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The beloved actress-singer riffs on humor, whistling and new beginnings
by Julie Andrews, AARP, October 4, 2019
BRIAN BOWEN SMITH
Always be prepared
Discipline, for me, is very important. In other words, if I’ve done my homework, if I know what I’m doing, then I can launch rather than just flail around. I was trained that way all my life by Madame Lilian Stiles-Allen. From when I was age 9 until the day she died in 1982, she was my singing teacher and taught me good diction, placement, everything. A wonderful lady and a huge mentor. How lucky can a girl get?
A spoonful of sugar
Well, God help me if I wasn’t nice. My mum used to say, “Don’t you dare pull rank. There’s always someone who can do the same thing you do and much better than you.” And I was young and knew I had a lot to learn.
Regrets, she’s had a few
Everybody thinks I come from Windsor Castle or something. But I was so busy working as a kid. The only thing I had time for was to read on trains and planes. When I didn’t go to college because I was working, I said to my mum, “Are you sure I’m not going to miss college?” She said, “Oh, you’ll have a much better education from life.” But I always wished I’d had a real education.
How Mary Poppins’ creator viewed Andrews as the nanny
I don’t know what P. L. Travers thought. She said to me, “You’re very pretty, and you’ve got the nose for it.” I’m sure she laughed all the way to the bank. She was very tough and canny.
Having a voice …
I would have been quite a sad lady if I hadn’t had the voice to hold on to. The singing was the most important thing of all, and I don’t mean to be Pollyanna about how incredibly lost I’d have been without that.
… And losing her voice, in 1997
When I woke up from an operation to remove a cyst on my vocal cord, my singing voice was gone. I went into a depression. It felt like I’d lost my identity. But by good fortune, that’s when my daughter Emma and I had been asked to write books for kids. So along came a brand-new career in my mid-60s. Boy, was that a lovely surprise. But do I miss singing? Yes, I really do.
Laughing together
I can’t imagine a good marriage without a good sense of humor. We laughed a lot. Blake [Edwards, the late director, to whom she was married for 41 years] said to me, “The minute I saw you laughing at the outtakes I showed you, I thought, That’s the girl for me.”
Whistle a happy tune
I’d love to be able to paint. I’d love to be a good cook, but I’m rotten.
I don’t have the patience for it. But I have to say, I’m a very good whistler. A lot of singers are. —As told to Margy Rochlin
Julie Andrews, 84, is an actress and the author of Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years.
https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/celebrities/info-2019/julie-andrews-what-i-know-now.html
The new book, focusing on her years in Hollywood, is a follow-up to her 2008 release, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years.
Hachette Book Group
Hachette Book Group will release Julie Andrews‘ second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, October 15.
READ: Julie Andrews to Receive Lifetime Achievement Honor at Venice Film Festival
The new memoir picks up where the first left off: just as Andrews was preparing to film Mary Poppins, a performance that would win her an Academy Award and propel her into being a film star and household name. Home Work will chronicle Andrews’ long screen career, which included such films as The Sound of Music, Victor/Victoria, and, more recently, The Princess Diaries.
Andrews co-wrote Home Work with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton.
The mother-and-daughter team have previously penned more than 30 books for children, including The Very Fairy Princess and Dumpy series, The Great American Mousicle, and Little Bo.
In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed and bestselling memoir Home, the enchanting Julie Andrews picks up her story with her arrival in Hollywood, sharing the career highlights, personal experiences, and reflections behind her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Victor/Victoria and many others.
In Home, the number one New York Times international bestseller, Julie Andrews recounted her difficult childhood and her emergence as an acclaimed singer and performer on the stage. In her new memoir, Home Work, Julie picks up the story with her arrival in Hollywood and her astonishing rise to fame as two of her early films — Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music — brought her instant and enormous success, including an Oscar. It was the beginning of a career that would make Julie Andrews an icon to millions the world over.
In Home Work, Julie describes her years in Hollywood-from the incredible highs to the challenging lows. Not only does she detail her work in now-classic films and her collaborations with giants of cinema and television; she also unveils her personal story of adjusting to a new and often daunting world, dealing with the demands of unimaginable success, being a new mother, moving on from her first marriage, embracing two step-children, adopting two more children, and falling in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards. The pair worked together in numerous films, culminating in Victor/Victoria, the gender-bending comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations.
Told with her trademark charm and candor, Home Work takes us on a rare and intimate journey into an astonishing life that is funny, heartbreaking, and inspiring.
Released in UK September 5 2019
Released in US October 15 2019
Also out as audio book!
Will be posting more news when we hear it.
