Friday, 12 May 2006

Julie Andrews sings again!

Saturday, 12 November 2005

Von Trapp Family Reunion. Click here to watch it online. (External link)

Sunday, 3 July 2005

legendary actress directs the very play that brought her fame

By Tracey O'Shaughnessy

Copyright © 2005 Republican-American

Julie Andrews is hoarse. It could be the demands of a rigorous rehearsal schedule, a lack of a good night's sleep, or the residual effects of the 1997 throat surgery that destroyed her singing voice. But Andrews, stunning in a cotton, cornflower blue Ralph Lauren sweater over white slacks, speaks in a husky, resonant rasp. She is in the library of the Goodspeed Opera House's robust musical theater library, to which she has contributed legendary performances, speaking of what it is like to revisit the musical that made her a star on Broadway 51 years ago.

"I wondered as I got older, whether I could share the things I've learned," says Andrews, who makes her debut as a director in a revival of Sandy Wilson's musical, "The Boy Friend," at Goodspeed beginning July 8. "I'm so grateful to have something that I have known from the beginning."

Andrews brought "The Boy Friend," a spoof of 1920 musicals, to Goodspeed after directing it at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, N.Y., in 2003. The latter theater is run by her daughter, Emma Walton, and son-in-law, Stephen Hamilton. Though she once said she would never direct, leaving that to her husband of 35 years, the legendary Blake Edwards, she made an exception for her daughter's company and now is spearheading a first for Goodspeed. "The Boy Friend" will be the first show Goodspeed will tour nationally. After it closes Sept. 24, Goodspeed plans an eight-city, 21-week tour. Andrews said she decided to do the tour in part because some of the residuals will go to her daughter's theater, and in part because of Goodspeed's reputation as a preserver of musicals.

Warm and gracious in a 45-minute interview, Andrews spoke of her desire to bring more truth and integrity to the Wilson musical, which she once described as a "delicate piece of lace." In person, Andrews is generous and charming, and, yes, far younger looking than anybody approaching 70 should be. She spoke reflectively about her career, insisting she had "made my peace" with the throat surgery that ruined her voice and that she had no regrets about refusing a 1996 Tony nomination for what ultimately became her last Broadway musical, "Victor/Victoria."

"It's not going to get any better because it was damaged," said Andrews of her voice. What she misses, is, "the joy of singing, and singing with a great orchestra, because there really is nothing like it."

But in the last 30 years, Andrews has established herself as a children's writer, with fanciful stories of hapless underdogs who shore up their resources to find their identity. In one, "Simeon's Gift," a young prince and lute player leaves his loved one to embark on an odyssey to find his inner muse. Ultimately, battered by the cacophony of the world around him, he picks up a reed and becomes a flute player, changing his instrument and his identity, which is something of a metaphor for Andrews.

The entertainer has been in show business almost since she could walk, appearing with her mother and stepfather in the last days of vaudeville in London. Born with what she has called a "freak voice" with a five-octave range, she was the youngest performer ever to appear before royalty at the London Palladium, singing for King George VI and the young princess Elizabeth in 1948, when she was 13. She swiftly became an English Deanna Durbin, attracting thousands of fans for her small roles and singing gigs. In 1954, her West End performance in "The Boy Friend" caught the eye of American producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, who brought it to Broadway.

Andrews, who had never been away from her parents for more than a week, was hesitant to accept what was initially a one-year contract, at first. "I always had a great separation anxiety when apart from my family," she says. "And certainly, no one was able to come with me, we didn't have the funds in the family. And I thought I cannot be away for two years. Finally, my father, very wisely, said it might not be the huge success I thought. He said, 'Well, go. It'll open up your head."

"The Boy Friend" was an overnight success, in part because of nostalgia for the 1920s and partly because it introduced a new star to Broadway.

Losing to Audrey

At 20, Andrews was a well-seasoned but insecure young woman fighting a terrific bout of homesickness when Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe auditioned her for a new musical based on George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion." She had just auditioned for the Richard Rodgers musical, "Pipe Dreams," but when she told Rodgers she was considering the Lerner piece, "He said, 'If they ask you, I think you should do it,'" Andrews recalled. With characteristic ambivalence, she did.

The musical, "My Fair Lady," earned Andrews her first of three Tony nominations and established her as a major Broadway star -- but she was still not a big enough box office draw for Hollywood to take a chance on her. When Warner Brothers decided to film "My Fair Lady," they settled on the more bankable Audrey Hepburn, whose voice had to be dubbed by Marnie Nixon. Andrews has said that while she understood Hollywood's decision at the time, it was only in retrospect that she regretted not getting the role.

"I was sad that I didn't do 'My Fair Lady,'" said Andrews, hooded cerulean eyes shadowed by a white baseball cap. "It is the great definitive role. But I'd never made a movie. 'My Fair Lady' was a great learning experience for me and I hoped that they might consider me," adding that Lerner had recommended her. "At the time I understood it. It was only in later years that I regretted not getting it down."

Still it was hard for Andrews to complain. After three years in the vocally demanding "My Fair Lady," she secured another seminal role, that of Guinevere in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Camelot," and grabbed her Oscar-winning role in "Mary Poppins."

It was one of a series of nanny roles -- the other being the iconic governess Maria in Robert Wise's "The Sound of Music" that solidified Andrews' reputation as the unimpeachable British nanny, the only leading lady, as Time reported, that Richard Burton hadn't bedded.

When Burton called Andrews to tell her that Time was going to report that, Andrews said she told him, "Oh, don't tell him that. That'll really cement my squeaky clean image." Still, Andrews was one of the most popular leading ladies of the 1960s, of whom the Hollywood Reporter once gushed, "This lady is not just a great star. She is not just an ordinary film personality. She is a whole, whirling galaxy. Once there was Mary Pickford, then there was Garbo, now there is Julie."

Past Poppins

In the 1960s, with American audiences eschewing big musicals for socially conscious films like "Easy Rider," Andrews fought the nanny image, usually unsuccessfully. In films like "The Americanization of Emily," "The Tamarind Seed," and, notably "S.O.B.," in which she brazenly revealed her breasts, Andrews tried to break out of that archetype, often quite literally. But even in her most daring and difficult performance, "Victor/Victoria," Andrews' even-tempered solicitude is tough to disguise. Her husband, director Blake Edwards, has described her as virtually imperturbable, a deterrent to his notoriously explosive temper. As he told Playboy, "Julie doesn't usually lose her temper. She's the most amazing person that way….If you live with a person who has the control and the understanding Julie has, it's very hard to blow up all the time….Julie's been a deterrent to my temper just by being who she is."

So it was both shocking and characteristic when Andrews declined her third and final Tony nomination in 1996, claiming the cast of "Victor/Victoria" had been "egregiously overlooked." The selflessness of the decision, coupled with the civilized jargon was, well, so Maria-like. "That's just icing on the cake," says Andrews, "Listen, I've had more than my share of luck."

A year after the Tony fracas, Andrews underwent vocal surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center to remove non-cancerous nodules in her throat. The operation left her unable to sing.

Her husband was widely quoted as saying that her voice had been all but ruined, adding, "If you heard it, you'd weep.'' Two years later, Andrews filed a federal lawsuit against the doctor who performed the operation, alleging that she had not been told that the operation carried the risk of permanent hoarseness, irreversible loss of vocal quality or other complications that might leave her unable to sing. Andrews has described the loss of her voice as a "devastating blow," a bit like losing a best friend.

In recent years, she has embraced the very image she fought so hard to contradict -- that of the eternal nanny. In films like "The Princess Diaries," and "Eloise at Christmastime," Andrews is the quintessential nanny, regimented but loving, the stern sentimentalist, who is never above a good pillow fight.

"For me," says Andrews, "Discipline is the foundation that leaves me free to fly."

"The Boy Friend," July 8 to Sept. 24 at Goodspeed Opera House. Tickets range from $25 to $60 and may be purchased by calling (860)873-8668 or on-line at www.goodspeed.org.