Home: A Memoir of My Early Years

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
by Julie Andrews

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
List Price: $26.95
Our Price: $2.44
You Save: $24.51 (91%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.19 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Julie Andrews
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 0786865652
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Hyperion

Book Reviews of Home: A Memoir of My Early Years

Book Review: Becoming A Fair Lady
Summary: 4 Stars

The story of Julie Andrews is not all light and joy. Rather she brightens it with her writing style. A story of a girl raised to support her family and all the love and anguish wrapped therein. Rather a heavy burden from which she derived many lessons which she passes on to the reader without sounding like Mary Poppins. She was raw talent who used her own intelligence to shape her gifts.

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 No?l 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

Actors & Actresses Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Live and Breathe With These Stories About Women
Smart Blonde: Dolly Parton ImageSmart Blonde: Dolly Parton
by Stephen Miller
Omnibus Press; Published: 2008-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.06
Price in other shops: $19.95
Margaret Thatcher: A Tribute in Words and Pictures ImageMargaret Thatcher: A Tribute in Words and Pictures
WN; Published: 2006-02-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.15
Price in other shops: $29.95
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ImageI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
Bantam; Published: 1983-05-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.21
Price in other shops: $6.99
A Dance With the Devil: A True Story of Marriage to a Psychopath ImageA Dance With the Devil: A True Story of Marriage to a Psychopath
by Barbara Bentley
Berkley Trade; Published: 2008-11-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.54
Price in other shops: $16.00
Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office ImageBitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office
by Jen Lancaster
NAL Trade; Published: 2006-03-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.47
Price in other shops: $15.00
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books ImageReading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
by Azar Nafisi
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2003-12-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.50
Price in other shops: $15.00
Diana Ross ImageDiana Ross
by J. Randy Taraborelli
Citadel; Published: 2008-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.40
Price in other shops: $16.95
Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp ImageWithout Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp
by Anna R. Hayes
The University of North Carolina Press; Published: 2008-08-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $23.23
Price in other shops: $35.00
Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World ImageThrough the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World
by Lynne Spears, Lorilee Craker
Thomas Nelson; Published: 2008-09-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.44
Price in other shops: $24.99
Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader ImageSarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader
by Joe Hilley
Zondervan - ebooks account; Published: 2008-10-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $14.99
Similar Books and other products
Once Upon a Time ImageJulie Andrews - Once Upon a Time
Release date: 2007-11-13; Music CD
Best price: $9.88
Price in other shops: $16.98
Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door ImageDoris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door
by David Kaufman
Virgin Books; Published: 2008-06-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.97
Price in other shops: $29.95
Home CD: A Memoir of My Early Years ImageHome CD: A Memoir of My Early Years
by Julie Andrews
Hyperion; Published: 2008-04-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $7.81
Price in other shops: $44.95
Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time ImageLosing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time
by Valerie Bertinelli
Free Press; Published: 2008-11-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.18
Price in other shops: $15.00
Pieces of My Heart: A Life ImagePieces of My Heart: A Life
by Robert J. Wagner, Scott Eyman
HarperEntertainment; Published: 2008-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.75
Price in other shops: $25.95
Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--and the Journey of a Generation ImageGirls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--and the Journey of a Generation
by Sheila Weller
Washington Square Press; Published: 2009-04-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.88
Price in other shops: $17.00
In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures ImageIn the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures
by Helen Mirren
Atria; Published: 2008-03-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.60
Price in other shops: $35.00
Julie Andrews: An Intimate Biography ImageJulie Andrews: An Intimate Biography
by Richard Stirling
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2009-04-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.80
Price in other shops: $17.95
Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation ImageLadies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation
by Cokie Roberts
Harper Perennial; Published: 2009-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.21
Price in other shops: $15.99
Audition (Vintage) ImageAudition (Vintage)
by Barbara Walters
Vintage; Published: 2009-05-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops: $15.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories