And when I ask Emma to sum up her year-old mother in one word, she immediately offers "resilience" — which is interesting because it's the moniker Julie used earlier when I asked her to describe her own mother, Barbara Ward Wells.
Despite her shortcomings, Julie adored her mum and confesses she learned a great deal from her. She was a wonderful pianist, a very funny lady, and much more full of life than I think I ever could be… I think I'm much, much paler compared with her. In my eyes, anyway. She wasn't a stage mum as such. She was very strict: 'Don't you dare get swollen heads, don't you dare complain, you're lucky to have what you have, and blah blah blah' — which I thought was rather good.
I still do. Julie with Tony Walton and Emma. Emma describes her grandma Barbara as "a hedonist, who loved good food, music, handsome men… and booze. Mother and daughter are chatting together — and to me — at Julie's house in Los Angeles.
They are known for finishing each other's sentences, which must have been handy writing together, and as we start to talk I realise there is a solid backbone of unquestioning love and unshakeable mutual support binding Julie and Emma, which I suspect has sustained them through some very choppy waters. In Home Work they chart the ups and significant downs of Julie's Hollywood years, which proved revelatory for Emma and at times painful for her mum. In this book, of course, she participated in some of what I was writing about so it was a very moving experience.
We laughed and cried on this one, I think," confesses Julie. Emma was the nuts and bolts of everything and we consulted together daily towards the end. It took about three years in all.
For Emma, the experience gave her a deeper understanding of her mum. What I remember was being a child and thinking, 'Mum is a grown-up and Mum has all the answers and Mum knows everything,' because as a child that's how you imagine your parents. For me it was interesting to discover how human and sometimes flummoxed or confused or innocent she was. In the book Julie talks in depth about her roles, how the extra sparkle of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music was created against a backdrop of punishing hard graft.
Julie was young with a lot to learn and she was determined to succeed. But there was a price. Constant separation, living in different countries, and the pressures of both of them building their careers pulled Julie and Tony physically and emotionally apart. At one point, Julie hit a wall and simply couldn't stop crying. She had always coped and grabbed every opening with both hands, but now she was falling apart.
Her friend, theatre director Mike Nichols, mentioned he was in psychoanalysis and suggested Julie try it. She made an appointment without telling Tony and in the book recalls the tears of that first meeting. Therapy was a revelation and helped Julie enormously. It became part of my life at the time, for 30 or 40 years. It became my friend. But Julie couldn't save her marriage and Emma was almost five when her parents divorced. I did feel I'd failed at it miserably and blamed myself for a great deal.
Although I think it probably was a little bit of both [of us]. In , Andrews and Edwards both divorced their first spouses. They had reconnected towards the end of their marriages, and began dating soon after their divorces were finalised.
In the early days of their relationship, Edwards was forced to own up to a lewd joke he'd made about the English actress about six weeks before they met. The writer and director had been at a party when conversation turned to film stars who'd been catapulted to fame, and what it was that had made them successful. Andrews' name had been thrown in the ring, thanks to her lauded role as the governess Maria in 's The Sound of Music.
She has lilacs for pubic hair'," Edwards admitted in a joint interview with Andrews for Playboy magazine. Andrews wasn't at the soiree, so imagine Edwards' shock when, just weeks later, his new girlfriend offered him a housewarming present: a lilac bush. He was convinced it was a reference to his dinner party joke, but when Andrews assured him she had no idea what he was talking about, he confessed. The Academy Award winner didn't let Edwards entirely off the hook, though, presenting him with lilacs "in every way, shape and form" as anniversary gifts each year.
Prophetically, one of the guests who had witnessed Edwards' lilac joke first-hand, agent Stan Kamen, told him on the night: "With your luck, you'll wind up marrying her. In , that prediction came true, with the couple tying the knot at Andrews' home in November after two years together.
Andrews and Edwards continued raising their children together — he had two children, Jennifer and Geoffrey, from his marriage to Patricia Walker — and later adopted two daughters, Amy and Joanna, who were both orphans from Vietnam. Sadly unable to have a child together, the Edwards' decided to adopt. It was just at the end of the Vietnam war, and in and two Vietnamese orphans, Amy and Joanna — who had both been abandoned by their families — joined the household.
Julie Andrews is famous for her swearing. Julie didn't abandon her career — she just made sure she always worked with Blake. He was happy to challenge Hollywood's image of the 'nice' Julie Andrews. They made seven films together. Most were non-singing roles, and in 's S.
Their most commercially successful joint film was 10 — although Julie's role was rather eclipsed by Bo Derek. By the mid-Nineties Julie and Blake could rightly feel proud that despite naysayers and family challenges their marriage was still rock solid. Then Blake developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, making it more difficult for him to work — vital to keep his demons at bay.
These were hard times. Once again, Julie turned to her family. With her daughter Emma, she produced a range of children's books, that helped her come to terms with the loss of her voice. Speaking roles in The Princess Diaries and Shrek saw her in demand again in films.
While Blake's battle with depression meant he contemplated suicide at times, he never gave up on his marriage. Blake passed away in , aged 88, from pneumonia. Until the end he came up with projects — and they would always have a role for Julie. I think one carries that love always. It turns out that one of Hollywood's most enduring love stories was not a screen romance, but lived at the heart of a modern family. Goodbye to Hollywood icon Olivia de Havilland.
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