Why Breakfast at Taylor’s?

Hello again, dear readers, and thank you again for joining me here for Breakfast at Taylor’s. I am excited to begin a (hopefully slightly more) regular posting schedule in the near future but, until then, I would like to take this moment to tell you a story that will eliminate the question you probably have not yet thought to ask. Namely, “Why Breakfast at Taylor’s?” or, perhaps more accurately, “Why Audrey Hepburn?”

In order to answer those queries, I invite you on a trip way, way back in time and far, far away to explain how Miss Hepburn and I became kindred spirits one night on an ocean liner in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. (Perhaps not so far back in time as the Golden Age of Hollywood itself, mind you, but a couple of years before the Coronavirus pandemic, a period of time which is now becoming its own kind of ancient.)

It was the autumn of 2018, and my mother and I were aboard the Jewel of the Seas on a two-week journey through Europe in which I would visit Italy, France, Spain, and the diminutive island of Malta for the first (and, until I make my way there again someday, last) time. The trip was to honor my high school graduation and would include visits to some of my many bucket-list destinations such as Aix en Provence and Venice as well as to a few of which held no immediate interest (such as the slightly obscure French fishing town of Sète) but the visits to which nevertheless resulted in many delightful memories.

My family hailed from that glorious European region of pasta, cheese, and fine wine otherwise known as Italy, and I had grown up hearing enchanting tales from Grandma, my mother’s mother, of “the old country”. One of my longest-standing girlhood dreams had been to visit the home of my ancestors.

None of that, however, has really anything to do with Miss Hepburn other than the fact that she herself lived in Rome for several decades during her own gilded life. No, the true moment that bound my fate to her was when, at dinner on the second night of our voyage, I experienced a bizarre case of mistaken identity.

That night, however, four diners were already seated at our table when Mom and I arrived to round out the number; our new tablemates were of an odd, slightly pinched deportment, and they regarded us warily from behind their glasses of vino. The meal began congenially enough, with pleasant small talk between Carol, Andy, and myself about our excursions that day to Pompeii and Capri, respectively. My poor mother, however, had found herself sandwiched between myself and the female half of the new couple at our table who, as the evening progressed, proceeded to guzzle great goblets of vino to considerable

About halfway through the meal, somewhere between beef carpaccio and seafood vol-au-vents, the woman caught my attention with a wave of a bejeweled hand and informed me that I looked “just like” Audrey Hepburn. Since this incident occurred some time before my love of vintage cinema was established, I was only vaguely enough aware of who Miss Hepburn was to realize that this awkward observation was a compliment of sorts.

However, as the evening shadows drew long and the sunset sky beyond the portholes faded to black, the woman’s actions escalated from somewhat bemusing to downright discomfiting. Somewhere between bottles of chardonnay and riesling and whatever other wines were stealing her senses that night, the woman decided that I didn’t just look like Audrey Hepburn but that I actually was her. Mistaking my mother for my (rather, Audrey’s) agent, she began to curse at her, demanding that she needed to “…[explicative] let her [me] go!”

This sort of baffling behavior, unchecked by her husband who was either too timid or tipsy to get involved, continued on throughout the rest of the meal. We finally fled the table before dessert in slightly panicked haste, followed closely behind by Carol and Andy, who stood stolidly by our side as the four of us stormed the maitre’d and requested a new table nightly—alone.

Because, although the similarities between myself and Miss Hepburn are so shadowy that one must be quite, quite inebriated to notice, they are there. Like Audrey, I have a tendency to backcombing my lightly highlighted mane of brunette hair and wearing large designer sunglasses to shade my generously browed eyes, though my peepers are a sort of light, steely blue in contrast to her dark, chocolatey brown. Later, I learned that we both suffer from a slight degree of self-consciousness regarding our height; Audrey famously wore shoes with no heel in order to avoid adding inches to her 5’7″ frame, while I religiously have worn 4″ heels to add the difference to my own short stature of 5’3″ for many years. The similarities continue on in our taste for spaghetti al pomodoro and high regard for jazz music, as well as our slightly unconventional style of dressing. (Ironically, her clothing choices were almost always fashionably modern while, today, the same styles on me appear unfashionably old-fashioned.) And, of course—perhaps most notably—we are both creative spirits and avowed introverts.

I knew none of those uncanny facts, nor was I a fan of Audrey Hepburn films (I famously turned off My Fair Lady due to a case of extreme boredom as a preteen) at that formative point in my young life. But I did, however, develop a sort of appreciation of and admiration for the great woman who tragically passed away long before the Lord deemed it was my own time to make an appearance on this earth. (Perhaps He knew the world couldn’t handle the two of us at once.) Even after my own Roman Holiday came to a close, the tenuous thread connecting myself to Miss Hepburn remained intact through my penchant for pearls and frequent purchases of more little black dresses. When my husband began to introduce me to some of his favorite old Hollywood movies, I felt tenfold more strongly that long-forgotten kinship between movie star and modern girl.

Sometimes, I realized, the differences between an EGOT-winning member of the Dutch resistance and a present-day dreamer from the Pacific Northwest are fewer than one would think.