Fifth Avenue, 5 AM
“Capote would have been entranced.” —Publishers Weekly on Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.
Audrey Hepburn is an icon like no other, yet the image many of us have of Audrey—dainty, immaculate—is anything but true to life. Here, for the first time, Sam Wasson presents the woman behind the little black dress that rocked the nation in 1961. The first complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. reveals little known facts about the cinema classic: Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe for the leading role; director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings; Hepburn herself felt very conflicted about balancing her role as a mother and a movie star. With a colorful cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, Givenchy, “Moon River” composer Henry Mancini, and, of course, Hepburn herself, Wasson immerses us in the America of the late fifties before Woodstock and birth control, when a not-so-virginal girl by the name of Holly Golightly raised eyebrows across the country, changing fashion, film, and sex, for good. Indeed, cultural touchstones like Sex and the City owe a debt of gratitude to this quietly subversive film.
Meticulously researched, and written with delicious prose and considerable wit, Wasson delivers us from the penthouses of the Upper East Side to the pools of Beverly Hills, presenting Breakfast at Tiffany’s as we have never seen it before—through the eyes of those who made it. Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. shines new light on the beloved film and its incomparable star.
Advance Praise
"Sam Wasson’s delicious portrait of Audrey Hepburn peels backs her sweet facade to reveal a much more complicated and interesting woman. He also captures a fascinating turning point in American history— when women started to loosen their pearls, and their legs. I devoured this book."
- Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City
"A brilliant chronicle of the creation of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Wasson has woven the whole so deftly that it reads like a compulsively page-turning novel. This is a memorable achievement.”
"Audrey Hepburn as the startlingly amoral heroine of Breakfast at Tiffany’s dances through the pages of Sammy Wasson’s portrait of a movie and a little black dress that were game changers at the dawn of the sixties. Both juicy and informative, Fifth Avenue, 5 AM provides the inside story while giving Hepburn her due as a true modern original.”
- Molly Haskell, author of Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited