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Julie Andrews

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Julie Andrews with Anne Hathaway in a promotional poster for The Princess Diaries 2

Dame Julie Andrews, DBE (born October 1, 1935) is an English actress, singer, and author, best known for her starring roles in the musical films Mary Poppins (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965).

Early Life

Andrews was born Julia Elizabeth Wells in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, the daughter of an actor and a pianist. She had a rare, four-octave coloratura soprano talent, and her parents enrolled her in voice lessons to develop her abilities. Her earliest public performances were during World War II, entertaining troops throughout the United Kingdom with fellow child star Petula Clark. Andrews made her stage debut at an early age, appearing in London's West End in 1947. She graduated through radio (on the show Educating Archie), appeared in the London West End (Cinderella), and made her American debut starring in the Broadway production of The Boy Friend in 1954. (Late in her career, she returned to The Boy Friend, directing productions at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, in 2003, and at Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut in 2005.)

Mid-1950s

In 1956, composers Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner cast Andrews as Eliza Doolittle opposite Rex Harrison's Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion). The show became the smash hit of the year, and Andrews became an overnight sensation. During her run in Lady, she starred in two television musicals: High Tor with Bing Crosby, and Rodgers & Hammerstein's adaptation of Cinderella.

1960s & Mary Poppins

In 1961, Lerner & Loewe again cast her in a period musical, as Guenevere in Camelot, opposite Richard Burton and newcomer Robert Goulet. After a slow start, cast appearances on Ed Sullivan's television show ensured that the show would ultimately become a hit.

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Andrews with (clockwise) Matthew Garber, Karen Dotrice and Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins

When she lost the starring role in the film of My Fair Lady to Audrey Hepburn, she received the "consolation" of starring in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress as a result. (Rave Broadway reviews aside, Jack Warner declined to hire Andrews for My Fair Lady because "Audrey Hepburn had never made a financial flop."[1]) After beating Hepburn for the Golden Globe, Andrews got a measure of (as Poppins songwriter Richard M. Sherman put it) "sweet revenge": In closing her acceptance speech, Andrews (nervous and hoping the joke would play well) smiled and said, "and, finally, my thanks to a man who made a wonderful movie, and who made all this possible in the first place, Mr. Jack Warner."[2] Her performance also won Andrews the Academy Award for Best Actress for 1965. At the Grammy Awards, she and her co-stars won the Grammy Award for Best Album for Children for Mary Poppins. She was nominated for an Academy Award again, the following year, for her role as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965), briefly becoming one of the most sought-after stars in Hollywood. As a result, she appeared in the three-hour epic Hawaii, co-starring with Max von Sydow, and Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain with Paul Newman (both in 1966), and Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), with Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing.

1970s

Star!, a 1968 biography of Gertrude Lawrence, and Darling Lili, with Rock Hudson (1970), are often cited by critics as major contributors to the decline of the movie musical. Both were damaging to Andrews' subsequent career and, despite several starring roles in musical and non-musical films—including some directed by her second husband, Blake Edwards, such as 10, Victor/Victoria, and S.O.B., in which she appeared topless—she was seen very rarely on screen during the 1980s and '90s. She starred in her own variety series (for one season, on the ABC network in 1972-1973, winning 7 Emmy Awards), but the greatest critical acclaim accorded her TV work was for her variety show specials with Carol Burnett. In 1983, she was chosen as the Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year by the Harvard University theatrical society.

Revival

Her film career was revived by director Garry Marshall, who cast her in The Princess Diaries and its sequel, both of which proved to be major box office hits. She has also starred in two made-for-television movies based on the character of Eloise, the moppet who lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. In 2004, she lent her voice in the role as Queen Lilian to the highly successful animated hit Shrek 2, the sequel to the 2001 smash.

Recent Activities

At the 2000 New Year's Honours, she was made a DBE, becoming Dame Julie Andrews.

Andrews has been struggling to recover her singing voice following a throat operation, but had a short tour of the USA at the end of 2002 with Christopher Plummer, Charlotte Church, Max Howard, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2005 she agreed to direct a Toronto revival of The Boy Friend, the Broadway musical in which she made her debut in America.

Dame Julie's career is said to have suffered from typecasting, as her two most famous roles (in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music) cemented her image as a "sugary sweet" personality best known for working with children. Her roles in Blake Edwards' films could be seen as an attempt to break away from this image: In 10, her character is a no-nonsense career woman; in Victor/Victoria, she plays a woman pretending to be a man (who is working as a female impersonator); and, perhaps most notoriously, in S.O.B., she plays a character very similar to herself, who agrees (with some pharmaceutical persuasion) to "show my boobies" in a scene in the film-within-a-film. For this last performance, late night television host Johnny Carson thanked Andrews for "showing us that the hills were still alive", alluding to her most famous line from the title song of The Sound of Music.

Andrews received Kennedy Center Honors in 2001. She also appears in the 2002 List of "100 Greatest Britons" sponsored by the BBC and chosen by the public. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Julie Andrews has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.

Trivia

Andrews has written several children's books, under the name Julie Andrews Edwards. Among the most well-known are Mandy and The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles [3]. She also has collaborated with her daughter (Emma Walton, her only child from her 1959-1967 marriage to Tony Walton) on the Dumpy children series, illustrated by Walton.

Andrews and Edwards have adopted two daughters from Vietnam, Amy Leigh and Joanna Lynne. Andrews has seven grandchildren.

Although she was raised with virtually no religious affiliation, Andrews became a "zealous convert" to Freudian psychoanalysis as an adult; it became her de facto religion. She spent many years in five-days-a-week psychoanalysis and, after initial secrecy about her participation, became a vocal proponent of the practice[4].

She has had a rose named after her.

In the fall of 2005, The Boy Friend, directed by Andrews at The Goodspeed Opera House (in Connecticut) with sets and costumes designed by Tony Walton, became a touring production.

Julie also served in 2005 as the honorary ambassador for the 50th anniversary celebration of Disneyland. She hosted the ceremony in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle at the park on May 5, 2005 to kick off the celebration.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley proclaimed November 15, 2005, Julie Andrews Day in that city, calling her an entertainment legend.[5]

Filmography

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Julie Andrews as Maria with the Von Trapp children in The Sound of Music.

TV Work

Stage Appearances


Notes

1. ^ Mary Poppins 40th Anniversary Edition DVD
3. ^ Robert Windeler, Julie Andrews: A Biography, St. Martin's Press: New York (1983), pages 9-10, 26, 114, 128-129.

  1. ^ "My Fair Lady (1964) at Reel Classics". 2005-12-18.
  2. ^ "Search Amazon.com Books". 2005-12-18.
  3. ^ "http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movies/wire/sns-ap-people-julie-andrews,0,6361003.story?coll=sns-ap-movie-headlines". 2005-12-18. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
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