Julie Andrews
Title: Dame Julie Andrews
Full Name: Julie Elizabeth Andrews Edwards
Birth Name: Julia Elizabeth Wells
Birthdate: October 1, 1935
Birthplace: Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, United Kingdom
Occupation: Actor, Author, and Singer
Profile: Best known for
Mary Poppins and
The Sound of Music.
Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Andrews
Number of Quotes: 137
A lot of films seem to go to the lowest common denominator.
A lot of my life happened in great, wonderful bursts of good fortune, and then I would race to be worthy of it.
Actually, I had a lot of good people with me - my mother's sister did a lot of taking care of me, and I
suppose I got more attention than my stepbrothers because at least I got to travel with my parents.
Actually, what I did, because I couldn't make sense of it, and I have to have lyrics that make sense, I
decided the best way to sing I Have Confidence
was to go completely nuts with panic and fear.
All careers go up and down like friendships, like marriages, like anything else, and you can’t bat a thousand all the time.
All love shifts and changes. I don't know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time.
Almost every morning when I go to the studio to work, I discover a fresh rose in the bud vase on my
dressing table... one living and vital thing in a dusty arena of powder and tissue and matches and greasepaint.
And I think as long as a song has beautiful lyrics, I'm so happy.
As a rule, my focus is on classical music, but I love jazz. I love everything, actually.
Be a part of all that is decent and be an ambassador for the kind of world that you want to live in.
Because of the Thames I have always loved inland waterways - water in general, water sounds -
there's music in water. Brooks babbling, fountains splashing. Weirs, waterfalls; tumbling, gushing.
Behaving like a princess is work. It’s not just about looking beautiful or wearing a crown. It’s more about how you are inside.
Broadway is a tough, tough arena for singing.
By nature, I really am a fairly bouncy and sunny individual.
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.
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.
Feed the body food and drink, it will survive today. Feed the soul art and music, it will live forever.
For me, whenever I choose a song to sing, it's about the lyric first.
Garry Marshall is a joy. I feel so utterly safe in his hands.
Growing up in England, of course you do absorb certain ways the royals wave their hands and carry themselves.
Hopefully, I brought people a certain joy. That will be a wonderful legacy.
How dare one act like a diva when you have a lot of work to do and you need to find your disciplines and so on?
I adored my birth father and constantly worried that I was being disloyal to him
and his schoolteacher roots if I spent too much time performing and enjoying it.
I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid
equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on.
I am an optimistic lady.
I am thrilled to be dame. It's one of those - the fact that you have been
honored by your country is what it's all about, and it just feels good right there.
I am told that the first comprehensible word I uttered as a child was home.
I am very proud to be British. I'm very conscious of carrying my country with me wherever I go. I feel I need to represent it well.
I come from a long line of below-stairs maids and gardeners. Good ol' peasant stock. My
mother and her sister made a quantum leap out of that life. Then I made another quantum leap.
I did a lot of touring in my youth, and I learnt very quickly that giving is what it's all about.
It's about the gift of making an audience feel great and forget their cares, if only for a few hours.
I did all of my learning on My Fair Lady.
I did My Fair Lady
for almost 3 1/2 years, eight performances a week. It was a marathon.
I didn't know other children from divorced families, and I was a bit of a lost
soul for a while. Then suddenly, I was performing. And it gave me an identity.
I do get a lot of gifts. I get a lot of things to sign, too. People do collect the memorabilia. Between
Poppins
and The Sound of Music,
there were beautiful plates that they made, and I've signed a lot of them.
I do not knock Poppins
or The Sound of Music.
They gave me pleasure, and I know they've given a lot of people enormous pleasure.
I do wish somewhere there was a film of our stage production of My Fair Lady.
I don't know if I can live on my own, especially since my husband died. My children are
trying to convince me to move to New York. They are trying to get me to be closer to them.
I don't think I have the image that say, Judy Garland has,
or Bette Davis.
I don't want to be thought of as wholesome.
I grew up knowing only war, so for me, it was the way things were. It wasn't pleasant by any means.
I had a lot of learning on my feet.
I had a teacher who stressed for me the importance of diction in terms of... I want to be very careful
about how I say this... in terms of supporting one's voice when one is singing. In other words, if you hold
on to your words, your voice will pull through for you when you're singing. So be true to your vowels.
I had no education whatsoever, and my mother said, Oh, you'll get a much better
education in life.
I did to some extent, though I always wish I could have tried it.
I hate the word wholesome.
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.
I justified working so hard by knowing that I was helping to maintain the roof over our heads.
I know I probably have a lot of rage in me that I don't show. But I'm not about to wallow in it or reveal it.
I like - I actually love classical music very much.
I love my garden. I love my privacy. I'm very fierce about it. I try not to let too many people into my home. That's my private place.
I love that President and Mrs. Obama are
embracing the arts. I am so delighted.
I love singing, and I came to absolutely adore it in the later part of my career.
I miss singing with an orchestra because that's the most uplifting thing that I ever knew. It is just such a fabulous feeling.
I really feel very blessed, and I don't forget it, either; there's an awful lot of
wonderful talent in this world, and I just seem to be in the right place at the right time.
I seem to be very busy, and I seem always to be working.
I think any director is intimidating.
I think every young girl at some point in her early life wonders what it's
like to be a princess. They like the idea of dressing up and the fun of it.
I think I'm just proudest to be the lady who was asked to play Mary Poppins. She's such a wonderful
character, and there's so much tremendous talent out there. So I feel very lucky to be the one who got to play her.
I think it's the essence of any film and any stage production - any work where you do work with
other people - of course collaboration is hugely important. One does, for awhile, become family.
I thought it was all a flash in the pan. It wasn't until Broadway came along that I felt I had really made it.
I turned down The Prime of Miss Jean Brody
with Maggie Smith. I think she got the Academy Award.
I was a child prodigy who had a freak voice of something like four octaves.
I was a very sad little girl.
I was always told I was not pretty enough.
I was lucky enough to be the lady that was asked to be Maria in the Sound Of Music, and that film was
fortunate enough to be huge hit. The same with Mary Poppins. I got terribly lucky in that respect.
I was named after my two grandmothers - Julia Elizabeth.
I was raised never to carp about things and never to moan, because in vaudeville,
which is my background, you just got on with it through all kinds of adversities.
I was working from a very early age.
I would be a fool to deny my own abilities.
I'd like to be an original, to be myself and not a pale copy of anyone else.
I'd love to have a really flourishing vegetable garden, and I'd love to have a better area for a rose garden
or a cutting garden, but I don't. You have to develop a garden in the way that it's meant to be developed.
I'd say almost that words come first, melody second.
I'd say just go with the flow. And I take my hat off to any mother out there who works full-time and raises a family as well. It's hard work.
I'm beginning to think that I like the behind-the-scenes work as much as I do in front of the camera as I get a little bit older.
I'm just honored that some of my little contributions I've written with my daughter are doing well.
I'm never sure one is exactly ready. You jump in, with both feet, into a very big fish pond.
I'm not very good with rap and things like that.
I'm not very good with some of the more modern songs that have an awful lot of
doo wah wahs,
if you know what I mean, because I can't do anything with them.
I'm the lucky lady that was asked to be in those wonderful iconic pieces.
I'm the lucky one who got asked to do 'The Sound of Music' and all the other lovely things that I did.
I've always admired gardens. My father was a great nature lover and would always take me for walks. We lived not too far
away from huge rhododendron estates and azalea estates, and when they're in bloom in England, they're just riotous.
I've got a good right hook.
I've long wanted to introduce children to the wonder of the arts.
I've made my pact with the Lord for the next lifetime. I would love to be a first-class musician. A super one.
If the director says you can do better, particularly in a love scene, then it is rather embarrassing.
If you remain calm in the midst of great chaos, it is the surest guarantee that it will eventually subside.
If you're not educated to enjoy the arts, if you're not taken to a concert,
or you don't hear something beautiful, you don't know what you're missing.
If you’re passionate about what you do, then go for it wholeheartedly.
If you've been fortunate enough to do a film that appeals to the entire family,
that's the audience that's probably going to come back to you in something else.
In my early years, I was much too ignorant and didn't realize how desperately important it all is,
how really important the lyrics are. And for me as a singer, I am a lady who takes the lyrics first.
In my life, it would probably be giving birth to my daughter. That probably is the most, the thing that moved me the most,
was the most memorable, the most wonderful, the most miraculous. I think a lot of women would probably feel that way, too.
Leave every place you go, everything you touch, a little better for your having been there.
Let me put it this way: I can sing a hell of an Old Man River,
way down in the bass.
Marriage is the hardest work you're ever going to do.
More than anything, the arts are the best teaching tool.
Much as I adore the melodies, I choose a song for what it has to say.
My mother and stepfather were in Vaudeville. And my stepfather was an alcoholic. It was a lot of roller coaster
times. But it's all I knew. I think they did the best they could under the circumstances, with me and all the family.
My mum gave me pretty good genes in that department. She had gorgeous skin. That
good English complexion. She never seemed to have a blemish that I knew of.
My parents were in Vaudeville, in musical. And I would tour with them and had a couple of wonderfully lucky breaks in England.
My sense of the family history is somewhat sketchy, because my mother kept a great deal to herself.
My voice needed oiling, and then it took off.
One of our books has been made into a musical, The Great American Mousical,
which I directed at
the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut. And another, Simeon's Gift,
has been adapted for a symphony
orchestra and five performers. I'm also a very proud member of the board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Our first visit to the Creature Shop is one of the days I will never, ever forget. There was just so much to see and admire and be gobsmacked by.
Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.
Programs that bring the arts to young kids are always the first to be cut. It's mind-boggling to me.
Simeon's Gift
is really - it's about a musician who - in the Middle Ages, who goes out to find his muse.
Singing has been a cherished gift, and my inability to sing has been a devastating blow.
Singing has never been particularly easy for me.
Some of my own books are being developed - one as a Broadway musical.
Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.
Sometimes I'm so sweet even I can't stand it.
Sometimes opportunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.
The amateur works until they get something right. The professional works until they can't go wrong.
The arts are usually the first thing to be cut in schools or regional programs.
The arts bridge cultures; they're good for the economy, and they're good for fostering empathy and decency.
The arts need funding.
The love we have for our children is like nothing else in the world.
The loveliest roles, for me, have a growth arc - a beginning, a middle, and an
end - and I'm always grateful when I can find one of those emotional journeys.
The thrill of being in front of a camera remains exactly the same.
There are elements of me in the roles I've played in the past. But people forget that Mary Poppins was just a role, too.
There is one thing I should say, and it's important: Young Broadway singers and anybody who is an
orator of any kind - lawyers who have to speak in court or pastors or anyone who has a lot of stress on
their vocal cords: You should do the maintenance. You should do whatever it takes to feel fresh and good.
To be given the opportunity to help shape new artists' careers and mentor
them to see their dreams come to fruition is a task I welcome with open arms.
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, I think. It does give you some kind of grit.
Truthfully, I mostly can be as private as I want.
Use your knowledge, and your heart, to stand up for those who can't stand, speak for
those who can't speak, be a beacon of light for those whose lives have become dark.
When I did The Sound of Music
and Mary Poppins
and The Americanization of Emily,
all three
were in the can and had not yet been released. So I was driving around having a fine time learning about how to
make movies and enjoying myself enormously, and then they were released, and it was quite an assault, in a way.
When I've least expected it, an enormous opportunity or stroke of luck has crossed right under my nose. So I tell everybody, if you're
passionate about what you do and you love it, do it. But do your homework. Because you'll never know when the opportunity is going to happen.
When in doubt, stand still.
When one door closes, another window opens.
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.
Whenever I think of my birthplace, Walton-on-Thames, my reference first and foremost is the river. I love the smell of the river; love its
history, its gentleness. I was aware of its presence from my earliest years. Its majesty centered me, calmed me, was a solace to a certain extent.
Who could have imagined that life would have taken such marvelous twists and turns
or that I would often be so fortunate to be in the right place at the right time?
You can't bring the arts too soon to kids.
You just don't know in life. Life knocks you about and pushes you over boundaries. But be ready. Do your homework; that's all I can say.
You never start out being a star.
You take any job that comes along, and if you're really lucky, the movie takes off.
You'd think, of course, it's about the melody - that's a given. But really, I'm no good at singing a song unless it has a good lyric.
You're always changing your thoughts about things.
Last on Earth
