She played the super-sweet nanny with magical powers, but Dame Julie Andrews admits she’s no Mary Poppins.
“A lot of people… they think that I am this very squeaky clean, upper-class lady… And it’s so far from the truth,” she confessed in a 2022 interview.
Now, as she prepares to turn the big 9-0 this week, we’re sharing some of our favourite things about the legendary actress – with a spoonful of surprises along the way.
But first, how does she feel about ageing?
She responds in the most delightful way. “I say ageing sucks, but it doesn’t really. And since there’s no alternative, why bitch so much about it?”
MARRIAGES & MOTHERHOOD
Despite appearing practically perfect in every way, Julie has been married twice.
Her first marriage was to set designer Tony Walton, for eight years.
They welcomed one child, named Emma Walton Hamilton together and divorced in 1967.
“I did feel I’d failed at it miserably and blamed myself for a great deal,” she told Now To Love in 2019.
Julie went on to marry her second husband, Blake Edwards, in 1969.
From it she gained two stepchildren, Jennifer and Geoffrey. They also adopted two daughters from Vietnam in the 1970s, orphans Amy and Joanna.
Sadly, Blake died of pneumonia in 2010.
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“We were married 41 years and it was a love story, it was,” Julie previously said. “I miss him like crazy.
Today, Julie has nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
SHE SWEARS LIKE A SAILOR
Behind the scenes Julie is anything but ladylike.
“I do swear a lot,” she previously confessed. “Mr Disney found that out quickly.”
The butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth actress went on to reveal an incident when a flywire she had been hoisted up on the set of Mary Poppins broke.
“I think I said a few words he (Walt Disney) had not heard very often,” she laughed. “I’m a much more bawdy broad than Mary Poppins.”
SHE STILL KEEPS IN TOUCH WITH THE VON TRAPP KIDS
It’s been 60 years since the hills were alive with The Sound Of Music, but Julie is still in touch with the actors and actresses who played the Von Trapp children.
“We do keep in touch, but not on a really regular basis, I mean, Christmases, maybe birthdays and certainly get-togethers, but we just bonded so hard that I think we’re family anyway,” she revealed in a previous interview.
FEUD WITH AUDREY HEPBURN
Julie once admitted she was upset when Hollywood darling Audrey was cast in My Fair Lady in 1964 over her.
“Though I totally understood why Audrey had been chosen for the role (I’d never made a movie and was a relative unknown compared to her worldwide fame), I felt sad that I would never have the chance to put my version of Eliza on film,” she told US Closer.
Despite this, Julie went on to get her sweet revenge, taking home an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Mary Poppins.
A photo of Julie holding her Oscar next to Audrey only added to rumours of a feud between the 1960s stars.
CRUSH ON CAPTAIN VON TRAPP
Julie had a keen eye for her co-star Christopher Plummer, aka Captain Von Trapp.
“Truthfully, I was not terribly happy at the time. I was quite lonely. Tony [her first husband] was working, and our marriage was a little rocky,” she once told Diane Sawyer.
But it was only ever a crush.
“We were never an item… We became the best of friends, and that’s lovely… probably because we weren’t an item.”
SHE SMOKED LIKE A CHIM-CHIMINEY
It’s hard to believe that she would ever do such a thing.
But, according to Karen Dotrice, who played Jane Banks, everyone’s favourite nanny was a heavy smoker.
“Julie Andrews was smoking on set. It was a very real 1960s set, I can tell you. They were polite around minors to begin with, but that soon ended,” she told The Sun in 2018.
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