Julie Andrews

English musical-theater and pop singer

• Born: October 1, 1935
• Place of Birth: Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England

Andrews is a gifted interpreter of musical roles and songs, with a remarkable ability to deliver story through melody in stage productions and on film.

The Life

English musical-theater and pop singer. Julie Andrews was born Julia Elizabeth Wells, to Barbara Mores, a pianist. She had a younger brother, John. She grew up believing her mother's husband, Edward Wells, who taught woodworking and metalsmithing, to be her father. When Andrews was five, her parents divorced. It was only years later that Andrews's mother revealed to her that Wells—with whom Andrews had maintained a relationship—was not her biological father. As Andrews explained in her autobiography, after keeping the secret for most of her career, she was conceived during her mother's affair with a man who she grew up knowing only as a family friend.

During World War II, when Andrews’s stepfather, Ted Andrews, led community singing in air-raid shelters, he noticed his stepdaughter’s remarkable vocal ability and her four-octave range. After the war, Andrews began singing in her mother and stepfather’s vaudeville act. She soon took her stepfather’s name, Andrews, as her own professional name, although she would later recount that he was sometimes abusive. Andrews spent the next several years singing in various musical revues, including the Starlight Roof revue at the London Hippodrome. In November 1948, she participated in a Royal Command Performance, hosted by Danny Kaye, at the London Palladium. Andrews also appeared in pantomimes (musical fairy tales), a type of children’s entertainment popular in Britain.

While appearing in an unsuccessful play in the English provinces in 1954, Andrews was offered a role in an upcoming American production of The Boy Friend (1954), a cheerful spoof of 1920s musicals that was already a smash hit in London. At first Andrews was reluctant to take the part. She thought she was too young for the role, and the show would be her first appearance outside of England. Nevertheless, she signed a one-year contract, and The Boy Friend opened at Broadway’s Royale Theatre on September 30, 1954. New York critics were delighted with The Boy Friend, and they were especially charmed by Andrews as Polly, a wealthy young woman who fears she will be loved only for her money. Though The Boy Friend was an ensemble piece, with several actors playing equally large parts, Andrews was given featured billing on the Royale Theatre’s marquee a few weeks after the show opened. As soon as her contract expired, she returned to England. Her stay was short, however, because she was besieged with job offers back in the United States. In one of these, Andrews played a supporting role in the television special High Tor (1956), a musical version of the Maxwell Anderson play that starred Bing Crosby as a romantic dreamer and Andrews as the ghost of a beautiful girl from the seventeenth century with whom he falls in love. By the time High Tor aired on CBS in early March 1956, Andrews was back on Broadway in My Fair Lady (1956), the Alan Jay Lerner and Arthur Loewe musical play based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1913).

In May 1959, during a vacation from the London production of My Fair Lady, Andrews married Tony Walton, a theatrical set designer; they had one daughter, Emma, born in November 1962. The couple worked together professionally, most notably in Mary Poppins (1964), but they divorced in 1968. The next year, Andrews married film director Blake Edwards. They adopted two daughters from Vietnam, Joanna and Amy.

At this time, Andrews worked in television, appearing in a number of specials, a variety series in the early 1970s that was critically acclaimed but not popular with the public, and a situation comedy in 1992 that lasted only a few weeks. The majority of her screen appearances after the late 1960s were in films directed by Edwards, including such ribald comedies as 10 (1979) and S.O.B. (1981).

In 1974, Andrews published her first children’s book, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles. It was followed in 1989 by Mandy. She continued to publish several works, including The Great American Mousical, an introduction to the theater for children. At the American Library Association’s annual conference in June 2007, Andrews announced that her publisher, HarperCollins, had established the Julie Andrews Collection, a book series, as an incentive to encourage children to read.

In 1997, near the end of her two-year run on Broadway with Victor/Victoria, Andrews was diagnosed with a noncancerous growth on her vocal cords. She wrapped up the musical in June, and she had surgery shortly afterward. Even though she had been told her vocal cords would not be compromised, Andrews lost her singing voice. Early in 2000, she filed a lawsuit against her doctor and his associates, but she accepted an undisclosed settlement, dropped the lawsuit, and moved on to other projects.

Andrews worked on behalf of many charities, including Operation USA, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and Save the Children. Andrews received many honors for her charity work as well as for her contributions to entertainment. In 2000 she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, and in 2001 she received an Honor Award from the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, DC. On January 28, 2007, Andrews won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild.

The Music

My Fair Lady. The now classic production of My Fair Lady opened at Broadway’s Mark Hellinger Theatre on March 15, 1956, to nearly unanimous praise. My Fair Lady retained much of Shaw’s original dialogue, and the part of Eliza Doolittle demanded more acting ability than the average musical comedy role, and certainly more than Andrews had when she started rehearsals. Andrews had extensive experience as a singer, but almost none as an actress. Andrews later admitted in interviews that she had problems trying to learn the role and dealing with the prickly leading man, Rex Harrison, who wanted her to be replaced with someone more experienced. To help Andrews with her characterization, director Moss Hart gave her a grueling week of private coaching, going over every line of dialogue and nuance of the role. In gratitude, his leading lady later acknowledged that Hart made her Eliza Doolittle. The musical enjoyed an original run of 2,717 performances, and it garnered wonderful notices for Andrews. She returned to England to star in the London production of My Fair Lady, which opened April 30, 1958, at the Drury Lane Theatre, beginning a run of 2,281 performances. In total, Andrews spent three and half years performing in My Fair Lady.

Cinderella. In February 1957, Andrews began rehearsals for the title role in the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musical Cinderella (1957) while still doing eight shows a week in My Fair Lady. Cinderella was the celebrated team’s only original production for television, and the producers surrounded Andrews with a stellar cast of actors, including Ilka Chase and Broadway legends Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney. It was broadcast live on CBS on Sunday, March 31, 1957.

Camelot. Andrews returned to Broadway to play Guenevere in Lerner and Loewe’s Arthurian musical Camelot (1960), which opened at the Majestic Theatre on December 3, 1960. Although Camelot did not achieve the success of My Fair Lady, it was a solid hit. Andrews immensely enjoyed the year and a half she spent with the lavish show, one of the costliest Broadway productions up to that time. Andrews befriended her Welsh-born leading man, Richard Burton, as King Arthur, whom she found affable and approachable. Andrews left Camelot when she discovered that she was pregnant.

While Andrews was appearing in the final months of Camelot, producer Jack L. Warner started to cast the film version of My Fair Lady. Although Andrews was tested for the role of Doolittle, Warner wanted for the part a big star who could guarantee big box-office receipts. He ensured this by hiring Audrey Hepburn, whose musical numbers were dubbed by Marni Nixon. Controversy over this decision continued until the Academy Awards ceremony, when Andrews’s stage costar, Harrison, received his Best Actor Oscar for repeating his role in the film version and graciously thanked "two fair ladies." Similarly, Warner did not select Andrews for the role of Guenevere when he was producing the film version of Camelot in 1967. Instead, he signed British actress Vanessa Redgrave, another nonsinger.

Mary Poppins. Although Andrews was disappointed at not being hired to portray Doolittle on film, she accepted an offer from Walt Disney, who had admired Andrews’s performance in Camelot, to star in his musical film version of Mary Poppins (1964), based on the P. L. Travers books. The score was written by Richard and Robert Sherman. This was Andrews’s first motion picture, and the combination of live action and animation proved popular, making it one of Disney’s most successful films. The great critical and commercial success of Mary Poppins, which costarred Dick Van Dyke, turned the loss of starring in the motion picture My Fair Lady into a stroke of good fortune for Andrews. She won the Best Actress Academy Award (one of the film’s five wins) for her portrayal of the magical nanny who brings joy to a stuffy family in Edwardian London; it was a rare instance of a performer in a musical film being so honored. In addition, Andrews was the first Disney actress to be given an acting honor that was not honorary, an immense achievement.

The Sound of Music. After Mary Poppins, Andrews appeared in a World War II black comedy, The Americanization of Emily, in a nonsinging role, opposite frequent Andrews costar James Garner. Released in November 1964, after Mary Poppins and before The Sound of Music (1965), The Americanization of Emily was generally well-received. The film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical The Sound of Music, the tale of a rambunctious novice nun who becomes the nanny to an aristocratic Austrian family and then marries their father, reached theaters in March 1965. Although critics were not enthusiastic, it became one of the most beloved films of all time. The 1959 musical was based on the story of the singing Von Trapp family, who left Austria before World War II and emigrated to the United States, ending up in Stowe, Vermont. The film version was shot on location in Salzburg, Austria, where the family estate was located. Some of the musical numbers were photographed in a series of locations that moved the story along, a novelty at the time.

The reviews praised the film’s breathtaking Alpine scenery but criticized its sugary plot. Nevertheless, global audiences turned out in record-breaking numbers. It became the highest-grossing musical up to that time and an enduring pop culture staple. There are even sing-along events, in which audience members dress up as characters in the film and sing along while the lyrics appear on the screen. Andrews got an Academy Award nomination for her role as Maria, and the film earned the Best Picture award. This is the film role for which Andrews is best known, although it did tend to lock her remarkable talent into a stereotype of the singing governess from which she had trouble escaping.

Thoroughly Modern Millie. Two nonmusical roles followed: Torn Curtain (1966), a suspense drama directed by Alfred Hitchcock and costarring Paul Newman, and Hawaii (1966), a big-budget epic about New England missionaries on the Pacific island, with Richard Harris and Max Von Sydow, Andrews came back to her musical roots with a 1920s spoof similar to The Boy Friend, called Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), costarring Carol Channing, Mary Tyler Moore, James Fox, and the great British comedian Beatrice Lillie. It was one of the most popular films of the year, and its bouncy title tune, sung by Andrews over the opening credits, became a popular commercial success. The film featured Andrews in the title role as a 1920s flapper. Although the film received lackluster reviews, its score, by Elmer Bernstein, won an Academy Award. Thoroughly Modern Millie typified the film-musical genre, whose popularity peaked at the height of Andrews’s vocal powers.

Star! The highly touted 1968 film Star!, based on the life of stage actor Gertrude Lawrence, teamed Andrews with her The Sound of Music director, Robert Wise, but the film was poorly received. She superbly recreated Lawrence’s Broadway musical triumphs, with a far superior singing voice than Lawrence possessed, but Andrews was generally lambasted by critics as too ladylike for the role. Her costar, Daniel Massey, won a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as Noël Coward, and their scenes together invigorated a rather dramatically weak and inaccurate film.

After she married Edwards, Andrews appeared in several of his films, and she became a regular guest star on television, most notably in a series of specials with her friend Carol Burnett, and in many specials, such as The Julie Andrews Hour (1972-1973), Julie on Sesame Street (1973), and Julie Andrews: The Sound of Music (1987).

Victor/Victoria. The most successful film effort of Andrews and Edwards, Victor/Victoria, broke with her ladylike image. In the 1982 musical farce, Andrews plays a down-on-her-luck opera singer who turns to gender impersonation to earn a living, Victor/Victoria offered her a sophisticated and edgy role that allowed her to break away from her wholesome image. Her effectiveness in playing a woman pretending to be a man who is pretending to be a woman earned Andrews a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, and it provided her with one of her best film roles in years, appearing opposite Garner again and Robert Preston in a brilliant turn as her gay mentor and friend. The role solidified Andrews’s status as a serious and accomplished actor.

Back on Broadway. In the 1990s, with a less-pressing domestic situation, Andrews made a long-awaited return to the theater. She participated in the off-Broadway production Putting It Together (1993), a revue of Stephen Sondheim songs, as one of an ensemble cast of five singers, in a limited run of twelve weeks. Two years later, Andrews returned to the theater with the stage version of Victor/Victoria, a large-scale production that totally revolved around her character. Although expectations were high, Victor/Victoria, directed by her husband and with music and lyrics by Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse, opened on Broadway on October 25, 1995, to mixed reviews. Andrews was praised, and she received a Tony Award nomination, although she declined to accept the nomination when she discovered she was the only one the show nominated.

Later Projects. In 1998, for the stage musical Dr. Dolittle in London, Andrews performed the voice of Polynesia the parrot, recording some seven hundred sentences and sounds, which were placed on a computer chip that sat in the mechanical bird’s mouth. In 1999 she teamed with Garner to make One Special Night, a television film, for CBS. In 2001 Andrews and her The Sound of Music costar, Christopher Plummer, were reunited for a live television broadcast of the play On Golden Pond (1979).

Andrews returned to films in 2001 as the royal grandmother in The Princess Diaries, the story of a gawky teenager who learns that her long-absent father, who has died, was the prince of a small European country. In 2004 Andrews reprised her role as Queen Clarisse Renaldi in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, and she also starred as the voice of Queen Lillian in Shrek 2. In 2007, she was the narrator for the Disney film Enchanted, a spoof of and tribute to the musicals that made her famous, in addition to reprising her role in Shrek the Third (2010). In the 2010s, Andrews had a number of other film appearances, most notably as the voice of the main character's mother in the animated hit Despicable Me (2010) and Despicable Me 3 (2017). She also voiced the character in the 2022 spinoff, Minions: The Rise of Gru.

In 2020, Andrews became the voice of Lady Whistledown in Bridgerton, Netflix's hit historical romance series. She remained in the role on the popular series through its first three seasons. She also made notable appearances at awards shows and concerts, even making some attempts at singing despite her damaged voice.

Musical Legacy

Andrews was blessed with a beautiful soprano voice and crystal-clear diction that were especially suited to both film and stage musicals. Although her peak of popularity was in the 1960s, her career extended well beyond. She proved that she could mature beyond her typecasting as the singing governess, gaining strength as an actor at a time in her career when many women would be overlooked.

Andrews will always be remembered for her contributions to musical theater on the strength of her performances in the phenomenally popular Broadway musicals My Fair Lady and Camelot and the film musicals The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. In addition, she has proved her creative versatility, with her roles in films aimed at the youth market and as a respected children’s author.

Principal Recordings

ALBUMS: The Lass with the Delicate Air, 1957; Julie Andrews Sings, 1958; Broadway’s Fair Julie, 1961; Don’t Go in the Lion’s Cage Tonight, 1962; Heartrending Ballads and Raucous Ditties, 1962; A Christmas Treasure, 1968; Darling Lili, 1970; Christmas with Julie Andrews, 1982; Love Me Tender, 1982; Love, Julie, 1989; Broadway: The Music of Richard Rodgers, 1994; Here I’ll Stay: The Words of Alan Jay Lerner, 1996; Julie Andrews Selects Her Favorite Disney Songs, 2005.

Writings of Interest

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, 2008; Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years 2019.

Bibliography

Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. Hyperion, 2008.

Arntz, James, and Thomas S. Wilson. Julie Andrews. Contemporary Books, 1995.

"Julie Andrews." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0000267. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Lerner, Alan Jay. The Street Where I Live. Da Capo Press, 1994.

Santopietro, Tom. The Sound of Music Story. St. Martin's, 2015.

Spindle, Les. Julie Andrews: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood, 1989.

Walker, Tim. "Julie Andrews Turns 80: An Appreciation of the Mary Poppins Star's Career." Independent, 1 Oct. 2015, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/julie-andrews-at-80-mary-poppins-star-in-pictures-a6675451.html. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Wilk, Max. The Making of “The Sound of Music.” Routledge, 2007.

Windeler, Robert. Julie Andrews: A Life on Stage and Screen. Carol, 1997.