single one of her films as some do - but she carried herself with grace and was utterly lovely and charming every time out. I just watched Two for the Road recently, a later Audrey film, and she showed what a great actress she was there.

But...

the point isn't whether you like her or not - it's that when someone is an iconic actor, who is now deceased, and they're brought back to life to sell a product - using footage they'd never created to sell a product - the point is, isn't that offensive? I was never a huge John Wayne fan (though I love some of his movies) but I found the use of his image and some of his movie footage to advertise something long after he was gone - even if it had been approved by his estate, to be in questionable taste.

I actually think the Gap ad is pretty well done, it's just... yeah, it's disturbing.

It's more the style of the ad than the use of Audrey that I find so hard to come to grips with. I think the ad would weird me out about as much if the performer in it were alive.