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Congrats to @JulieAndrews @SoundofMusic & @AnnaNetrebko on receiving the #AustrianAmericanFoundation’s Cultural Exchange Award 2018 for being such wonderful & unique cultural ambassadors for #Austria https://t.co/7OONKcp93F pic.twitter.com/GZHY0jfVX3
— WolfgangWaldner (@WaldnerWolfgang) May 2, 2018
In an exclusive interview with Closer Weekly, beloved star Julie Andrews‘ granddaughter Kayti Edwards shares memories of growing up with her famous grandmother. Kayti, 41 — the child of Jennifer Edwards, Julie’s husband Blake Edwards’ daughter from his first marriage — grew up down the street from her famous grandparents. “I could walk to her house in Malibu… we’d be there all day,” she shares. That family time was important because Julie’s life “was very busy,” says Kayti.
To keep order at home, Kayti says her grandmother “was very strict. We had a set schedule. We had tea time.” And the actress who played one of the most famous no-nonsense nannies on film, Mary Poppins, was protective of her own brood. “She guarded us,” Kayti adds.
Their tight family bond allowed Kayti to see a side of Julie, 82, that few others did. “She’s actually a real person,” Kayti points out. “She gets angry. She has feelings. She is not the character you see in the movies.”
Kayti grew up witnessing the priorities Julie had in life, and if there’s one lesson her grandmother taught her, it’s to nurture the people around you. “She’s an ambassador of UNICEF, and she adopted children from Vietnam,” Kayti says of Amy and Joanna. “I followed in her footsteps by starting my own community outreach. I help the homeless.”
http://www.closerweekly.com/posts/julie-andrews-granddaughter-157936
On March 5th, the Voice Health Institute (VHI) held its 15th annual Raise Your Voice gala at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. The not-for-profit organization focuses on education, outreach, and research regarding voice loss, voice restoration, and breathing impairments. At this year’s gala, VHI honored its honorary chairwoman, beloved singer and actress Dame Julie Andrews, who is best known for her roles as Mary Poppins, Maria von Trapp (“Sound of Music”), Queen Clarisse Renaldo (“Princess Diaries”), and more.
Beyond The Stage had the opportunity to ask Andrews a few questions about vocal health, the new “Mary Poppins” film, and the 53th anniversary of the “Sound of Music”. See what she had to say below!
Beyond The Stage: Why is it important for you to speak out about vocal health?
Julie Andrews: [It’s important to be at the Raise Your Voice Gala] because for all of us, we use our voices. Vocal health is unbelievably important, so many people don’t think about it. We take them for granted, if we weren’t able to speak or use our voices, then where would we be? When you think about it, to have cancer, to be a child that’s had a tracheal tube placed down his throat because it couldn’t breath. To be a teacher or an auditor who speaks, or a clergymen – they all use their voices and without them, it would be an extremely difficult thing to do their work. I’m just trying to focus more attention on that and how important it is to keep a voice healthy.
BTS: What do you want others to know about the Voice Health Institute and vocal health issues?
JA: The man who’s in charge of it, Steven Zeitels, is a genius. He lives, eats, breathes, and sleeps vocal health. I don’t know anybody that’s better, and he cares enormously. I think people that are lucky enough to find him are in very very good hands.
BTS: Did Emily Blunt get in touch with you to ask for advice on playing Mary Poppins?
JA: No, I admire her enormously. It’s wonderful that she’s the new Poppins. [The new movie] is not a remake, it’s a brand new film based on all the other stories. But, I wish her well. I admire her and have met her, and she’s lovely.
BTS: Did you get to watch the trailer that premiered during the Oscars?
JA: It was very brief, but I wanted more!
BTS: Have you seen any more of the footage [from the movie]?
JA: No, not yet. I’ve just been letting them do their thing.
BTS: But you’ll definitely go and see it?
JA: Oh, are you kidding? Of course.
BTS: This week in 1965, “Sound Of Music” premiered, how does that feel looking back and how did it change your career?
JA: “Mary Poppins” and “Sound of Music” really [changed my career]. It was amazing, I had made three films— “Mary Poppins”, “The Americanization of Emily”, and “Sound of Music”— not one of them had been released. I was having this lovely time playing in the sandbox and making movies and suddenly they were released. Lucky me!
CALL her Mary Poppins if you wish. Call her Maria if you prefer. Best of all, call her Dame Julie Andrews, singer, dancer and actress. In fact, you could just call her in every sense of the word — a star!
Julie hasn’t long turned 82, which means that she has been entertaining for 75 years. Yes, 75 years!
She started when she was around seven, singing on stage with her mother and stepfather.
“We lived out of a suitcase going from theatre to theatre and I used to sing for fun,” said Julie.
“I had such an unusual voice that my mother had a throat specialist look at me.
“He said I had the larynx of an adult. I hoped that was a compliment. Anyway, one evening, I was told to go to bed during the afternoon.
“I hadn’t done anything wrong, so I was a bit puzzled until my mother explained that I was to be allowed to sing with Mummy and Pop in the evening.
“That was where it started, really, looking back. I must have been awful and since I had to stand on a beer crate to reach the microphone, it must have looked even more bizarre.
“My mother played the piano and I sang solo or in duet with Pop.”
It was her stepfather who introduced Julie to Val Parnell, who found a spot for her in a show he was producing in London. It was called Starlight Roof.
“It was my first real professional engagment,” said Julie.
“It was October, 1947, and I had just become 12.
“There was a marvellous American entertainer called Wally Boag. He was a comedian who did balloon modelling as part of his act.
“He’d say: ‘Is there any little girl or boy in the audience who’d like one of these?’
“I’d then rush up and say: ‘I’d like one, please.’ He chatted to me and I told him — and the audience of course — that I could sing.
“Then I sang an aria, Je suis Titania, and every performance, it stopped the show. The audience went crazy, partly because it was a beautiful aria and I could sing it and partly because I was just a kid.
“I think I was overwhelmed inside, but seeing my mother and pop on stage every night, I was already into the whole showbusiness ethos.
“I was still amazed to find myself on stage with Danny Kaye, though, at the London Palladium on November 1, 1948 for the Royal Variety Show in front of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
“I was the youngest-ever performer in the annual show and totally amazed by it all. It was a moment I have always cherished, though.”
It’s hard to believe all that was happening nearly 70 years ago and here we are today with that little girl having conquered the entertainment world in so many different ways.
“My parents went into radio and TV and I followed them which is how I spent a couple of years in Educating Archie with Peter Brough, Max Bygraves, Beryl Reid and the others,” recalled Julie.
“I am surprised at how many people still remember that, but it was great.”
On the eve of her 19th birthday, she made her Broadway debut playing Polly Browne in The Boyfriend.
“That was a big step — going to America, playing on Broadway and turning 19 all at the same time was incredible, but it got even better when I was asked to audition for the part of Eliza Doolittle in a new Lerner and Loewe musical called My Fair Lady.
“I really wanted the part. I was an English girl wanting to play the part of a Cockney girl.
“I had some experience, but I was still quite young and there was a lot of other talent available.
“I remember the butterflies and trying to tell myself that it was not a matter of life or death.
“Needless to say, I did my best and I was just so thrilled when I got the job.”
My Fair Lady was a massive success on Broadway and all over again when it came to London in 1958. Julie made Eliza her own and was devastated when the film role went to Audrey Hepburn.
“I must confess that I threw a few tantrums,” she said. “I loved playing Eliza. I didn’t blame Audrey, it was not her fault and we always got along well.”
Julie Andrews has been entwined with Eliza ever since those days on Broadway and at Drury Lane. She has even directed a production of My Fair Lady in Australia and still speaks affectionately of Eliza Doolittle.
“She was so lovely and she still is. She had ambition to break away from the life all the Cockney girls had and wanted to be a lady in a flower shop.
“She wanted to talk properly and respects Henry Higgins for that. At the end of this whole process she’s been through, she’s a different woman.
“Some people find that at the end, they’d like to have seen them marry or that Eliza would go her own way, but really it is clear that she can manage without him now. If he bullies her again, she’s gone, but if he respects her and perhaps even loves her, they will be together for life.
“My favourite moment that’s the most moving for me in the whole show is when Eliza says: ‘I don’t want you to make love to me, but I want you to be more friendly like.’ Higgins could seal it with a kiss right there, but he can’t.
“He’s too locked up and immature. Suddenly she is in the driving seat for a moment, Eliza has grown up and has become a lady.”
Mary Poppins in 1964 changed Julie’s movie status — and her entire life.
“Mary Poppins was wonderful and so nice that I found her a little too sweet and rebelled,” she said.
“For a while, I had a sticker on my car which said: ‘Mary Poppins is a junkie.’
“I was approached by Walt Disney to play Mary Poppins after he saw me playing Guinevere in Camelot on stage.
“I was four months pregnant with Emma. I turned him down and explained the reason. He simply smiled and said: ‘That’s OK, we can wait.’ And they did.”
Julie was handed a Best Actress Oscar for her iconic role.
“I was amazed and all I could think of saying was to thank Walt Disney,” she said. “I took it home and put it in the attic as I just didn’t feel that I deserved such an honour and didn’t want it to seem that I was showing off.
“When people kept on saing nice things about the film and it just moved on from generation to generation, I got it out again and gave it a polish.”
The Sound of Music in 1965 provided another iconic moment when Julie as Maria ran across a mountain top to sing the title song.
“I was being chased by a film crew on a helicopter. Whenever it came near me, to go back to his end of the field, the downdraft from the engines of that helicopter threw me into the grass.
“It just knocked me flat every time and I was getting angrier, spitting mud and dust and grass. Very un-Maria like.”
Thoroughly Modern Millie and countless other successful films and stage productions followed, but Julie has had her setbacks.
Her first marriage to Tony Walton ended in divorce after eight years and she married again to legendary producer Blake Edwards. They were wed for 41 years until his death in 2010.
A throat operation in the late 1990s went wrong and virtually ended her singing career. The hospital concerned settled the matter with a vast payment, but that was little compensation for the loss of her singing ability.
“We all have our setbacks in life, but we come back fighting,” said Julie.
“They always say that you are only as good as your last film or stage show, so I am looking forward to my next one — and the one after.
“After making Mary Poppins, I once said in an interview: ‘I’m the lucky lady that was asked to do this wonderful movie.
“‘It’s one of those breaks in life, one of those breaks in your career.’
“I knew it then and I know it now. I’m waiting for my next break.”
Julie Andrews on Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and the role she was devastated to miss out on
She is best known for playing Maria Von Trapp in beloved musical The Sound of Music, set in the Austrian city of Salzburg.
And Julie Andrews returned to her famous Alpine surroundings on Wednesday, as she was spotted enjoying a relaxing getaway to Gstaad, Switzerland.
The actress, 82, proved to be as glamorous as ever in a chic white coat and pin curls, as she embarked on a food shop with friends in the winter holiday hotspot.
Julie looked far younger than her years in black flares and a padded white coat as she headed to the supermarket in the luxurious ski resort.
Wrapping up warm in the cold, the actress co-ordinated her bright red jumper with a striped scarf, and kept comfortable for her outing in sturdy black ankle boots.
Yet, despite her casual look, Julie accessorised with a sleek leather handbag, embellished with silver studs, and styled her hair into tight pin curls for a touch of old school glamour.
Effortless: The star wrapped up warm in a white coat and bright red jumper, but maintained her usual glamour with dark sunglasses and pin curls as she embarked on a food shop
Tying her look together with dark, oversized sunglasses, the musical star was the picture of sophistication as she picked up a few essentials with friends, for their relaxing trip away.
Julie has starred in a number of big films and musicals over the years, but is perhaps best known for playing Maria in the 1965 classic The Sound of Music.
The film, shot in fellow Alpine city Salzburg, sees nun Maria sent to the villa of retired naval officer Georg von Trapp, played by Christopher Plummer, to be the governess of his seven children.
It has since become one of the most popular musicals of all time, and Julie even returned to Salzburg in 2015, to film a documentary in honour of the movie’s fiftieth anniversary.
Speaking to People at the time, Julie admitted she never thought the musical would be such a success – let alone one that has brought so much joy into her life.
She said: ‘I never anticipated that 50 years after the film was released, I’d be sitting here. It’s brought me many gifts and many friends, truthfully.’
After the success of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, Julie went on to star in the likes of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Victor/Victoria, for which she bagged the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical.
She has since turned her attention to vocal roles in recent years – acting as the narrator in 2007 fantasy musical Enchanted, and providing voices in the Shrek and Despicable Me franchises.
First time release on CD!!
Release date December 8 2017
’High Tor’ is regarded as being the first recognized made for television movie. Filmed in November 1955, the television musical was based on Maxwell Anderson’s 1936 play ‘High Tor’. Anderson had first considered adapting ‘High Tor’ as a musical for television in 1949 and enlisted Arthur Schwartz to compose the song score. Both Anderson and Schwartz envisaged the musical as a star vehicle for Bing Crosby who played the lead role of Van Van Dorn. After Crosby had seen Julie Andrews perform in her Broadway debut ‘The Boy Friend’, he insisted she play the female lead of Lise, marking Andrews’ debut on US television.
Limited to 500 copies.
http://www.stagedoorrecords.com/stage2420.html
