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
After having vocal surgery to remove ‘nodules’, Julie Andrews was left with permanent damage that destroyed her four-octave soprano voice.
Julie Andrews, the 84-year-old soprano and musical theatre legend, has opened up about the 1997 operation that caused her to lose her singing voice, saying: ‘I went into a depression’.
“When I woke up from an operation to remove a cyst on my vocal cord, my singing voice was gone,” she told AARP The Magazine for their October/November 2019 issue.
“I went into a depression. It felt like I’d lost my identity.”
Andrews, who won an Academy Award for her starring role in Mary Poppins (1964), first noticed her voice was hoarse during a Broadway show in 1997.
Shortly after, she had surgery to remove what she thought were ‘non-cancerous nodules’ from her throat at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital. The surgery left her with permanent damage that destroyed her voice.
In 1999, Andrews filed a malpractice suit against the doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital. The lawsuit was settled in September 2000.
Ten years later, the Sound of Music actress revealed that she did not have cancer or nodules but was suffering from ‘a certain kind of muscular striation’ on her vocal cords, after straining her voice while making Victor/Victoria – the 1982 comedy directed by her late husband, Blake Edwards.
Andrews has since had several unsuccessful operations to repair her voice. Fortunately, around the time of operation, a new path opened up for the singer.
“But by good fortune,” she tells AARP, “That’s when my daughter Emma and I had been asked to write books for kids,” she said. “So along came a brand-new career in my mid-60s. Boy, was that a lovely surprise.”
“But do I miss singing,” she added. “Yes. I really do.
“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.”
On being cast as Mary Poppins – her feature film debut – she said: “I don’t know what P.L. Travers [the author of the Mary Poppins books] 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.”
Now, Julie is starring in the TV series Bridgerton and has a new book coming out on 15 October, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years.
But it seems those aren’t the only plans on the horizon for the singer.
“I’d love to be able to paint,” she tells AARP. “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.”
America’s Highest Honor for a Career in Film
to Be Presented at Gala Dinner on April 25, 2020
Tribute Will Premiere on TNT, Thursday, May 7 at 10pm ET/PT
The American Film Institute (AFI) Board of Trustees announced today that Dame Julie Andrews will be the recipient of the 48th AFI Life Achievement Award, the highest honor for a career in film. The award will be presented to Andrews at a Gala Tribute on April 25, in Los Angeles, CA. The AFI Life Achievement Award has won Emmy® Awards across five decades in its 48-year run and will return for its eighth year with TNT, followed by encore presentations on sister network Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in the fall. Audi returns as an Official Sponsor of the event.
“Julie Andrews is practically perfect in every way,” said Kathleen Kennedy, Chair of the AFI Board of Trustees. “Her talents across time have inspired a shared sense of joy across generations, and her gifts to our cultural heritage are a testament to the power of this art form to bring us together when we need it most. AFI is proud to sing her praises with its 48th Life Achievement Award.”
A legendary actress of both stage and screen, Andrews has enchanted and delighted audiences around the world with her uplifting and inspiring body of work. She continues to captivate viewers in front of the camera, with her remarkable wit, characteristic grace and an incandescent and unmistakable voice all of her own — while also shining a light on humanitarian issues in her activism and philanthropic work.
A three-time Academy Award nominee, Andrews star turn in MARY POPPINS won her both a BAFTA and an Oscar®. From her early debut as Polly Browne in “The Boyfriend” to her critically-acclaimed Eliza Doolittle in the Broadway hit “My Fair Lady” to her timeless performance as Maria von Trapp in THE SOUND OF MUSIC to her groundbreaking dual roles in the gender-bending VICTOR/VICTORIA, Andrews has proven herself an accomplished and versatile actress. Throughout an illustrious career that spans seven decades, she has won five Golden Globes, three Grammys® and two Emmys® for projects infused with her incomparable charm and recognized for their ability to enthrall audiences worldwide. The critically lauded Andrews is also a Kennedy Center honoree, a Disney Legend inductee and the recipient of a SAG Life Achievement Award.
On stage and screen, she has delivered transcendent performances known for their elegance, artistry and humor, with additional acting credits including: “Camelot” (1960), THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (1964), TORN CURTAIN (1966), HAWAII (1966), THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (1967), STAR! (1968), 10 (1979), LITTLE MISS MARKER (1980), THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN (1983), DUET FOR ONE (1986), ENCHANTED (2007) and AQUAMAN (2018). She has also starred in multiple, successful franchises, including THE PRINCESS DIARIES 1 and 2 (2001); SHREK 2 (2004), SHREK THE THIRD (2007) and SHREK FOREVER AFTER (2010); and DESPICABLE ME (2010) and DESPICABLE ME 3 (2017) and the upcoming MINIONS. Recently, Andrews was cast in Shonda Rhimes’ new Netflix series BRIDGERTON to play a sharp-tongued gossip writer in Regency London, marking her continued evolution as an actress and icon. Andrews’ second memoir, “Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years” — a follow-up to her successful 2008 New York Times Best Seller, “Home: A Memoir of My Early Years” — will be released October 15.
SEP. 13, 2019 2:08 PM
The Los Angeles Times Book Club has announced its latest selection: “Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years” by Julie Andrews.
The actress, singer, author and star of iconic Hollywood and Broadway productions will join readers on Nov. 18 at the Orpheum Theatre. Andrews will be in conversation about “Home Work” with The Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mary McNamara.
The book, scheduled to be released Oct. 15, details Andrews’ transformation from traveling performer to movie star, starting with her breakthrough Disney role as “Mary Poppins.” Andrews wrote “Home Work” with daughter Emma Walton Hamilton. It’s a sequel to “Home,” her 2008 bestseller detailing a difficult childhood growing up in England and early years on the vaudeville stage.
The Nov. 18 event, hosted by the book club and the Times Ideas Exchange, begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Orpheum in downtown Los Angeles. Ticket information will be coming soon.
