Julie Andrews’ Hard-Luck Early Life
Julie Andrews has given quite a revealing interview to WNYC. (Except, of course, about her love life, which will probably only be intimately revealed after Andrews’s death.) We often think of her as the prim nanny from “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music,” but her personal path may have the greatest resemblance to one of her Broadway roles: Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.” Andrews says she grew up “on the wrong side of the tracks†in a family strapped for cash during wartime, and her initial training as an actor was in the less than prestigious field of vaudeville. But right before opening night of her breakout role in “The Boy Friend,” it was producer Cy Feuer’s advice that we have to thank, in large part, for the level of excellence Andrews has brought to musical film and theater for generations. “Forget camp,†he told her. “Get real.â€
