Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Dress for Success

Audrey Hepburn did not Golightly into that good night:

LAXMIKANTAPUR, India, Feb 28, 2007 (AFP) - French author Dominique Lapierre on Wednesday opened the first of 15 schools planned in India with money raised by auctioning an iconic dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

The sleek evening gown by Givenchy that Hepburn wore in her role as Holly Golightly in the popular Academy Award-winning 1961 movie was auctioned last year for 825,000 dollars.

....The co-author of "Freedom at Midnight" about the subcontinent's independence from Britain in 1947 with Larry Collins said he will build 14 more schools with the proceeds across West Bengal state, of which Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, is the capital.

....Lapierre said the Italian silk dress was given to him by its designer Hubert de Givenchy.
Lapierre shuttles frequently between France and India, and shares royalties from his books with the Kolkata charity, which helps the city's slum children.

"City of Joy", which sold over eight million copies, is the tale of a Roman Catholic priest in one of the world's worst slums in Kolkata that is ironically known as Anand Nagar, or the City of Joy.

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