Julie Andrews Talking Pictures

"People forget it's a role and confuse it with you."

A quote from Julie Andrews,

who knows more than most what it is to have the public see no difference

between you and the parts you played.

She started out on stage, a child star in the West End,

then went to America and caused a sensation on Broadway.

Starring as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

When that role was being cast in Hollywood,

Julie missed out to Audrey Hepburn.

But then came Mary Poppins and Maria Von Tramp,

two of the best loved characters in movie history.

They brought Julie awards and international superstardom.

But also an image she would struggle to shake off.

"Are you really like that?" is a question she'd been asked throughout her career.

As we see here in an interview with Michael Parkinson in 1974.

Which also featured her husband, the film director Blake Edwards.

APPLAUSE

Do you in fact, or did you resent that, you must have come across this when you met people in that period,

particularly when Mary Poppins was so popular,

that people expect you to be something that one imagines you're not, really.

-Nobody is that good, are they?

-Well, no. Obviously not.

Really, it was a slow-growing thing, it didn't happen immediately

and, in fact, there were a couple of films, there was one film after Poppins

that seemed to stop any kind of image, which was the Americanisation of Emily.

So, it's really over the years, as time has gone by, that the image seems to have grown.

And I guess that's because one's more and more exposed

-the more films one does.

-Yes.

-Something obviously seems to come across.

-Yes.

How much is she like, this image? If we can stick this Mary Poppins theme for just a moment longer.

-If you insist.

-It is interesting, actually.

To me, it might be seen a feeble inquiry to you...

I think it's a fairly easy answer,

just get her to run through her four-letter word vocabulary and you'd find out immediately.

-LAUGHTER

-Really?

She doesn't swear.

Listen, when I met her I didn't even think she went to the bathroom....

LAUGHTER

Blake, how do you see it? Because you're a, as I said, a film producer, director,

and a writer, how do you see her as a film property?

If you could take a detached view, if you were in charge of her career in this moment of time?

Well, he gets to sleep with me, if that's what you mean.

LAUGHTER

-You mean that's how you get the jobs?

-Yes, that's right.

-I see.

Well, let's talk about a spectacular success that you had.

The film, I think, has grossed more money, the Sound of music,

-than any other movie, hasn't it?

-Certainly than any other musical.

Maybe, now since its rerelease, it probably is number one

and grossing at, it's close to like Godfather, I think.

It was kind of, an odd story about that though,

was that the studio really had no faith in it when it first came out.

I don't know about that. Erm...

I know that we were all very aware that it could be over-saccharine

and sweet and we had to be very careful about it.

With religion and nuns and children and mountains

and all that sweetness going on, it was too much.

And so we all tried to play it down and make it very real

-as much as we could.

-Yes.

-But I don't think...

No, there was a considerable lot of money spent on the film and hours put into it,

I don't think they thought it wasn't too important.

-I do know that I don't suppose anybody had any idea how successful it was going to be.

-Yes.

Well, let's have a look at the sequence from it, I suppose everybody remembers,

we showed part of it before you came on,

which is that magnificent opening sequence,

that huge shot over the mountains there and the camera comes on to you, beautiful moment.

OPENING MUSIC FROM THE SOUND OF MUSIC

# The hills are alive With the sound of music

# With songs they have sung For a thousand years.

# The hills fill my heart With the sound of music

# My heart wants to sing Every song it hears

# My heart wants to beat Like the wings of the birds

# That rise from the lake To the trees

# My heart wants to sigh Like a chime that flies

# From a church on a breeze

# To laugh like a brook When it trips and falls

# Over stones on its way

# To sing through the night

# Like a lark who is learning to pray

# I go to the hills

# When my heart is lonely

# I know I will hear What I've heard before

# My heart will be blessed

# With the sound of music

# And I'll sing...

# ..once more

CHURCH BELL TOLLS

APPLAUSE

-That's a smashing shot, isn't it? That over the top of a hill, the helicopter shot, there.

-Yes.

It was an amazing shot to be in the middle of

because it was a helicopter that was coming at one sideways, of course,

because the cameraman was hanging out the side of the helicopter. How they ever do that, I don't know

because there is no door, or anything. It's just a camera down at you like this.

But it was a jet helicopter and every time, we would do many, many takes before they were satisfied,

and so the helicopter would come towards me and get closer and closer,

this great sort of giant crab or grasshopper, it looked like it was side stepping towards me,

and then it would make a circle and go back and come through the trees again,

and I'd have too rush to the end of the field and start all over again.

But every time it made the circle to go back, it would knock me flat from the downdraught of the jets.

And so I would do my lovely bit, and then it would go BAM!

LAUGHTER

I'd pick myself up and I got so angry because it just kept knocking me down.

-Did you swear?

-Yes.

-You did?

-Yes.

LAUGHTER

Do you ever get the urge to be, perhaps in those days after the success of that film,

-to be outrageous in public because people expected you to be too sweet?

-Oh, yes.

And if you're in a long run and you've been saying the same lines over and over and over again,

you would think, "God, what if I say something absolutely dreadful?" Er...

-"And it just comes pouring out and I have no control over myself?" You know?

-Yes.

And then the word gets bigger and bigger and bigger in your mind

-and you think, "I'm going to say it any minute!" You know?

-Oh, I see.

-You have a word that you think that you might inject here instead?

-Yes.

-I see. Can you give me an example?

LAUGHTER

-No, I can't really.

-Do you think she's fibbing?

LAUGHTER

Go on, you can think of one example, surely?

Oh, let's forget it.

Well, tell me, then about the problem of working on stage for a long time,

in a long run. It must be very, very tedious, mustn't it?

-I mean, you did what? You did Boyfriend, My Fair Lady...

-And Camelot.

-..and Camelot.

-Yes.

-Each of them, all of them...

-All long runs.

-..incredibly long runs, weren't they?

-Yes.

Fair Lady was the longest, it was two years on Broadway and then 18 months in London.

So, three and a half years is like a long tunnel

that you think you'll never come out the other end, you know.

Er...

I broke it down into sort of three-month sections.

The first three months you're struggling to get it right and to gain control of it,

and the next three months are just lovely,

you're having a marvellous time and getting everything nice and sort of rosy.

And then the next three months, er...

you look for things and you listen to the countermelodies in the orchestra

and you try and combat the fact that you've got a headache that night,

or your leading man has a cold or whatever, and you find anything to keep giving you motivation.

And then the last three months are just slog and from then on it's slog

-and you just do anything you can to keep fresh.

-Do you ever get the giggles on stage?

Well, yes. Terribly. I mean, there were times, Rex was very naughty in My Fair Lady

and he would kind of tease me occasionally or do things deliberately sometimes.

And I would know that he was going to try and make me giggle. And, boy, he sure did.

-There were a few other things too...

-Tell me.

-Go ahead, darling.

-LAUGHTER

Get out of this one! Erm...

Oh, I can't.

LAUGHTER

There was one classic evening in My Fair Lady

when...

we were doing the famous scene at the end of the play,

where Eliza has run away from Professor Higgins' house

and she's gone to Mrs Higgins' house

and Higgins comes storming in to talk to his mother and there is Eliza and, er...

Eliza gives forth with a long, long lecture

about the difference between a guttersnipe and a lady

is on how she's treated and so on and so forth.

And that evening, I don't know what happened to Rex,

he must have eaten beans before dinner or whatever,

but he was extremely windy, that's putting it mildly.

And I was delivering my great speech

and suddenly across the orchestra pit there was this machine gun volley...

LAUGHTER

..and that's the only way it can be described.

And there was utter silence, the orchestra was stunned, I...

LAUGHTER DROWNED SPEECH

And at that precise moment, it was Mrs Higgins' turn to say,

"Henry, dear. Please don't grind your teeth."

LAUGHTER

I swear, it's true. And I was absolutely gone.

I mean, first of all I was so nervous that I was going to giggle that I was giggling anyway

and every other line that I had to say in the scene had a double meaning from then on.

Because I would say things like,

"So, you are a motor bus, all bounce and go and no consideration for anyone."

And this kind of thing and finally, and I could see the line coming closer and closer towards me,

and all Higgins has to do in this whole scene is turn his back to the audience

and just listen to Eliza singing and carrying on.

And I finally went up to him and sang,

-"No, my reverberating friend...

-LAUGHTER

"..you're not the beginning and the end." And I was gone...

And I think it took an extra ten minutes to finish the scene that night.

-Poor Rex Harrison. Oh, dear.

-Rex Harrison!? What about me?

Tell me, you, erm, as I say, you did

these three great stage hits...

..in America and here,

and yet you never did the film version of any of them, did you?

-I mean...

-No.

-..Twiggy did Boyfriend...

-Yes.

..Vanessa Redgrave did Camelot, and Audrey Hepburn did My Fair Lady.

-Mh-mm.

-You must have been very resentful about that.

Ah,

I wasn't really resentful because I did understand why,

obviously, the first one was Fair Lady, that was done...

I understood why Audrey was chosen and I had never made a film before

and was a complete unknown, as far as films were concerned.

Erm, I was disappointed, I mean,

I would have loved to have done it, obviously,

and was hoping that I might be asked,

but it's hard to be resentful

when right around the corner Walt Disney happened to be waiting

and asked me to do Mary Poppins, and, so,

no, I couldn't be that disappointed after that,

-I mean, that resentful after that.

-Mh-mm.

It's a very curious system, isn't it, though,

where you have some years been very successful onstage

with a musical, a smash hit musical, and then you pick somebody to

play the part in the film who can't even sing.

I mean, perhaps you can enlighten me

as to the sort of thinking behind that because, you know...

I think it's what Hollywood terms "box office" and, in those days...

Yes, it wouldn't happen quite so much today.

No, you wouldn't find it as much because you...

-Stars are changing.

-..you don't have quite the same thinking and the

star system is somewhat different, although it's getting back to...

..that star system, pretty much.

It's amazing how it's...the metamorphosis is taking place,

-a complete cycle is coming up.

-Mh-mm, yes.

I just don't think it would happen. They called it Box Office.

JL Warner felt that she was not box office, that Audrey Hepburn was.

He wanted Cary Grant to play Higgins.

-Cary Grant?

-Yes.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

That was an inspired piece of casting, wasn't it?

Extraordinary. What would he have sounded like?

He would have said, "Liza, Liza, Liza..."

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

Something like that.

Did they... I'll tell you, I read a story which said that in fact

when you took My Fair Lady to, erm, Broadway, that, in fact,

you had to refine the cockney accent?

I was hopeless at it and I never thought that my cockney

accent was any great shakes anyway, but, erm, I did.

I was taught cockney by an American professor of phonetics -

-complete reversal on what the play was all about.

-Really?

-Yes.

-How extraordinary.

-And, erm, that's just the way it was.

I'm not very good at accents.

I can learn and I have a fairly quick ear

but I can't just do things naturally like that.

How much of a traumatic experience was that?

-Were you, sort of, bullied into it?

-Erm, no, that part of it was fine.

The whole role was the hard thing, the enormous transitions,

and it was a...a very difficult role

because at one minute you were screaming

and yelling your guts out in cockney,

and the next minute dancing like crazy,

and the next singing I Could Have Danced All Night in a pure soprano,

and then doing all the very heavy dramatic scenes, as well.

Alan Lerner once said that,

"It's probably better to have a long run in a really superb role

"than to do umpteen weeks in Summer stock or something like that."

Yes.

Going back to the Mary Poppins thing, you certainly got

your revenge on the film industry, if one can put it that way.

-I mean, you turned round and cocked a snook at them, didn't you, because you got an Oscar for it?

-Yes.

Erm, but, I mean, erm...

..first of all, why did that film work,

-do you think?

-Poppins?

-Mh-mm.

Oh, erm... well, it was the first musical, I think.

I may be wrong. It wasn't the first musical that Disney had done

but it was the first really big one in a long, long time.

I mean, first...

Also, it combined that fabulous thing of animation and live action,

and all the things, there was incredible tricks and feats in it.

-Mh-mm.

-Erm...

..and it had a joyousness, I suppose...

I don't really know why it worked, funny story like that.

-It's amazing.

-Well, it's enough to say it was Disney too, isn't it,

-because he...the Disney name, and...

-Yes.

I think it was the way he mounted it, yeah.

That Disney organisation is magic, and always has been.

And he really did make magic. I mean, the things that they

thought up for that film, it was amazing and...

-Yes.

-..as a first film it was a little staggering

because I was asked to do things like

when the penguins are dancing with Mary Poppins and things.

Well, of course, there were no penguins, they were all drawn later

and done as cartoon,

but one had to play to them as if they were on that table,

and, you know, if you look at your hand, you look at the hand.

-If you take the hand away, you're looking far beyond it.

-Yes.

-So, it was very difficult to pretend one was looking at them.

-Yes.

QUIRKY MUSIC PLAYS

# When Mary holds your hand

# You feel so grand

# Your heart starts beating like a big brass band

# It's a jolly holiday with Mary

# No wonder that it's Mary that we love

# No wonder that it's Mary that we love

# No wonder that it's Mary that we love. #

KAZOO MUSIC PLAYS

-Erm, you've got a reputation also for being a practical joker.

-I have?

Yes. Erm, again, from what one reads about you. Is this true?

Actually, I guess, of the two of us, Blake's more of a practical joker,

I, occasionally, will do silly things

but it usually it takes somebody like Blake or a very good friend,

a close friend like Carol Burnett or somebody like that,

to spark me off and then I'll really get absolutely idiotic.

Like what sort of things? I mean, how elaborate are you

-a practical joker?

-Well, not so much a practical joke,

just doing silly things, erm...

There was a night when Carol Burnett and I,

who are very close friends, she's godmother to my daughter

and just an awfully good chum,

and we had been asked to

sing at President Johnson's inaugural gala in Washington.

And, so, we had been asked to do a medley that we'd

done on a television show, so, I came from California,

she came from New York and we were pleased to see each other.

And, erm, Mike Nichols, who was, IS a good friend of ours,

was coming into the hotel also that evening

and we left word for him to call us as soon as he arrived,

and at about 10 o'clock at night he called and we said

"Well, why don't you come down and join us in the suite?"

We were having some coffee and hot chocolate and things like that,

and he said, "I'll be right down."

Now, Carol and I happened to be in our robes,

we were sort of dressed casually, and we both said

"Let's run down the corridor and meet him at the elevator

"and surprise him.

"There can't be many people about in the hotel at this hour."

So, we did. Now, we sat in front of the elevator and, once you're there,

what do you do? So, we sort of said, "Well, let's turn our toes in,

"let's turn them out," then I said,

"Why don't we be in a passionate embrace when the elevator doors open

"and he'll be surprised and think it funny?"

So, she said, "Well, who's going to be the man?"

And so on, and I said, "Well, never mind..."

And the elevator went "ding",

and I said, "Quickly, quickly, let's do it!" So, Carol swept me

down in a deep embrace and a total stranger walked out of the elevator.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

And, erm, Carol sank to her knees and went round,

behind the couch and wanted to hide.

It was a lady that came out of the elevator,

and she just gave us a very peculiar look and went on down the corridor.

Well, I was laughing so hard I was crying, erm,

the elevator went "ting" and we said,

"Well, it MUST be Mike this time,"

so back we went into our embrace,

and the doors opened and it was Pat with Secret Servicemen

who were in the hotel, and nobody stepped out

but as the doors closed they all sort of went like that.

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

-And, then, this lady who had come out of the elevator came all

the way back down the corridor and said to Carol,

"Aren't you Carol Burnett?" and Carol said,

"Yes, but that's Mary Poppins!"

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

And, finally, Mike...the elevator went "ting" again,

and Mike DID step out of the elevator

and by this time we were giggling all over the place,

but we flung ourselves into our embrace and he just walked past us

and said, "Oh, hi, girls."

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

Didn't even notice.

Marvellous, marvellous.

What's the problem involved,

Blake, of being married to somebody as famous as Julie?

Because, to the public, I mean, you are, in fact, little known

until you spell out what you've done, then people will say,

"I've seen his films," this sort of thing.

But you're not a public figure in the sense that she is.

Do you ever get resentful of that, that people must meet you

and say, "Ah, that's Mr Julie Andrews"?

No, that doesn't bother me, I don't think it ever has.

As a matter of fact, it kind of amuses me.

The only thing I think...upsets me at all is,

and not so much, now, because our whole lifestyle has changed,

but, in the beginning,

I was required to go to various functions with her and I hate that.

-JULIE LAUGHS

-I mean, I hate the fact that you've got a suit on

because I never wear one. It's a nice suit, Michael...

Just feeling inadequate, that's all right.

But, I really despise going to dinner parties

-and things like that...

-We both do, actually.

-Do you?

-..it's just not the way I like to live and, fortunately,

it's not the way she does either.

In the beginning, I kind of had to tag along

and put up with all of those lights,

and there was a lot of criticism about the relationship

and the marriage, and things like that, which...in the press.

THAT got me up a little tight.

But in terms of being Mr Andrews or

the husband who is little known,

married to a big star...

Listen, as long as she's making the money it's great with me.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

Erm, you mentioned there something that must, again, affect you,

as well, which is press criticism.

You've said about the time of your marriage and this sort of thing.

How do both of you react to press criticism?

What about you, Julie, does it bring the worst out in you

when people say things about you that you know are not true?

Criticism in the form of a review for a film doesn't really bother me.

I mean, obviously, one hopes that people will like it or that the press will like it,

but the kind of things that make me

very angry are what I call the "gutter press",

the columnists, people who just write

anything for the sake of gossip and it CAN be tremendously hurtful.

I know there was a time in Hollywood when it seemed that I was the target

for everyone and it was very hard on my children in school

and things like that. They had to contend with it too,

it wasn't just me, and I got mad about that.

Mh-mm. Why were you the target?

I think, possibly, because I was, you know, Miss Pollyanna

and Mary Poppins and everything else, the image was that,

and, erm, it was about time to tilt.

Also, they'd run out of good things to write, you know.

It doesn't become news anymore. They've said all the good things, now how do we...what do we do?

-Obviously we attack.

-I think after a measure of success

people feel that it's about time you had your douse of,

-you know...

-She's one of the few people that took some of those

atrocious magazines to task legally,

against advice from agents,

attorneys, everybody saying, "Don't do it, you can't win."

Friends said, "Don't get involved in that, it'll be dirty."

And because these two particular magazines chose to attack

her on a level that was really, erm...

..reprehensible,

it was a terrible thing that they were really doing,

because one implied that she was not a good mother, that she

did certain things with her child, that...

Really horrendous.

The other, interestingly enough, at first,

we both just laughed about,

accused her of having an illicit affair, or an affair,

an affair with Sidney Poitier, like this was going to be

something terrible.

And my response to that was, "Jesus, baby, if you're finding time,

"based on our relationship, you're quite a lady!"

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

And Sidney is an old friend, Julie doesn't even know him,

she met him once, and it kept going...

But what made me angry was that they implied that

I could be persuaded to terminate the affair...

Yeah, well, that's what I was getting to,

that what REALLY happened,

what really then turned the table was that they implied that she

was forced to terminate the affair because the studio,

the big bosses, said that the image of she and Sidney would be

bad for her box office-wise, and that, therefore, she terminated it.

And she got so angry, for Sidney's sake,

and for the whole idea that something like that...

-Could be written.

-..could be written.

-That's an appalling thing to do.

-But she sued them and by God she won.

-It's extraordinary, that.

-Oh, it's terrible.

It's almost unbelievable, isn't it?

She's a lady who seldom verbalises her displeasure with these people,

but once, a particular lady in Hollywood who,

for some reason, we don't know cos we don't know the lady,

has viciously attacked both of us

and constantly in the worst possible way.

And I feel sorry for the lady because obviously she's got

a great problem, and I've seen her,

and she DOES have a great problem.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

But, erm...

..one time she wrote something and it got to us

vis-a-vis the usual route of friends and everything,

and I was...Julie was in the bathroom and I was

-sitting on the bed...

-See, I do go to the bathroom!

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

-I said you were in the bathroom, darling,

I didn't say you were going!

..and I said, erm...

"What do you think about that?"

For the first time, she really came out with something.

She said, very properly, "You know what that lady needs?

"She needs open heart surgery

"and they should go in through her feet!"

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

It was at this time that I appeared with Julie in the 1974 film,

The Tamarind Seed.

It was an amazing experience.

Julie was terrific to work with, and, above all, great fun.

Afterwards, she took a five-year break from film-making

and she added to her family by adopting two girls from Vietnam.

But she did manage a return to the London stage

which she discussed with Sue Lawley on the Tonight programme in 1976.

And how do you face the prospect of facing a real live audience

-for the first time for so long?

-I am very scared.

-Are you?

Yes, I am. There are days when I get very excited and very thrilled.

The greater part of me is looking forward to it a lot but I must say

I think I'm going to be awfully nervous for a couple of nights.

Yes, but you know you'll go out there in the end and it'll come from somewhere.

I'll go out, I don't know if my legs will buckle or not.

You first appeared, of course, at the Palladium,

in a Royal Variety Performance when you were 12.

How did you come to be there? How did you earn your place there?

Erm, the very first show

I ever appeared in was at the London Hippodrome

and I was a sort of overnight success.

I sang one song for two performances each night

and I guess it came to the attention of the committee that gets people

to do the Royal Command performances and so I was asked to do it.

What was that song?

Er, it was a song called the Polonaise from Mignon which was

lots of coloratura and a sort of very cut version of the coloratura.

-And could you sing it now?

-NO! Good heavens, no.

Why? It's beyond you now?

Yes, it had lots of vocal gymnastics

and I had a sort of voice with an enormous range

when I was much younger, when I was a child.

Yes, the word "freak" has been used about your voice then for some

-reason.

-Yes.

-Why was it freaky?

-Because it was rather freaky.

I had about a five-octave range

and I could do all sorts of things with it, as I say.

And then as I matured my voice kind of got warmer and more normal

and all those high, high notes disappeared, thank God.

Your mother has said of you that, as a child you were, and I quote,

"boss-eyed, bow-legged and buck-toothed". Now, is that right?

-Absolutely, yes.

-I can't believe it.

What happened to all those deformities?

Er, boss-eyed, buck-toothed and bandy-legged.

-Yes, I could add a few more to that.

-What happened?

Well, I guess as a career blossomed,

I guess I wore braces on my teeth, like a lot of other teenagers,

and ballet seemed to help the legs a little bit.

Erm, and I don't know about the eye, it does wander from time to time.

SUE LAUGHS

Can we talk, for a moment, about your image?

I mean the one thing that everyone thinks of Julie Andrews...

Well, they think of... Julie Andrews is Mary Poppins. She is prim,

she is nice, she is really proper.

Are you all those things?

Oh, gosh, you would have to ask my husband about that, I think.

I hope I'm not quite as prim and proper

as a lot of people make me out to be.

I think that when you're exposed a lot in an industry,

when you make a certain number of films and certain things

become obvious and one is slightly bracketed, but, erm...

Does that annoy you, that sort of bracketing?

I mean people won't let you get away from that image, I mean...

We'll see when I get to the Palladium, maybe they will.

Erm, no, I can't knock the image because things like

The Sound Of Music were wonderful films

and gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure and things like that.

I'd like to be allowed to extend myself and do other things, yes.

I mean, you have tried, haven't you,

in that you made the Hitchcock film with Paul Newman, Torn Curtain.

-Yes.

-You made The Tamarind Seed with your husband directing.

Those were very straight roles.

And I enjoyed doing them very much indeed, yes.

But you weren't as successful in them

as you are in your Mary Poppins thoroughly modern-movie roles.

Maybe, yes, or maybe it's that musicals are very enjoyable

and naturally much bigger successes too.

Though I understand what you're saying.

But does that upset you? What I'm saying is,

would you like to feel free or be allowed to be free by your public?

To be accepted as a straight actress?

-Or do you think that is not where your talent lies?

-I think...

Oh, that's an awfully hard question to answer,

in that I suppose choice of material dictates a lot and I think if,

hopefully if I do a job well the public will enjoy it

and I just... I suppose in my early career, happened to do an awful lot

of lovely, romantic or, you know, governess-like roles and so on.

Do you ever wish you hadn't done it? I mean, money apart.

No, never. I must be truthful.

Although I do giggle and there's an awful lot of teasing in

the family about my image and things like that, I don't regret it at all.

-Is there? What do your children think of your image?

-Hmm.

-Do they think of you as the governess?

-No-no, they don't.

No, I think they know that I'm Mum at home and that's something else.

Work.

You also have done quite a lot of television in the States

-so your spectacular The Julie Andrews Hour.

-Mm-hmm.

And you got seven Emmys for that.

That was transmitted over here and was not as outstandingly successful

as it had been in the States. I wonder why that was.

I think, just, right off the top of my head,

there would be two reasons for that.

One is that it was geared to an American audience

and American humour is slightly different to the English

sense of humour, which I found out, most interestingly,

when I played My Fair Lady on Broadway and then came

to London with it and people laughed in totally different places.

It was a whole other kind of show.

But I think that was one slight thing.

And also, it never seemed to be on at an hour

when a family could really enjoy it.

It was either on at ten in the evening...

And it was a family hour.

..or, you know, five 30 when nobody had come home.

It just seems so ironic, though, because you're almost

-a British institution and yet it didn't happen.

-Yes.

Well, there probably were a lot of other reasons that I'm not

aware of but I think that might have been two.

Perhaps it was just too American for us.

Perhaps they Americanised their ideal of the English lady.

I don't know, yes, I guess so.

Can we touch, briefly for a moment, on your personal life?

Erm, you, I think the Andre Previn and Yul Brynner before you,

-adopted Vietnamese orphans and now you've adopted two.

-Yes.

Why did you do that? What made you want to?

Well, we wanted children and we had been involved...

Blake, my husband, and I had been involved with a group in America,

when we were living there,

called the Committee of Responsibility,

which brought a lot of war-wounded Vietnamese children

to America for surgery for things that...

Like paraplegics and skin grafting operations,

things that couldn't be done in Saigon.

And, er, we became aware of how lovely the Vietnamese

children are and very nearly adopted at that time

but we were newly married

and had our own children who were adjusting to that, so we didn't.

And when discussion arose about adopting, the Previns

said that they would help us

and they knew an agency which dealt with Vietnamese children.

And we said, "Well, any child is a child,

"why not a Vietnamese?" And that's how it started.

And do you find that you've got enough time to spend with them,

-are you...?

-Oh, I'm enjoying them immensely! Yes, they're lovely.

The second child came very quickly because, you know,

Saigon fell and we just wrote off and said,

"Oh, if you'd care to send us another baby,

"as soon as possible, do." And we were hoping that maybe

a couple of years would go by and we would adopt again

but when we saw the danger signals we got down to it much faster.

So they're just 11 months apart and they're lovely.

As Julie said there,

she was helped with her daughter's adoption by her friend,

the composer Andre Previn and his then wife, the actress Mia Farrow.

In 1977, Julie would join both of them for a conversation

in front of cameras on a programme called Andre Previn Meets.

Let me ask you something, er, Julie.

When you played the Palladium just now, you came on stage as yourself.

Now, you've had, God knows, endless stage experience,

but did you ever come out on stage before, as yourself, or were

you always playing a part?

Er, in my teens when I was doing music hall with my family

and later alone, I was myself.

But then I was a sort of child prodigy and trying to look younger than I was

and I was very, very scared of audiences

and I found this last Palladium stint was a very interesting time

because I wanted to see if I would still be as nervous being me

because since my teens I haven't done anything that...

-And were you?

-Yes. Terrified!

-Really?

-More or was it worse?

Well, the thing that staggered me and helped tremendously was

the enormous amount of love that came from the audience.

I'd always, in previous years, had to kind of earn the applause

or earn the approval and I just got it before I even started.

You had that famous standing ovation as she walked on.

It was like a block that hit me and Blake said I came onto the stage

on the first night and just sort of stood there in shock

and I thought, "Wow! I'd better be good!"

No, but does it in fact make you more nervous?

You know, to have to prove it.

Or isn't it very comforting to know that they love you that

-much before you start?

-Erm, it's both. But I think as the...

I was there for, like, ten days and as the ten days wore on then

I settled down and actually became more nervous

because then I started to examine myself.

Did I like opening up, just me?

I wasn't playing a role, it was just me.

And I think I liked hiding behind a role better.

It was harder to appear natural because it's, in a way, unnatural.

I mean, it's not, I guess us three chatting here are not

exactly as natural as we'd be in your living room by the fire.

-Not quite as natural.

-No, I should hope not.

LAUGHTER

And delivering songs as yourself.

That isn't a natural thing, to express yourself that broadly.

No, if you're singing it as Eliza or whatever, you're singing

a particular emotion or whatever.

I hide behind the words of the song,

which is lovely, and, depending on the songs, it was fine.

But sometimes it was very, very hard.

It's actually easier, is it, to come out and pretend to be someone else?

Because, I mean, I've been accused of being very facile

when I come out and I'm myself and I can talk for hours.

Whether it's interesting or not has nothing to do with it.

-It's easy for me.

-It doesn't bother you.

But if I had to come on and actually say, "Tennis anyone?"

I would fall down dead with fear.

-What was the first thing you ever appeared as?

-The first thing...

-I think it was a mushroom.

-LAUGHTER

And I was the egg in Humpty Dumpty so we should have made an omelette.

-Ah, but you were THE egg.

-Yes, you were the lead.

-That's the hunter-gatherer of the eggs!

-LAUGHTER

Well, do you know about something, I really did want to know this.

Now you were...

The thing I read in the paper is that you had not been on stage in,

-was it 15 years?

-Something like 17 years.

-17 years. But before that...

I mean, it seems to me you went on the stage when you were,

you know, 15 minutes old, and stayed there.

Now, by the time you left the stage to go into movies and television,

surely it must've been part of your everyday blood to be on stage

so how come... I mean, notwithstanding all the successful

films and everything. How come you stayed away from it for so long?

Did you ever miss it?

Only when I saw something

so terrific that I got that tremendous urge to be part of it.

You know, there is a tremendous thrill once in a while

when somebody's really enjoying something or when

I saw a fabulous musical I'd say, "Oh, how wonderful to be able

"to create that feeling in people!"

-But you did miss playing to a live audience?

-No.

In fact, I think that, for me, film, making films, suddenly became...

It suddenly became the medium that I liked to do the most

because it's private and quiet and you can do it until it's right

and you don't have an audience watching

and you send it out to an audience later

but in the meantime you can work on it till you get it right.

And that seems to be lovely.

-But, surely, I mean, I've been on sets...

-I always felt I had to...

Sorry, Andre. ..just to pull myself up to meet an audience.

It was like almost more than I could quite make to face

an audience. Somehow in film it was just easy.

And the people that are standing about on a set don't

get into your eye line at all?

But they're so busy being professional and doing their job

and seeing that the camera fits its mark, you know.

They're the most cosy people to work with.

You never get the feeling that they're sitting as a block,

you know, saying, "Show us!" You know, it's not that at all.

Julie's return to movies a few years later did see

the beginnings of an attempt to change that public image.

"I hate the word wholesome!" she would say.

She had a string of hits directed by her husband, Blake Edwards.

10, S.O.B, which, of course, included her first nude scene,

and Victor Victoria, for which she won a Best Actress Golden Globe.

In 1997, a botched throat operation permanently damaged her singing

voice, affecting that incredible range and her ability to hold notes.

But it didn't stop her working.

In 2000, she, along with Elizabeth Taylor,

was made a dame for her services to the performing arts and that same

year she was talking to Jonathan Ross about her new film, Relative Values.

What was it that tempted you to Relative Values?

Erm, oh, gosh, nice role. Noel Coward.

Wonderful new, young director whom I admire. Why wouldn't I say yes?

-And, of course, you knew Coward, I believe.

-Yes, I did.

Erm, not terribly well

but well enough that we would bump into each other at parties

and he would come backstage at My Fair Lady

when I was doing it on Broadway and here in England too.

Would he have approved of this version, do you think?

I think he would, I think he would have approved of the way it's

been adapted for the screen because it's just opened up beautifully.

-Yeah, they have broadened it out, I mean...

-Yes.

-..it's not one of those films were you can say,

-"Yes, this was a play."

-Right. Also, it's very loyal, faithful to him.

It really feels like Coward.

The dialogue zips along.

-Here you have something which is a, it's a period comedy.

-Right.

It's a comedy which is not only set in a specific period,

and they're pretty faithful to that, but also actually the humour

-grows out of the situation of that period.

-Right.

Was there a concern that maybe a modern audience might find

it hard to accept that class was ever such an issue?

I don't think so. I think it's as relevant today as it was then, in a way.

Those things still exist. Subculture, I suspect.

Erm, I think people will get it.

Erm, let me ask you about some of your other movies

and your long career in cinema.

Erm, because, of course, I think you're probably best known for two

roles which will always be Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp.

Right.

But you've worked right across the board.

The adult comedies of recent years like 10 and S.O.B and Victor Victoria.

You worked with Hitchcock in Torn Curtain.

Are you resigned to the fact that you will always be

-remembered as Mary Poppins?

-I'm not resigned to it.

By that I mean I don't knock it ever.

I'm thrilled to have been a part of those movies.

Er, I think in as much as it prevented some producers from

thinking of me in any other kind of role it might have been detrimental.

But how can you knock something that's given so many people

so much pleasure? Including me.

Yeah. Well, Mary Poppins is still such a firm favourite in my house.

-Good.

-I'll give you a little burst of it later.

-Oh, terrific!

-I can't wait.

-Erm, are you aware of this huge revival interest in these

-kind of sing-along evenings?

-I know, the karaoke Sound Of Music, yeah.

Are you tempted not to just go along in disguise?

I am absolutely tempted.

In fact, don't be surprised if I do show up one night!

I'm just wondering whether to go as myself or in disguise.

Go as one of the Nazis, that'll really turn it all around for you.

Good idea. But what if they spot me? That's terrible!

-If they say, "Oh, that's really Julie Andrews."

-Then you can finally

catch those kids and tell them what you really thought of them.

Despite the damage to her singing voice,

it's vocal performances that have kept Julie busy in recent years.

In the Shrek films, Despicable Me and Enchanted.

And thanks to them and the permanent appeal of Mary Poppins

and The Sound Of Music, Dame Julie Andrews has remained,

like the song, a favourite thing for both her original fans

and a whole new generation of film lovers.