Audrey Hepburn Museum to Close Doors

By Stephen M. Silverman

06/21/2002 at 02:24 PM EDT

A quaint museum displaying artifacts from the late Audrey Hepburn's career and located near the beloved star's former residence in Tolochenaz, Switzerland, near Lake Geneva, will close this October, reports Reuters. Costumes, posters, correspondence and even Hepburn's 1954 Oscar for "Roman Holiday" (along with her lifetime achievement Oscar which was given to her posthumously the year she died) that have been on display will be returned to her family, who made that request, museum organizers told the news service. "It is a great disappointment because it is still a popular and important exhibit," museum director Franca Price told Reuters. Hepburn lived in Tolochenaz for some 30 years, until her death from colon cancer at the age of 63 in early 1993. Nearly $250,000 in admissions fees have been turned over to some of the star's favorite charities, including the United Nations Children's Fund and UNICEF, for which Hepburn served as a goodwill ambassador for five years until her death. The family has made no public announcement of what it plans to do with the Hepburn artifacts.