Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2893 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Released on: 2008-04-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Amazon.com
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

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Andrews, who has written several children's books (The Great American Mousical; Mandy), both solo and with her daughter, now dances in a different direction with this delightful remembrance of her own childhood and engrossing prelude to her cinematic career. Spanning events from her 1935 birth to the early 1960s, she covers her rise to fame and ends with Walt Disney casting her in Mary Poppins (1963). Setting the stage with a family tree backdrop, she balances the sad struggles of relatives and hard drinkers with mirthful family tales and youthful vocal lessons amid rationing and the London Blitz: My mother pulled back the blackout curtains and gasped—for there, snuggly settled in the concrete square of the courtyard, was the incendiary bomb. A BBC show led to a London musical at age 12: My song literally stopped the show. People rose to their feet and would not stop clapping. Her mother's revelation of her true father left her reeling when she was 15, but she continued touring, did weekly BBC broadcasts and was Broadway-bound by 1954 to do The Boyfriend. The heart of her book documents the rehearsals, tryouts and smash 1956 opening of My Fair Lady. Readers will rejoice, since Andrews is an accomplished writer who holds back nothing while adding a patina of poetry to the antics and anecdotes throughout this memoir of bittersweet backstage encounters and theatrical triumphs. (Apr. 1)
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Customer Reviews

Where Was Her Editor?
Julie Andrews, a heroine of my early life, has disappointed me in this poorly written, garrulous memoir. She has all the material for a fabulously written life - but on the page, her writing falls flat. Long chapters on family matters are depressing. Gratuitous incidents involving various English relatives could have been cut. I felt I was listening to a too-loquacious older family member, who remembered everything, but did not remember her listener, or think in terms of what her listener would want to hear. I wanted to read about Julie Andrews' career on Broadway, about the great actors she starred opposite - Rex Harrison and Richard Burton - about working with Lerner & Loewe. And while she did recount theater memories, she did so in such a turgid manner, without the charm that she surely still possesses. I felt I did not know who Harrison and Burton were as people, and I certainly did not gain insight into Lerner or Loewe. Although apparently she has written or co-written many children's books, Julie Andrews is not a skilled, professional writer. She lacks personal insight, for one thing. I know this book will make her many fans happy, but to me, it seems an exercise in dogged grit rather than the natural expression of an inborn talent.

Julie Andrews' Home is a lovely memoir
I highly recommend Julie Andrews' "Home: A Memoir of My Early Years." It's a beautifully written book that captures the times and places of the events that took place in her early years (i.e before her film career). As one who, as a young child, first heard her sing on the "My Fair Lady" orginal cast recording, I've been a fan for a very long time. This wonderful book adds to her many extraordinary achievments. I'm so looking forward to the next installment of her amazing life.

Julie Andrews Will Always Be One of My Fair Ladies
I have loved Julie Andrews since I first saw her in My Fair Lady and Camelot. She is so gracious, talented, beautiful and I've heard bawdy, which I think makes her a well rounded lady. Unfortunately, I preordered this book without realizing what the content would be, and I found it disappointing. She obviously was terribly offended by some of the unpleasant deeds of Rex Harrison, but she was too gracious in her reflection of their appalling behavior. The memoir just wasn't what I expected. It boring and after laboriously reading most of it, I put it aside. This memoir has nothing to do with my admiration of Julie Andrews and all of her awesome accomplishments.