Julie Andrews on the blended legacy of being Mary Poppins

The Hollywood star appeared to be the embodiment of the magical nanny when she featured within the 1964 Disney movie. In a 1976 interview with the BBC, she talked about being outlined by Poppins’ sugar-sweet, healthful persona.

Actress Julie Andrews appears to be like skyward as she ponders one of the simplest ways to reply the query which BBC presenter Sue Lawley appears decided to press her on – if she feels typecast by the general public picture shaped by her early success as Mary Poppins.

The 1964 Walt Disney musical, which was based mostly on tales written by PL Travers, had introduced Andrews in a single day fame when it premiered in Los Angeles, 60 years in the past this week. However Mary Poppins had additionally helped create the candy, healthful picture that, even on the time of the BBC interview in 1976, nonetheless outlined her for many individuals.

The movie informed the story of a unprecedented nanny, who descends from the London skies, umbrella in hand, into the lives of the troubled Banks household in 1910, taking cost of their boisterous, if quite uncared for, youngsters. Via a collection of adventures, with a dose of magic and customary sense, Mary Poppins helps restore the household’s relationships, getting them to embrace the enjoyment of their on a regular basis lives.

Mary Poppins had lengthy been one thing of a ardour mission for Walt Disney. Within the early Forties, he had promised his daughters, who had been followers of the primary ebook, that he would adapt it right into a film. However he had not counted upon its notoriously prickly writer, Travers. He spent the subsequent 20 years repeatedly attempting to steer her to promote him the display rights. By the Sixties, regardless of Travers’ critical misgivings about Disney’s rather more jolly, whimsical tackle the darker components of Mary Poppins, the writer’s more and more dire monetary state of affairs compelled her to relent.

In 2013, Disney would depict their founder’s fractious relationship with the intransigent Travers, and his efforts to carry the ebook to the display, within the movie Saving Mr Banks. In line with the writer’s fears concerning the adaptation of her personal ebook, some critics claimed that the movie portrayed a extremely sanitised model of their antagonistic relationship, and the 2 sophisticated individuals concerned.

Regardless of Travers describing Mary Poppins within the books as being very plain, Disney had a transparent thought about who he wished for the “‘virtually good in each approach'” nanny – and that was Julie Andrews.

By this time, Andrews had already established a profitable stage profession on each side of the Atlantic. Born in 1935, in Surrey, within the UK, Andrews’ mom and stepfather, on discovering their daughter’s distinctive singing capability and four-octave vocal vary, propelled her in the direction of a profession on stage. By the age of 12, she was astonishing West Finish audiences in London along with her clear, melodic soprano voice. In 1954, she made her US debut on Broadway within the immensely fashionable The Boy Good friend, nevertheless it was her position as Cockney flower lady Eliza Doolittle within the 1956 musical My Truthful Girl that basically introduced her to individuals’s consideration. The manufacturing proved to be an ideal showcase for her abilities – incomes her a Tony Award nomination – and by 1958 was the highest-grossing Broadway present of all-time.

Disney felt the actress can be very best for his tackle Mary Poppins. In 1962, after seeing her carry out as Queen Guinevere alongside Richard Burton as King Arthur within the musical Camelot – a job she went on to safe one other Tony nomination for – he went backstage to supply her the title position in his upcoming movie.

“I believed he was simply being good, and coming to go to,” Andrews informed BBC’s The One Present in 2014, “however he requested if I’d be interested by coming to Hollywood to see the designs and to listen to the songs he was planning for this film he meant to make.

“And I used to be horrified, and I stated ‘oh Mr Disney, I’d find it irresistible, I’d find it irresistible, however I’ve to inform you, I am pregnant’.”

However once more, Disney was ready to be affected person to make sure he obtained what he wished. “He stated that is all proper we’ll wait,” stated Andrews.

The position would show to be a defining one for her. It allowed her to exhibit the complete vary of her singing, dancing and comedy items. Her efficiency introduced authority, heat and a barely enigmatic air to the prim nanny, whereas songs like A Spoonful of Sugar and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious confirmed off Andrew’s straightforward appeal and flawless voice.

In her second memoir, Dwelling Work, printed in 2019, she wrote: “Looking back, I couldn’t have requested for a greater introduction to movie, in that it taught me a lot in such a brief time frame. The particular results and animation challenges alone had been a steep studying curve, the likes of which I’d by no means expertise once more.”

The film was an progressive mix of live-action, animatronics and animation, the place youngsters may magically bounce into footage and chimney-sweeps danced with penguins. When it premiered in Los Angeles in 1964, the viewers erupted right into a spontaneous standing ovation that lasted 5 minutes. Folks had been left equally exhilarated and bemused by co-star Dick Van Dyke’s uncommon tackle a cockney accent, which has grow to be an everlasting a part of the movie’s legacy.

Mary Poppins would go on to grow to be the highest-grossing movie within the US in 1964. The film it beat into second place was My Truthful Girl. Regardless of originating the Eliza Doolittle position on Broadway, Andrews had been handed over for the movie adaptation in favour of Audrey Hepburn as a result of, considerably satirically on reflection, the studio felt she wasn’t a movie star. Mary Poppins obtained 13 Academy Award nominations, profitable 5, together with one of the best actress Oscar for Andrews and greatest tune for Chim Chim Cher-ee. Andrews additionally gained a Bafta for her efficiency.

The next 12 months, her portrayal of the governess Maria in The Sound of Music earned her one other Oscar nomination and the movie’s worldwide success cemented Andrews’ standing as a significant Hollywood star.

However enjoying two iconic singing nanny roles in vastly profitable films, so shut collectively, helped solidify a candy, virtuous picture of Andrews within the viewers’s minds.

Within the years following, the actress purposely sought out darker dramatic initiatives like Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Torn Curtain (1966) and spy drama The Tamarind Seed (1974), whereas passing on roles in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) that might have strengthened this healthful picture. And he or she had tried to subvert that picture off display as effectively, admitting to André Previn in a BBC interview in 1987 that she as soon as had a bumper sticker on her automobile that proclaimed: Mary Poppins Is A Junkie.

In 1976, Sue Lawley questioned Andrews at size about whether or not she was pissed off along with her sugary-sweet picture and would go on to quiz her alongside related traces many years later, when Andrew was invited on to BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 1992.

However whereas the actress conceded that she had wished to “prolong” herself “and do different issues”, she stated that she could not knock the picture as a result of they had been “fantastic movies and gave individuals plenty of pleasure”.

“Do you ever want you hadn’t executed it?” requested Lawley.

“No, by no means,” stated Andrews. “I should be truthful though I do giggle and there’s an terrible lot of teasing within the household about my picture and issues like that. I do not remorse it in any respect.”

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