Julie Andrews
Dame Julie Andrews,
DBE (born
October 1,
1935) is an
Academy Award-winning
English actress,
singer, and
author, who became famous for her starring roles in the
musical films
Mary Poppins (
1964) and
The Sound Of Music (
1965). Currently, she is the Official Ambassador of the
Happiest Homecoming on Earth for
Disneyland's 50th Anniversary Celebration.
Andrews was born
Julia Elizabeth Wells in
Walton-on-Thames,
Surrey,
England, the daughter of Edward Wells, an actor, and Barbara Ward, a pianist. 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.)
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 also starred in two television musicals:
High Tor with
Bing Crosby and
Rodgers and Hammerstein's
Cinderella.
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.
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, 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."
) 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, Andrewsâ€"nervous and hoping the joke would play wellâ€"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."
[Mary Poppins 40th Anniversary Edition DVD.] 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, (with actors
Christopher Plummer and
Charmian Carr), 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.
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 filmsâ€"including some directed by her second husband,
Blake Edwards, such as
The Tamarind Seed,
10,
Victor/Victoria, and
S.O.B., in which she appeared toplessâ€"she was seen very rarely on screen during the 1980s and 1990s.
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 her close friend,
Carol Burnett.
In 1983, she was chosen as the
Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year by the
Harvard University theatrical society.
Director
Garry Marshall cast her in
The Princess Diaries, opposite
Anne Hathaway, and its sequel; playing the role of the Queen of an imaginary country, 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 (playing her Nanny), the child who lives at the
Plaza Hotel in
New York City. In
2004, she lent her voice in the role as Queen Lillian to the highly successful animated hit
Shrek 2, the sequel to the
2001 smash.
In the 2000 New Year's Honours, despite her long exile in the United States and Switzerland, she was made a
Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE).
Andrews has been struggling to recover her five-octave singing voice following surgery to remove
vocal fold nodules from her throat, 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. The year before her tour, she and Plummer reunited for the first time since
The Sound of Music in a live television adaptation of
On Golden Pond, which aired on
CBS in the United States. 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.
In a recent (2006) interview, she said: "To be honest with you, I've never been busier in my life," Andrews said. "I'm not quite sure what I was supposed to learn from all of that. It did bother me. I can't say that I wasn't devastated. Singing, with an orchestra, being able to sing, was what I'd known my entire life. Whatever happened, I think I found so much to keep me feeling that I'm contributing still."
|
Julie Andrews with Anne Hathaway in a promotional poster for The Princess Diaries 2 |
Mary Poppins (
1964)
The Americanization of Emily (
1964)
Salzburg Sight and Sound (
1965) (short subject)
The Sound Of Music (
1965)
Torn Curtain (
1966)
Hawaii (
1966)
Think Twentieth (
1967) (short subject)
Thoroughly Modern Millie (
1967)
The Singing Princess (
1967) (voice)
STAR! (
1968)
Darling Lili (
1970)
The Moviemakers (
1971) (short subject)
The Tamarind Seed (
1974)
10 (
1979)
Little Miss Marker (
1980)
S.O.B. (
1981)
Victor/Victoria (
1982)
Trail of the Pink Panther (
1982) (Cameo)
The Man Who Loved Women (
1983)
That's Life! (
1986)
Duet for One (
1986)
A Fine Romance (
1991)
Relative Values (
2000)
The Princess Diaries (
2001)
Unconditional Love (
2002) (Cameo)
Shrek 2 (
2004) (voice)
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (
2004)Upcoming:
Shrek 3 (
2007) (voice)
High Tor (
1956)
Cinderella (
1957)
Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall (
1962)
The Julie Andrews Show (
1965)
A World in Music with Julie Andrews and Harry Belafonte (
1969)
Julie and Carol at Lincoln Center (
1971)
The Julie Andrews Hour (
1972-
1973)
Julie on Sesame Street (
1973)
Julie and Dick at Convent Garden (
1974)
Julie and Jackie: How Sweet It Is (
1974)
Julie Andrews: One Step Into Spring (
1978)
Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas (
1987)
Julie & Carol: Together Again (
1989)
Julie Andrews in Concert (
1990)
Our Sons (
1991)
Julie (
1992) (canceled after 3 months)
Sound of Orchestra (
1993)
One Special Night (
1999)
On Golden Pond (
2001)
Eloise at the Plaza (
2003)
Eloise at Christmastime (
2003)
Humpty Dumpty (
1940s)
The Boy Friend (
1954)
My Fair Lady (
1956)
Camelot (
1961)
Putting It Together (
1993)
Victor/Victoria (
1995)
* Mandy (1973) (Bantam)
*
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles (1978)
* Little Bo : The Story of Bonnie Boadicea (1999) ISBN 0786805145
* Dumpy the Dumptruck (2000) ISBN 0786806095 (several others in this series)
* Simeon's Gift (2003) ISBN 0060089148
* Dragon : Hound of Honor (2005) ISBN 0060571217
* The Great American Mousical (2006) ISBN 0060579188
*
www.julieandrews.org*
Julie Andrews Collection an imprint of
HarperCollins*
Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Julie Andrews - extensive link directory
*
Julie Andrews Biography and Gallery*
GoHastings Biography*
C20th Julie Andrews*
Julie Andrews: Prim and Proper*
Julie Andrews*
Biography at Yahoo! Music*
Julie Andrews online — Julie Andrews online (unofficial).
*
2003 Radio Interview on
The Diane Rehm Show*
Commencement speech at MFA program 2004 of
Antioch University*
Julie Andrews: a Broadway diva in Hollywood Amazon Listmania
*
Andrews is busier than ever, but still has time for San Francisco
