Home: A Memoir of My Early Years [Hardcover]

Julie Andrews (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 1, 2008

Since her first appearance on screen in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews has played a series of memorable roles that have endeared her to generations. But she has never told the story of her life before fame. Until now.

In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in America. Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world's most famous nanny.

Along the way, she weathered the London Blitz of World War II; her parents' painful divorce; her mother's turbulent second marriage to Canadian tenor Ted Andrews, and a childhood spent on radio, in music halls, and giving concert performances all over England. Julie's professional career began at the age of twelve, and in 1948 she became the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Command Performance before the Queen. When only eighteen, she left home for the United States to make her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and thus began her meteoric rise to stardom.

Home is filled with numerous anecdotes, including stories of performing in My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison on Broadway and in the West End, and in Camelot with Richard Burton on Broadway; her first marriage to famed set and costume designer Tony Walton, culminating with the birth of their daughter, Emma; and the call from Hollywood and what lay beyond.

Julie Andrews' career has flourished over seven decades. From her legendary Broadway performances, to her roles in such iconic films as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, 10, and The Princess Diaries, to her award-winning television appearances, multiple album releases, concert tours, international humanitarian work, best-selling children's books, and championship of literacy, Julie's influence spans generations. Today, she lives with her husband of thirty-eight years, the acclaimed writer/director Blake Edwards; they have five children and seven grandchildren.

Featuring over fifty personal photos, many never before seen, this is the personal memoir Julie Andrews' audiences have been waiting for.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Syphilis, alcoholism, infidelity, and indeterminate parentage may seem improbable touchstones in the back story of one who didn't so much portray as embody the blithe Maria in The Sound of Music. But as this memoir of her formative years makes clear, there is more gravitas to Andrews than meets the eye. From her childhood in rural England and initial forays into British theater, to her first massive successes on Broadway and in the West End--notably as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady--Home puts her celebrated career in context. While arguably offering more detail about the Andrews family than necessary, it nevertheless dishes wonderful anecdotes about legends and Andrews contemporaries like Noël Coward, Rex Harrison, Robert Goulet, Richard Burton, and Rodgers and Hammerstein, in prose as crisp and immaculate as the author herself. It also offers a revealing look into the intricate, exhaustive craft of performing--skills often taken for granted in tabloid times. Since the book ends just as Andrews is about to launch into the celluloid stratosphere, can Volume II be far behind? After Home, it would be most welcome. --Kim Hughes

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Andrews, who has written several children's books (The Great American Mousical; Mandy), both solo and with her daughter, now dances in a different direction with this delightful remembrance of her own childhood and engrossing prelude to her cinematic career. Spanning events from her 1935 birth to the early 1960s, she covers her rise to fame and ends with Walt Disney casting her in Mary Poppins (1963). Setting the stage with a family tree backdrop, she balances the sad struggles of relatives and hard drinkers with mirthful family tales and youthful vocal lessons amid rationing and the London Blitz: My mother pulled back the blackout curtains and gasped—for there, snuggly settled in the concrete square of the courtyard, was the incendiary bomb. A BBC show led to a London musical at age 12: My song literally stopped the show. People rose to their feet and would not stop clapping. Her mother's revelation of her true father left her reeling when she was 15, but she continued touring, did weekly BBC broadcasts and was Broadway-bound by 1954 to do The Boyfriend. The heart of her book documents the rehearsals, tryouts and smash 1956 opening of My Fair Lady. Readers will rejoice, since Andrews is an accomplished writer who holds back nothing while adding a patina of poetry to the antics and anecdotes throughout this memoir of bittersweet backstage encounters and theatrical triumphs. (Apr. 1)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786865652
• ISBN-13: 978-0786865659
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (198 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #655,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

JULIE ANDREWS EDWARDS is one of the most recognized and beloved figures in the entertainment industry. Her legendary career encompasses the Broadway and London stages, blockbuster Hollywood films, award-winning television shows, multiple album releases and concert tours and the world of children's publishing.

Andrews' dedication to children has been steadfast throughout her career. She began writing books for young readers over thirty-five years ago and her first two novels - MANDY and THE LAST OF THE REALLY GREAT WHANGDOODLES - remain in print and in high demand. Her other books include the LITTLE BO series, and over 20 picture books, novels and Early Readers co-authored with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, including the best-selling DUMPY THE DUMP TRUCK series, SIMEON'S GIFT, DRAGON: HOUND OF HONOR, THE GREAT AMERICAN MOUSICAL, THANKS TO YOU: Wisdom from Mother and Child (#1 NY Times Bestseller), the VERY FAIRY PRINCESS series (#1 NY Times Bestseller), and the poetry anthologies JULIE ANDREWS' COLLECTION OF POEMS, SONGS AND LULLABIES and JULIE ANDREWS' TREASURY FOR ALL SEASONS.

Together the best-selling mother-daughter team head-up "The Julie Andrews Collection" publishing program, dedicated to publishing quality children's books which nurture the imagination and cultivate a sense of wonder.

Andrews considerable charitable work has been consistent throughout her career, and in 2000 the title of Dame Julie Andrews was bestowed upon her by Queen Elizabeth II for lifetime achievements in the arts and humanities. Her many other honors include being named "One of the 100 Greatest Britons" by the British Broadcasting Corporation, serving as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations' UNIFEM program, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, ambassadorships for literacy programs as the American Library Association's National Library Week and Ready. Sit. Read!, and a prestigious Kennedy Center honor in the fall of 2001.

Andrews was married to the late film director Blake Edwards, and has five children, eight grandchildren,and two great-grandchildren.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

150 of 154 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars She Has Confidence...in a Gracious, Generous Memoir of the Years Before Her International Stardom April 1, 2008

By Ed Uyeshima HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I am convinced that any baby boomer who does not admit to having had a bit of a crush on Julie Andrews is lying. I recall even as a toddler how I begged my parents to let me see Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music multiple times only to enjoy those movies again in sing-along versions forty years later. The crispness of her vocal delivery and the angularity of her wholesome appeal just seemed right before the counter-cultural revolution took over with the escalation of the Vietnam War. However, she does not get to that career pinnacle in her memoir, as her story stops just as she flew to Los Angeles in 1963 to film Mary Poppins. It's a major credit to Andrews that she makes intriguing those early years prior to her international success with such perceptive candor and gentle humor. Perhaps because of her long-standing success as a children's book author, she displays a great deal of dexterity as a writer.

Andrews' childhood memories are full of self-effacing observations about a most unenviable home life. Belying her image of elegant breeding, she was raised in poverty by an alcoholic mother and a lecherous stepfather during the dwindling days of vaudeville in England. Already a part of her parents' music hall act by age nine, Andrews found she had an acrobatic soprano voice that so astounded the press that she performed for the Queen and became a nightly sensation at the London Palladium. She had a range of over four octaves and yet most tellingly labels her voice "freakishly high". Her talent certainly impressed others more than herself as she became the toast of Broadway and London first in Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend and then legendarily as Eliza Doolittle and Queen Guinevere in Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady and Camelot, respectively. Andrews' professional recollections are full of celebrity dish but not obnoxiously so between Rex Harrison's flatulence, Richard Burton's amorous advances, Cecil Beaton's bitchiness about how she wears his clothes, and impressionable backstage visits from the likes of Laurence Olivier and Ingrid Bergman.

However, the book's most resonant passages focus on her conflicted and still painful memories of her rather dysfunctional family - her late mother, a promising classical pianist who let the bottle overcome her; a philandering grandfather whose indiscretions eventually cost the life of her grandmother; and most harrowing is her stepfather whose violent tendencies instilled an unsettling fear in the young Julie. There are some surprising revelations Andrews willingly shares in that recognizably crisp manner, and reflecting the woman herself, there is no doubt of the personal bravery it took for her to share them. With the inclusion of over fifty personal photos, the 339-page autobiography really whets the appetite for the sequel which I am hopeful is in the works since it will cover her impressive big-screen career. In the meantime, this first volume clearly reflects how she evolved into the iconic persona that is her legacy - classy, disciplined, forthcoming, amusing, a bit starchy, and truly one of the great treasures. I think I still have that crush.

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Julie Andrews's Unflinching Memoir Plumbs the Depths April 2, 2008

By Susan Eisenberg

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I came of age listening to the original cast recordings of MY FAIR LADY and CAMELOT, and my first glimpse of Julie Andrews was in snippets from the latter show on ED SULLIVAN. I fell in love with her crystalline soprano and crisp diction and have always followed her career. When I heard she was writing a memoir of her early years, I couldn't wait to read it. After the book arrived from Amazon, I devoured it in two sittings, staying up late to finish. In beautiful, unflinching prose she fills in the gaps I've wondered about over the years, giving insights into her evolution from a young English girl with a big voice to the coloratura toast of Broadway--a transition she made with grit and talent. Ms. Andrews depicts a childhood that forced her to leave school at 14 and support her family with her singing, but there's not a trace of self-pity. She also shares details about her vocal training with Lilian Stiles-Allen. If you're a Julie Andrews fan, you'll want to buy this book and immerse yourself in her memories. She's a "fair lady," all right, and still the queen of the golden age of musicals. Brava, Ms. Andrews, and many thanks! -- from Susan Dormady Eisenberg, contributing writer to Classical Singer Magazine & author of the novel, THE VOICE I JUST HEARD.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Julie, in her own words April 3, 2008

By DVD buff

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Coming some 60 years after her first professional recording, this audiobook is sort of the pinnacle of Ms. Andrews' recording career. The life of Julie Andrews, as written by Julie Andrews, and read to you, as if she were personally telling you the story of her life, by Julie Andrews.

Ms. Andrews' life and career have both been well-documented by biographers, but everything takes on new meaning and becomes personal when told by Ms. Andrews herself. And, of course, there are anecdotes and details that only Ms. Andrews herself can share with her audience, so there is much for even the most devoted fan to learn from this book. Here, she tells the story of her life from her earliest childhood to her career as a child star, from her journey to Broadway and television through to being cast by Walt Disney in MARY POPPINS.

The audiobook on CD is 13 hours long, spread over 11 CDs. Each disc contains seven to ten tracks; some chapters are one track long, and others are two to three tracks long. The production is straightforward and what you would expect of an audiobook -- read clearly, recorded well. Of course, I'd be happy hearing Ms. Andrews read the dictionary to me, but there is something magical and mesmerizing about her voice here, describing her own life.

At the end of the audiobook, Ms. Andrews says, "Thank you for listening." This is the only detail she has wrong -- we, the audience, should be saying to her, "Thank you for telling." I only hope we don't have to wait too long for the next part of the Julie Andrews story...