Julie Andrews Interview (page: 2 / 6) Legend of Stage and Screen	Print Interview

You mentioned that at 12 you had an important stage debut. That was a very successful show, wasn't it?

Julie Andrews: Well,

Get the Flash Player to see this video. it was a sophisticated London revue and it was at a theater which is no longer there. It was called the London Hippodrome, and it's now just a sort of nightclub in Lester Square, London. But, it was a very beautiful theater and I was literally the smallest person on the bill. And because it was so sophisticated, the producers thought perhaps it wasn't right that I would be singing in this show and the night before we opened they decided that they couldn't use me. And, of course, my mom being somewhat of a stage mum, sort of said, "No, you can't do this to this child. It's her great debut," and so on. And so, she and my stepfather and their agent descended on the poor producer and they said, "She'll sing a much more difficult song and you'll see." And so, I auditioned for a much more difficult song and the end result was that I was in the show, stayed in the show, and on opening night the audience went crazy, and it was a complete standing ovation. The first thing I had ever really done. The first time I had ever really tried anything that important. And, the press followed me home. You know, the kind of thing when you're a young fluke in a way, and that was the beginning of a very busy few years right through my teens of touring and radio and early, early television and so on.

What was the name of that show?

Julie Andrews: The name of the show at the London Hippodrome was Starlight Roof. And it starred English performers: Vic Oliver, Fred Emney, Pat Kirkwood, all very talented. Patricia Kirkwood was a very glorious looking lady with wonderful long legs. She was the leading lady in every sense.

At this point were you still close to your real father?

Julie Andrews: Oh, yes.

What did he teach you?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Julie Andrews: My dad was a very special human being. He had an innate decency. It didn't come from...he was very bright. He was a nature-loving man. He treated all of us in the family -- including his first wife's other children -- he treated us all the same, and as beloved equals. And, we knew he was special. I mean, obviously any dad to a young girl is special if he does all the right things, and my dad certainly did, but he's the one that instilled in me any true reality in my life because on the one side I had this mad upbringing of vaudeville and touring a great deal and very little schooling. My father was the one that took me on nature walks, took me to the swimming baths, taught me how to swim, took me down to the seaside in freezing cold weather and we dipped in the sea. We climbed the local hills, and he gave me a love of books.

What books did he introduce you to?

Julie Andrews: When I went to see him he would read to me and he would pick what he thought would be appropriate. Alice in Wonderland and things like that when I was a child. He would buy books for me. I didn't see him all that much, strangely enough. Occasionally, for a two-week period in the summer holiday maybe, or a visit over Christmas. Or he'd come for a weekend and take me and we'd get on our bicycles and ride for 15 miles to get to his place. But what he did give me was always exactly right. Just the memory of him sitting and reading to me was enough to make me love listening to books and the spoken and written word.

Other than Alice in Wonderland, are there any books that you truly remember loving as a kid?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Julie Andrews: There was a book that he gave me. It's interesting that you ask that. Obviously Wind in the Willows, and all the classic children's books, but there was a little book that we found and he leafed through it, and he said, "Here you are, darling. I think you'll like this." And, it was a very small children's novel called The Little Grey Men, by an English author called "B.B." And it was a very simple nature tale of the last four gnomes left on this earth in England. Very much like Watership Down, that kind of big nature study, and it was set in four seasons. It was a terrific adventure story. I swallowed it up and it went out of print. And, I subsequently have started my own imprint at Harper Collins and it's coming out this fall. I'm bringing it back again and I'm absolutely delighted about it. It's one of our mission statements is to bring back books that are worthy of a revisitation in a way, and this is the first one. And, I write about it as a little chapter before it begins.

You've become an author yourself, so that must be the influence of your dad.

Julie Andrews: That book probably influenced me as much as anything, that and my dad. Yes, absolutely. And obviously Dickens and Goldsmith and oh gosh, so many. Jane Austen obviously and the Brontë sisters and so on.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I also loved to scribble as a kid. I loved to write and eventually, because I didn't have a formal education, a governess was found for me who traveled with me wherever I went, because touring in vaudeville you're a week in one place, a week in another, and you could not settle into any school. So, I had this wonderful lady who traveled with me who quickly recognized that if she wanted me to do anything, all she had to do was say, "Do this first and then you may write your story," whatever story I was going to write because that was obviously what I loved to do most of all. She was a very gentle, very kind lady, and I loved her.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

What was her name?

Julie Andrews: Her name was Gladys Knight.

She didn't go on to become a famous soul singer?

Julie Andrews: No, not that one!

It's interesting that you had a governess and famously played governesses. Mary Poppins and Maria von Trapp. You knew what it was like to be a governess.

Julie Andrews: She wasn't that kind of a governess. She was a lot older. Sort of a retired teacher who then became a private tutor. Nevertheless, I guess I must have picked up a few things from her, yes.

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