Kolkata: About $800,000 in proceeds from the auction of an evening gown worn by Hollywood actress Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's will be donated to build 15 schools for destitute Indian children.
"The actor devoted the last part of her life for destitutes and it is only befitting that the auction money be used for a great cause," author and philanthropist Dominique Lapierre said.
The black Italian silk dress which Hepburn, who was also a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, wore in the Academy-award-winning film in 1961, was auctioned at Christie's in London last December for 410,000 pounds ($800,000), around seven times its pre-sale estimate.
The proceeds were given to Lapierre's City of Joy Foundation, which supports charitable work in the eastern state of West Bengal.
"I hope to build 15 schools with the money for destitute children of West Bengal," said the author of best-selling books City of Joy, which was set in Kolkata, and Freedom at Midnight about India's independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Thousands of people, most of them children, gathered at a new education center supported by Lapierre on Wednesday on the southern fringes of Kolkata to pay homage to Hepburn.
"It is amazing that so many children who have never seen her movies are paying homage to the screen legend," Lapierre said.
As a UNICEF ambassador, Hepburn traveled to Africa, South America and Bangladesh for humanitarian work. She died in January 1993.
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