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Abstract
In 1988 Audrey Hepburn returned to the limelight as a United Nations (UN) Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Traversing the globe from Africa to Latin America to Eastern Europe to Asia and back to Africa, Hepburn re-entered public life in order to command attention to the plight of children, making much-hyped appearances on popular talk shows, testifying before congressional committees on behalf of the UN, launching UNICEF's annual State of World's Children Reports, and ultimately earning a Presidential Medal of Freedom and an Honorary Oscar for her international efforts. This essay traces how Hepburn realised a new modality of star power: as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Hepburn re-invented the cultural powers of stardom, pushing them into the field of global governmentality. Crucially, it was Hepburn's ‘authentic’, pedagogical femininity that facilitated this re-direction and re-articulation of star power: the article argues that Hepburn's stardom allowed her cultural power to become synonymous with a distinctly cosmopolitan yet highly feminised form of pastoral power.