Julie Andrews Tribute and News/title> <meta name="keywords" content="Julie Andrews, Julie Andrews Biography, Julie Andrews career, Julia Elizabeth Wells, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Princess Diaries, Julie Andrews News" /> <meta name="description" content="Julie Andrews has been a beloved and much-honored star of stage, screen and televison for more than half a century." /> <style type="text/css">  </style> </head> <body> <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td class="style1"><table width="990" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" bordercolor="CEC68B"> </table> <table width="990" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="6" bordercolor="CEC68B" background="../../layout/headerJA.jpg"> <tr> <td height="150" class="style3"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="style3"><table width="720" border="0" align="center"> <tr> <td width="90" class="style32"><a href="../../index.html">HOME</a></td> <td width="90" class="style32"><a href="../../info.html">INFO</a></td> <td width="90" class="style32"><a href="../../news.html">NEWS</a></td> <td width="90" class="style32"><span class="style15"><a href="../../forum/index.php">FORUM</a></span></td> <td width="90" class="style32"><span class="style15"><a href="http://www.julieandrewsonline.com/gallery/index.php">PHOTOS</a></span></td> <td width="90" class="style32"><a href="../../media.html">MEDIA</a></td> <td width="90" class="style32"><a href="../../links.html">LINKS</a></td> <td width="90" class="style32"><a href="../../about.html">ABOUT US </a></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="style1"><table width="980" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="6" bgcolor="#CEC68B" id="links"> <tr> <td width="20%" class="style20 style27 style3 style31"><div align="center"><a href="../../films.html">MOVIES</a></div></td> <td width="1" height="1" rowspan="4" bgcolor="#4E4E3E" class="style3 style15 style22 style27"><div align="center"><img src="file:///Macintosh HD/Users/Sue/images_site/clearpixel.gif" width="1" height="1" /></div></td> <td width="20%" class="style3 style27 style20 style31"><div align="center"><a href="../../theater.html">THEATRE</a></div></td> <td width="1" height="1" rowspan="4" bgcolor="#4E4E3E" class="style3 style15 style22 style27"><div align="center"><img src="file:///Macintosh HD/Users/Sue/images_site/clearpixel.gif" width="1" height="1" /></div></td> <td width="20%" class="style3 style27 style20 style31"><div align="center"><a href="../../music.html">MUSIC</a></div></td> <td width="1" height="1" rowspan="4" bgcolor="#4E4E3E"class="style3 style15 style22 style27"><div align="center"><img src="file:///Macintosh HD/Users/Sue/images_site/clearpixel.gif" width="1" height="1" /></div></td> <td width="20%" class="style3 style27 style20 style31"><div align="center"><a href="../../books.html">BOOKS</a></div></td> <td width="1" height="1" rowspan="4" bgcolor="#4E4E3E"class="style3 style15 style22 style27"><div align="center"><img src="file:///Macintosh HD/Users/Sue/images_site/clearpixel.gif" width="1" height="1" /></div></td> <td width="20%" class="style3 style15 style25 style31"><div align="center"><a href="../../forum/index.php">FORUM</a></div></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="style1"><table width="980" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" bordercolor="#CEC68B" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <tr> <td valign="top"><table width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" bordercolor="#88495E"> <tr> <td><br /> <table width="95%" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="5" bgcolor="#EAD0D6" id="info"> <tr> <td height="75"><div align="center"> <p class="style88"><span class="style82">"Singing is the greatest pleasure but at the same time is extremely difficult, because I have standards that I set myself, and I never am able to practice to the degree that I'd like."</span></p> </div></td> </tr> </table> <br /> <table width="95%" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" class="style56" id="body"> <tr> <td><p align="left" class="style15"><span class="style79">TV Times</span><em><span class="style41"><br /> </span><span class="style41">By Sue Russell<br /> 13 October 1989</span></em><em><span class="style41"><br /> </span><span class="style74"><br /> <em><strong>Let's Hear It For Julie Andrews</strong></em> </span></em><span class="style74"><strong><br /> </strong></span></p> <p><strong>Last year, Dirk Bogarde was the recipient. This year; the British film industry hon ours Julie Andrews. She talks to SUE RUSSELL</strong></p> <p>"A career is like a graph, and hopefully you bounce back up again" "I guess I'm getting into that phase of my life where they say, she's been around, poor dear, let's give her something!" quips Julie Andrews. But, joking aside, this second, annual BAFTA-Shell UK Venture Tribute Award, given for her lifetime's work, is one from the heart.<img src="../article_pics/tvtimes.jpg" alt="Julie Andrews" width="227" height="324" align="right" /></p> <p>For while she now lives in Hollywood, Surrey-girl Julie's emotional ties to Britain remain strong. She's thrilled to receive such an honor on home turf, sharing the occasion with her dad, retired schoolteacher Ted Wells, and her late mother's sister, Joan, the Great Japonica (thus nicknamed for her tasty japonica jam).</p> <p> It was at Japonica's dance school that Julie was given her first stage part - at the age of two - playing a fairy. "She had a tremendous influence on my life", admits Julie, whose parents divorced when she was four. "When my mother was away on tour with the Entertainments National Services Association, in the war, and starting a new marriage, my aunt was my second mother. I lived with her and we kind of pitched together."</p> <p>Breezing into her cool and creamy Los Angeles office suite, she's an immediate breath of summer air, crisp and fresh in full skirt and flat sandals, with, of course, the schoolboy-short hairdo and those cool gray eyes. Amazingly, she's 54, but looks little different from the sugar-sweet governess, Maria von Trapp, who gamboled across mountain tops singing, "The Hills are alive……"</p> <p>A one time child prodigy, blessed with what she calls "this freak, gimmick voice" of four octaves, plus, it was Julie was created the theatre's first Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. She was jilted in favor of Audrey Hepburn for the film, but has since made an undeniably unique mark, veering from her debut role as Mary Poppins (for which she won an Academy Award in 1964), and The Sound of Music to her transvestite role in Victor Victoria 18 years later.</p> <p>At 12, Julie was performing with her mother and stepfather Ted Andrews, on radio and the tough, provincial, music-hall circuit when Andrews convinced fellow golfer, Val Parnell (who owned the London Palladium and Hippodrome), that Julie's voice was worth listening to. It led to her first break: a show stopping solo in Starlight Roof. At 13, Julie performed before the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.</p> <p>Being a child prodigy had its drawbacks, however. For a long time she hated singing and built resentment against the stepfather who pushed her so had, if not the mother whose own unfulfilled ambitions she was realizing. She became a shy and insecure young woman.</p> <p>But with several years of intensive therapy under her belt, Julie doesn't believe in dwelling on the past, or blaming anyone.</p> <p>Soon she will release an album of International Christmas songs recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra. "I was in heaven. Imagine singing with that orchestra and a huge choir?" But emitting her trademark crystal-clear tones still doesn't come easily.</p> <p>"If I just opened my mouth, it would probably sound like a rusty old engine coming out, at least to me," she claims. "Singing is the greatest pleasure but at the same time is extremely difficult, because I have standards that I set myself, and I never am able to practice to the degree that I'd like."</p> <p>Her career landmarks have been many. The beckoning of Broadway, in 1954 for her very first US triumph in The Boyfriend, when she was 19, followed by a three-and-a-half year run in My Fair Lady, was the hardest working period of her life. She was in awe of Rex Harrison, whose first choice she was not, and carried enormous responsibility.</p> <p>"Thank heavens I was such a dumb cluck in those days," she sighs. "I didn't really recognize it as much as I do now. It was sheer dedication and slog. I was learning my craft and how to preserve my strength and play under any conditions. They were tough years - very!"</p> <p>For all her triumphs there have been definite slumps for Julie. Films such as Torn Curtain (1966) Darling Lillie (1970) and The Tamarind Seed (1975) sank like stones. And husband, producer/director Blake Edwards, whose successes include Breakfast at Tiffany's and Days of Wine and roses, and who created '10' and the Pink panther films, is no stranger to failure either. But Julie's philosophy is that "A career, like life, is a graph, and hopefully you bounce back up again."</p> <p>She wouldn't change a thing. "I did one unbelievably appalling job of acting in a ply that mercifully never made it to London," she says, recalling being woefully miscast as a Southern belle in Mountain Fire, but pointing out that it, nevertheless, led to The Boyfriend.</p> <p>Home and heart rank high on her priority list, and her unlikely marriage (described as Godzilla meets Mary Poppins) is a constant source of great joy. "I'm surprised and thrilled because we are different, and our temperaments are opposite, she explains. "I'm cautious, Blake's an adventurer. But he tips me into things that are good for me, and perhaps I pull him back from the bring of something that might be wrong for him." "It's only succeeded because we both wanted it to succeed. I think with second marriages you try to be committed. He's also the most interesting, stimulating man I've ever met. I have a hard time keeping up with him, he's such a dynamo."</p> <p>With reluctance a few years ago, Julie relinquished living full-time in her 'private-haven' in Gstaad, Switzerland, to return to Hollywood. With her younger daughters ensconced in a Swiss school and Blake's work pulling him back to the US, she faced a dilemma.</p> <p>"Obviously I was completely torn between whether to be a dedicated mum and be with them, or travel with Blake and be a wife. It got to be quite painful. I was always in a tussle."</p> <p>Ultimately, the need for togetherness triumphed. Now Julie and Blake, with adopted daughters Amy, 15,and Joanna, 14 occupy a Malibu beach home atop a bluff. Each weekend they host a buffet supper attended by Blake's daughter Jennifer, his son Geoff, Geoff's wife Denise, and assorted close friends.</p> <p>"We have a very small circle of friends", Julie points out. "We're so busy during the day, that for us, the nicest thing is to go home at night and be quiet. We don't do the Hollywood scene."</p> <p>Julie's 26-year old daughter Emma, from her marriage to childhood sweetheart, set designer, Tony Walton is in New York, struggling to break into showbiz. In 1986 she appeared with Julie in her stepfather's semi autobiographical film 'That's Life'.</p> <p>"Emma is unbelievably independent", says her mum. "She wants to make it on her own, but sometimes I really ache for her. I now what's she up against. She's damned if she doesn't and damned if she doesn't. And she must wonder about her talent and whether she's accepted for herself or fur us. I try very hard to be helpful and yet not controlling. We're very close."</p> <p>Julie and Blake's decision to adopt two Vietnamese babies emerged because they wanted children but 'weren't getting lucky'. They'd been involved with an organization that brought war-wounded orphans from Vietnam to the US. "Children at school sometimes tease the, or they wish they were different. They always have a sense of abandonment. And it's something you have to watch out for. Having said that, they're two healthy children. Julie laughingly refers to the Malibu homes as "a house that sprouted as the children came along". They bought a small and run-down ranch, intending to demolish it and start again, but when planning permission was denied, they expanded it into a garden house. Julie loves comfortable, serene surrounding and cool colors, with lots of greenery and flowers.</p> <p>This year, she's been busy with a concert tour in the US and she's working on her third children's book. Like Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine she's got irons in the production fire, because "the fallacy that a script comes across your desk every day is rubbish." A Stephen Sondheim fan, she would love to do another musical but rues the absence of new material in west Side Story and Gypsy class.</p> <p>"There's a lot of gloom and doom about, like Les Mis and Phantom," She says. "But I just hope that I'm going to be fortunate enough to go on working - I enjoy it so much".<br /> </p></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> </table> <br /> <table width="965" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="6"> <tr> <td class="style17"><div align="center" class="style27"><a href="../../index.html">Home</a> /// <a href="../../info.html">Info</a> /// <a href="../../news.html">News</a> /// <a href="../../gallery.html">Photos</a> /// <a href="../../media.html">Media</a> /// <a href="../../forum/index.php">Forum</a> /// <a href="../../links.html">Links </a> /// <a href="../../about.html">About Us</a></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="style17"><div align="center" class="style27"> <p>All Rights Reserved</p> <p class="style19"><a href="http://www.julieandrewsonline.com">Julie Andrews Online</a></p> </div></td> </tr> </table> <p> </p> </body> </html>