Audrey Hepburn and Marc Bolan among blue plaques honourees

Yahoo

13-02-2025

Actress Audrey Hepburn and glam rock musician Marc Bolan are among the blue plaque honourees for 2025.
The London scheme, from English Heritage, will also celebrate novelist Barbara Pym, artist Graham Sutherland, ballerina Alicia Markova and Jamaican writer and campaigner Una Marson.
Belgium-born Hepburn, who will be commemorated with a plaque in Mayfair, was sent to a boarding school in England by her parents Irish-English businessman, James Hepburn Ruston, and a Dutch-Hungarian-French noblewoman, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra.
She landed her Oscar-winning role as Princess Ann in 1953 romance film Roman Holiday while living in Mayfair, after spending her early years in London.
Hepburn also has four Academy Award best actress nods for romantic comedies Sabrina and Breakfast At Tiffany's, drama The Nun's Story, and horror Wait Until Dark.
Shortly before she died aged 63 in 1993, she was presented the British Academy's Special Award by the Princess Royal.
English Heritage curatorial director, Matt Thompson, said: '2025 marks an exciting year for the Blue Plaques Scheme as we honour these outstanding individuals who transformed the cultural fabric of London.
'From literature and art to dance and music, these figures helped shape the London we know today. Their contributions not only had a profound impact on their fields but also continue to inspire generations.'
T Rex frontman Bolan will be marked with a plaque at one of his west London addresses, while English National Ballet co-founder Markova is set to be honoured at her childhood home in Muswell Hill.
Get It On hitmaker Bolan died aged 29 in 1977 when his car smashed into a tree in south-west London.
More London locations will be picked for Marson, claimed by the BBC to be its first black producer on the payroll who would go on to develop Caribbean Voices, part of the Calling The West Indies series, as well as Excellent Women author Pym.
Sutherland – known for his controversial 1954 portrait of Winston Churchill that was later destroyed – will be honoured at his childhood home in the suburbs of London.
An episode of Netflix royal drama The Crown revolved around the creation of the painting, and last year Sutherland's preparatory painting of Churchill was sold by Sotheby's auction house for £660,000.
The blue plaques, which need the owner of the building to approve them, are set to be installed throughout this year.
The markings on buildings began in 1866 and had been run by English Heritage since 1986.
In 2024, the scheme was officially expanded outside of the capital, with the woman credited as the first black matron in the NHS, Daphne Steele, becoming the principal honouree with a Yorkshire plaque.