32 min

Robert Matzen: "Dutch Girl - Audrey Hepburn and World War II‪”‬ Talking with Authors

    • Books

This is the twenty-first episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Today, our author is documentary filmmaker and writer of books about Hollywood history, Robert Matzen. We spoke with him as he was on tour in November of 2019 with his book “Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II” by publisher GoodKnight Books.

Robert Matzen was working on his second book in the mid-2010s about Hollywood actors during World War II, when he learned that Audrey Hepburn actually lived in German occupied The Netherlands throughout the conflict. It had been believed that she’d been part of the Dutch resistance during that time, but Robert, ever the documentarian, couldn’t find any definitive writings that could confirm that OR much about her life during that time. The reason…her parents’ pre-war sympathies and activities. Even with press questions at time, they yielded nothing.

But later he was able to connect with the sons of Audrey Hepburn and spend a great deal of time in The Netherlands to unearth the details of the decade’s hidden subject and write about it himself first…to his amazement.  We’ll learn about some of these details, how they were gotten, and how Audrey Hepburn’s life as a child in a war zone lead her to her support children suffering in conflicts around the world as an adult in our conversation with filmmaker and writer Robert Matzen on this edition Talking With Authors from HEC Media and HEC Books.

Here’s our host and interviewer this time, Paul Schankman.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host, editor, and producer of this episode - Paul Schankman
Photography - Peter Foggy, Ken Calcaterra
Audio - Paul Langdon
Editor and Graphics - Jayne Ballew and Gregg Kopp
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors

This is the twenty-first episode of "Talking with Authors" by HEC Media and HEC Books. We're a program dedicated to speaking with some of the best selling authors around, covering many different genres.

Today, our author is documentary filmmaker and writer of books about Hollywood history, Robert Matzen. We spoke with him as he was on tour in November of 2019 with his book “Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II” by publisher GoodKnight Books.

Robert Matzen was working on his second book in the mid-2010s about Hollywood actors during World War II, when he learned that Audrey Hepburn actually lived in German occupied The Netherlands throughout the conflict. It had been believed that she’d been part of the Dutch resistance during that time, but Robert, ever the documentarian, couldn’t find any definitive writings that could confirm that OR much about her life during that time. The reason…her parents’ pre-war sympathies and activities. Even with press questions at time, they yielded nothing.

But later he was able to connect with the sons of Audrey Hepburn and spend a great deal of time in The Netherlands to unearth the details of the decade’s hidden subject and write about it himself first…to his amazement.  We’ll learn about some of these details, how they were gotten, and how Audrey Hepburn’s life as a child in a war zone lead her to her support children suffering in conflicts around the world as an adult in our conversation with filmmaker and writer Robert Matzen on this edition Talking With Authors from HEC Media and HEC Books.

Here’s our host and interviewer this time, Paul Schankman.

HEC Media is a production company out of St. Louis, Missouri.  With the help of independent bookstore Left Bank Books and St. Louis County Library, we are able to sit down with these amazing writers and thought leaders to discuss their work, their inspiration, and what makes them special. You can watch video versions of most of our interviews at hecmedia.org.

Host, editor, and producer of this episode - Paul Schankman
Photography - Peter Foggy, Ken Calcaterra
Audio - Paul Langdon
Editor and Graphics - Jayne Ballew and Gregg Kopp
Supervising Producer - Julie Winkle
Production Support - Christina Chastain
HEC Media Executive Director - Dennis Riggs
Talking with Authors Podcast Executive Producer - Christina Chastain
Podcast Producer - Rod Milam
Podcast Host - Rod Milam

You can follow us on all social media platforms. Just search for "Talking with Authors":

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/talkingwithauthors
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingwithauthors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TalkingwAuthors

32 min