FEATURED ARTICLE
THOMAS HAUSER
Julie Andrews: The Eternal My Fair Lady at 90
THE SCORECARD / JULIE ANDREWS: THE ETERNAL MY FAIR LADY AT 90
Julie Andrews has made her way into the hearts of millions upon millions of people around the world. So a word in celebration in honor of her ninetieth birthday is in order.
Julia Wells was born on October 1, 1935, in Walton-on-Thames in England. Her parents were vaudevillians. When she was seven, her mother left her father to marry singer-guitarist Ted Andrews, and Julia Wells became Julie Andrews. Her stepfather was an alcoholic who sexually molested her. When she was fifteen, her mother confided in her that her birth was the result of an extramarital affair and that the man Julie had grown up thinking of as her biological father wasn't.
That's a grim childhood.
Julie was a child prodigy who grew up performing. At age twenty, she played Eliza Doolittle on Broadway opposite Rex Harrison's Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. Other actors could have played those roles. But no one could have played them better. The play (Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's adaptation of Pygmalion) is widely regarded as the greatest Broadway musical ever. Sadly, only one short video clip of it exists - a staged version of Andrews singing "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" on The Ed Sullivan Show. "I do wish somewhere there was a film of our stage production," she later lamented.
Equally troubling, when Warner Brothers produced My Fair Lady as a feature film, it refused to cast Andrews as Eliza because it wanted a big-name star in the role. Audrey Hepburn (who couldn't sing) got the part and her songs were dubbed by Marni Nixon.
The Broadway cast album stands testament to Andrews' majesty as Eliza.
Andrews returned to Broadway as Queen Guenevere opposite Richard Burton in Camelot. Then Walt Disney offered her the title role in Mary Poppins (for which she won an Academy Award as best actress). That was followed by an equally iconic turn as Maria in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. Those films embedded her in the consciousness of generations around the world. Her dozens of film credits include three turns with James Garner (The Americanization of Emily, Victor Victoria, and A Special Place) and roles opposite the likes of Paul Newman, Richard Harris, and Robert Preston.
Andrews was married twice, the second time to Blake Edwards in a union that lasted until his death after forty-one years of marriage. The full body of her work can be seen and listened to on multiple platforms. Herewith some quotes from The Eternal My Fair Lady to supplement her art:
"I come from a long line of below-stairs maids and gardeners. Good ol' peasant stock. But my sense of the family history is somewhat sketchy because my mother kept a great deal to herself."
"I was a very sad little girl. My mother was terribly important to me and I know how much I yearned for her in my youth. But I don't think I truly trusted her."
"I was raised never to carp about things and never to moan. In vaudeville, you just got on with it through all kinds of adversities."
"Touring itself - and I was very young and a lot of it I did by myself - it's lonely. But it does give you some kind of spine. It does give you grit."
"When you are traveling in vaudeville, you experience so many different kinds of audiences depending on what time of the week it is, how long the pubs have been open, and things like that."
"Every time I go out to perform - believe me, you never lose that fear of - 'I hope I do it right. I hope I don't fall flat on my face. I hope this will be good for them.'"
"I did all of my learning on My Fair Lady. Who would have thought that a story about a professor of phonetics would result in it being one of the great shows ever for musical theatre. It's a seemingly odd subject."
"Sometimes I'm so sweet even I can't stand it. I don't want to be thought of as wholesome. I hate the word ‘wholesome’."
"It's all right to cry. It helps a great deal sometimes.
"I have been called a nun with a switchblade where my privacy is concerned. I think there's a point where one says, 'That's for family, that's for me.'"
"If the director says you can do better, particularly in a love scene, it is rather embarrassing."
“It is not enough to reach for the brass ring. You must also enjoy the merry-go-round.”
“Leave everything you do, every place you go, everything you touch a little better for your having been there.”
"I'm the lucky lady that was asked to be in those wonderful iconic pieces."
"Did you ever notice the color of Mary Poppins' petticoats? They were kind of orange and apricot and red. I think she had a secret life going on there."
"Hopefully, I brought people a certain joy. That would be a wonderful legacy."
And a note in closing. In 1993, I had the privilege of meeting James Garner. After we were introduced, I told him that I’d loved watching Maverick when I was growing up (which I’m sure people told him a dozen times a day). Then I added that The Americanization of Emily was one of my favorite movies.
"The best part about making that movie," Garner responded, "was that I got to work with Julie."
Thomas Hauser's email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com.
His recent book – MY MOTHER and me - is a personal memoir available at: https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191