"Dame Julie Andrews, so crisply accented, sweetly tuneful and girlish in her most famous movie musicals, has always had a sense of humour about her angelic image. She won the 1965 Oscar for playing a practically perfect English nanny for Walt Disney, but that didn't stop her from driving around Los Angeles with a Mary Poppins Was a Junkie bumper sticker on her car. Or telling journalists that I hate the word wholesome, and her Hollywood nickname was the nun with the switchblade."
"As a little girl she warbled to her neighbours during air raids, but it was when her stepfather gave her singing lessons that the full extent of her talent was discovered. At the age of eight, Andrews had an adult larynx, and a clear soprano voice with a four-octave range. She later joked that dogs would come from miles around, but she was a phenomenon, with a voice of impeccable musicality and clarity."
Julie Andrews began performing as a child in wartime Britain and developed an extraordinary soprano with a four-octave range. She won the 1965 Oscar for Mary Poppins and starred in The Sound of Music, while also appearing in later films such as The Princess Diaries. She balanced an angelic, crisply accented public persona with a sharp sense of humour and occasional irreverence, driving around with a provocative bumper sticker and rejecting the label 'wholesome'. Her career began in music hall and BBC radio, moved to Broadway where she originated roles in The Boy Friend and My Fair Lady, and she became known for immaculate diction and lyric-focused delivery.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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