Oscar Profile #424: Julie Andrews

Born October 1, 1935 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England as Julia Elizabeth Wells, the internationally acclaimed superstar known professionally as Julie Andrews took the last name of her stepfather (Ted Andrews) when her mother remarried in 1944.

Andrews began performing at early age with her mother and stepfather who were both music hall performers. Just after her 13th birthday in 1948, she became the youngest performer ever to be seen in Royal Command Variety Performance before King George V and Queen Elizabeth at the London Palladium on a bill with Danny Kaye and the Nicholas Brothers. She then followed her parents into radio and television. From 1950-1952, she played West End roles at the London Casino in such productions as Humpty Dumpty, Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood. In 1952, she voiced Princess Zeila in the English dubbed version of the animated Italian film, The Singing Princess. She made her Broadway debut starring in The Boy Friend on the eve of her 19th birthday.

After The Boy Friend, Andrews’ career bloomed with the starring role of Eliza Dolittle opposite Rex Harrison in Lerner & Loewe’s legendary 1956 Broadway smash, My Fair Lady and her concurrent portrayal of the title character in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 1957 TV production of Cinderella. After taking My Fair Lady to London with Harrison in 1959, she returned to Broadway as Guenevere opposite Richard Burton in Lerner & Loewe’s 1960 hit, Camelot.

In 1963, after Jack Warner famously refused to cast her in the film version of My Fair Lady, Walt Disney cast her as the lead in Mary Poppins. Both films were released in 1964 with My Fair Lady winning Oscars for Best Picture and Actor (Rex Harrison) among others, while Andrews won as Best Actress for Mary Poppins. Her second film, The Americanization of Emily was also released to great acclaim that year. The following year’s The Sound of Music became the biggest box-office hit of all time up to that point, won the year’s Best Picture Oscar and earned Andrews a second nomination. Her next two films, Torn Curtain and Hawaii did moderately well and her next musical, 1967’s Thoroughly Modern Millie was a huge success. That same year she divorced husband Tony Walton whom she had married in 1959 and married director Blake Edwards. Her next films, 1968’s Star! and 1970’s Darling Lili were under-appreciated flops as was 1974’s The Tamarind Seed.

Andrews had a career resurgence with 1979’s 10, 1981’s S.O.B. and 1982’s Victor/Victoria for which she received a third Oscar nomination. In 1986, she received dual Golden Globe nominations for That’s Life and Duet for One, after which her career quieted down again. She returned to Broadway in the 1995 adaptation of Victor/Victoria after which she lost her singing voice due to botched throat surgery.

Made a Dame of the British Empire with the Queen’s 2000 New Year’s Honors, the ever-popular star found renewed success in 2001’s The Princess Diaries and its 2004 sequel, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Husband Blake Edwards died in 2010, but she has kept busy mostly with voice work in such films as Despicable Me and the current Aquaman.

Julie Andrews remains at the top of the show business heap at 83.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

MARY POPPINS (1964), directed by Robert Stevenson

A tale as old as time, a song as old as rhyme, one producer (Jack Warner) refuses to cast an unknown in his expensive production (My Fair Lady) and another casts her in a less prestigious project that by the time it is seen, proves to be equally enchanting and the star (Andrews) becomes the biggest sensation on the planet. What is even more remarkable is that fifty-four years later, a sequel to her sensational first film is released without her and is beaten at the box-office by another film in which she has a role. That film, Aquaman, not Mary Poppins Returns, was the biggest hit of their joint opening week.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), directed by Robert Wise

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 1959 Broadway musical was a popular success, but it had nothing on the film version of six years later in which Julie Andrews solidified her success. From the often copied but never topped opening sequence to the final shot in the film, it succeeds with that glorious score, sure direction, cinematography and production design in support of those adorable kids and equally adorable nuns, but its Andrews’ legendary portrayal of the legendary Maria von Trapp that towers above it all. I’m not at all sure it would have reached the heights it did if they had cast Doris Day or Mitzi Gaynor instead.

VICTOR/VICTORIA (1982), directed by Blake Edwards

The fifth of seven films husband Blake Edwards directed Andrews in, this was by far the best of them. Whereas she was superb in Darling Lili and The Tamarind Seed the films were not, and while 10 and S.O.B. were successful comedies neither showed her in her best light. It took this musical return along with her co-star from her second film, The Americanization of Emily (James Garner), and the comeback star of her last, the afore-mentioned S.O.B. (Robert Preston), to bring her back to the heights from which she not really fallen since.

DUET FOR ONE (1986), directed by Andrey Konchalovskiy

Andrews achieved the rare distinction of being nominated for Golden Globes as both Best Actress – Drama for Duet for One and Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for That’s Life! the same year. In Duet for One, she was a famous violin player married to a composer (Alan Bates) who is suffering from Multiple Schlerosis. In That’s Life! , she was the sympathetic wife of a wealthy yet depressed architect (Jack Lemmon). Max von Sydow and Rupert Everett co-starred in the former, Sally Kellerman and Robert Loggia co-starred in the latter.

THE PRINCESS DIARIES (2001), directed by Garry Marshall

Combining elements of both fairy tales and screwball comedies, Andrews returns to Disney Studios as the Queen of Genovia, a fictitious minor European country, who comes to the U.S. to advise the granddaughter (Anne Hathaway) she has never met that the carefree teenager is now the heir apparent to the throne following the death of her estranged father in a car crash two weeks earlier. The film, which made a star of Hathaway, was a huge hit, as was its 2004 sequel, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Both Andrews and Hathaway are utterly charming in both films.