Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
by Julie Andrews
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Book Summary Information
Author: Julie AndrewsEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 0786865652
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Hyperion
Product features:
- Memoir, Entertainers
Book Reviews of Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
Book Review: JULIE ANDREWS: A CLASS ACT
Summary: 5 Stars
I wondered if Julie Andrews, a very private celebrity, would ler her guard down in her long-awaited autobiography "Home: A Memoir Of My Early Years." To my surprise and delight, she does just that and much more-- writing about many personal and painful memories with more candor and courage than I expected. After reading this book, I realized that biographies by Robert Windeler and Richard Stirling did not even begin to do her justice. To begin with, Julie can write wrings around her other "biographers". She has a true gift for writing and providing details of people, places and eras that create very specific and clear images in the the mind's eye of the reader. Many of her memories are emotionally harrowing and filled with almost heartbreaking pathos. Yet, it is never a sad, self-pitying, or self-serving autobiography. Julie balances the sadness with perception, depth, and her own delicious, delightful, often bawdy, sense of humor.
Julie's "early years" were mostly spent touring around England in the last, dying days of British vaudeville. Most of the venues she played in were terrible and tacky; a few were gloriously fun. She never complains or despairs, but life at home was definitely not a Disney "Jolly Holiday"-- definitely not with her abusive and alcoholic stepfather; "Pop" Ted Andrews. She resented him from the start, and he quickly gave her every good reason to resent him. She must have terribly resented having to adopt his last name. Yet, she is very "matter of fact" about the turn of events: "my name was changed from Julia Elizabeth Wells to Julie Andrews...I didn't have any say in the matter, and I don't think my father (Ted Wells, whom she absolutely adored) did, either. He must have been hurt.' Her family was severely fractured and disfunctional; and she seems acutely aware of this. Writing of a visit to her boyfriend Tony Walton's house, she says, "Everything was soothing, pleasant and spoke of a real home--quite a contrast to my own rather sad and disorganized one." Her mother, Barbara, was a rather pathetic alcoholic as well. When Julie was 14, her very drunk mother dropped a huge emotional bombshell regarding Julie's "biological father," who was not, as she always assumed, Ted Wells. This revealation, understandably, knocked Julie sideways for years. Yet, she responded to every adversity with the iron will and resolve of a true survivor. She writes, "I committed myself wholeheartedly to assumming responsibility for the entire family. It seemed solely up to me now to hold us together, for there was no one else to do it."
Because of her dedication to keeping her family intact, she nearly passed on the opportunity to make her Broadway debut in "The Boyfriend" at age 19. She had to be literally shoved onto a plane to the U.S.A. Broadway provided her with a nurturing environment, an education, and another "home", of sorts. When Julie describes her lengthy, nearly three year marathon run in the megahit musical "My Fair Lady," guided by her great director/mentor Moss Hart, the autobiography is completely engrossing. After this, she details the trials and tribulations that plagued "Camelot," Lerner and Loewe's costly, often misguided follow-up to "My Fair Lady."
The book ends rather abruptly-- just at the point where the reader is totally capitivated and feeling we are just beginning to know Julie. Julie, Tony Walton, and their newborn daughter Emma, are happily flying off to Hollywood-- Julie and Tony having accepted Walt Disney's offer to work on "Mary Poppins." One hopes Julie won't wait too long before she offers a second installment. Whether writing about personal tragedies or professional triumphs, Julie displays the warmth and graciousness that have made her so endearing for over 50 years. Above all, Julie proves that she is, without a doubt, one of the last true "class acts" left in show business.
Summary of Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
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.
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
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