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My
Friend Julie Andrews (1963 Good Housekeeping
Magazine, by Carol Burnett) from http://julieandrews.co.uk
America's
favorite comedienne reports that her beguiling British friend is
just as far out as Carol herself.
by Carol Burnett as told to Helen Markel
The
first time I saw Julie Andrews close up she came into Whelan's
drugsore at 44th Street and Broadway, the Sardi's of the
unemployed actors, to buy a refill for her eyelash curler. Having
stood through My Fair Lady four times, I rose as she entered out
of force of habit - as thought Queen Victoria had just appeared. I
bought the same refill for my eyelash curler, only I never could
get it in straight.
Two
years later I was doing my first play, Once Upon a Mattress and
one night her manager, Lou Wilson, came backstage and suggested we
all have supper after the show.
"Me
and Julie Andrews?" I said on a rising note of panic.
"Why
not?" he said. "You're both the same style. Kinda nutsy."
I kept
telling myself on the way to the restaurant that when we run out
of conversation I could always ask her how to refill an eyelash
curler.
We met
at Ruby Foo's (Julie thinks that Chinese food, like the Statue of
Liberty, is one of the glories of American civilisation). Lou was
there, and Bob Banner of The Garry Moore Show. They're two very
verbal types, but that night they never got in five words
edgewise. Julie and I conducted a two-half filibuster; it was like
open end without a moderator.
The only
way I can explain that encounter is if you can remember back to
what it was like when a new kid moved into your block and - voom!
- straight off you know you had a best friend, so you both sat
down and on the steps and told each other the story of your life.
Julie
told me about her stage debut at three when the flap of her Dr.
Benton's came unflapped and the whole first act featured her
fanny, and then I told her about our family parrot, whom my mother
taught to say, "Where the hell have you been?" whenever
he saw my father.
Over the
egg-drop soup we traded anxieties: We're both devout coward's
about airplains and opening nights and criticism (the least little
bit makes me contemplate slashing my wrists)' and then we
discussed our hair color, (Hers is natural - wouldn't you know -
whereas mine is really so dark that when I let it grow in I look
like I should break into Indian Love Call.)
During
the sweet-and-sour pork we compared our hideous childhoods: Julie
swears she was buck-toothed and piano-legged and faintly wall-eyed
for years: I was so tall the only thing that boys admired about be
was my ability to outrun them, which was not what I had in mind.
By the
time the fortune cookies appeared, we were working out a plan to
work together, some time somehow. The idea of teaming Miss Raggedy
Ann Burnett, Girl Kook, with the remote, ladylike silver-throated
Miss Andrews, 'ere from England to grace our 'humble U.S. shores,
finally roused our poor escorts into calling for the check and
stumbling out of the restaurant, holding their various heads.
On the
way out Julie said she couldn't get her refill to work right
either.
Two
years later, and against everybody's better judgement, Miss
Andrews and Miss Burnett made their first joint appearance on The
Garry Moore Show, and if I say it myself, who shouldn't, it turned
out to be pretty great.
In the
first five minutes of rehearsal, as eyewitnesses have since
reported, it became quite clear to the whole company that one of
those things was happening on stage that 'ardly ever 'appens
between tow female performers. There was no jealousy, no
upstaging, no competition. Whether it' sour chemistry or simply
that we're the same kind of nut - as Lou said that night - we seem
to be at our best in each other's company.
The next
morning everybody was on the phone persuading us to do a one-our
TV Special, which eventually (in June, 1962 became Julie and Carol
at Carnegie Hall.
We had
the time of our lives doing that show. (maybe that's why it was a
success). even though the rehearsals were so gruelling we wondered
whether we'd survive. We lived on tea and pep pills and developed
psychosomatic colds.
Julie
hast weight and I gained it mostly in the bags under my eyes. We
went so wild doing our spoof of the Moiseyev Ballet that I
sprained my ankle and Julie blacked an eye.
But
nothing fazed that girl. In the midst of one rehearsal she
suddenly hiked up her satin gown and broke into Old Man River
while doing a soft-shoe clog. she can sing high, low or bass
baritone if driven to it. We worked a twelve-hour day toward the
end and everyone was dropping in his tracks except Julie, who
remained as fresh as one of those English springs she's always
talking about.
Working
opposite her is like having Winston Churchhill for your copilot.
She never panics. Her Fair Lady director, the late Moss Hart, once
said "She has that terrible English strength that makes you
wonder why they lost India." Among the cast she was know as
The Rock, a reference to her sheer staying power.
I know
what they mean. Julie also has the kind of physical
"carriage" my grandmother likes to talk about; a
tremendous composure and a professional invincibility which Mr.
Hart described as "a kind of glacial charm, as though she
came down from Everest every day to rehearse with the rest of
us."
But
that's the public Miss Andrews, a girl who can be pretty
overwhelming. I myself have seen her, but I've never met her. My
friend is Julie Walton, who has a baby called Emma and a husband
called Tony (a talented set designer), and a wonderful happy
marriage.
Should
you meet Julie, you must not be deceived by that grandedame
facade. Underneath her Rule-britannia face beats the spirit of a
rampant lion cub.
This is
a quality that's hard to document because it's elusive, so you'll
just have to take my word for it: Julie Andrews is not Queen
Victoria; she's an irrepressible British kook.
That
dressed innocence masks a basic gutsiness, a directness, a
for-realness that's very rare, especially in women. Julie Walton
can't fake anything, including friendship. When she likes you she
calls you ten times a day (my little sister keeps threatening to
put in a private line for us), and if she doesn't she refuses to
come to the phone, but nicely.
She's
shy with strangers, but once she accepts you - watch out. She's
sweet, modest, kind to animals, completely wacky. She's a
brilliant practical joker, a writer of naughty Limericks, a superb
mimic, a collector of shaggy-elephant stories, a devotee of the
bongo drum and a lover of soda fountains.
Her
humour is direct, offbeat, and sometimes off-colour. Some of her
best lines are better not in print, but those pear-shaped British
inflections make them sound line pure poetry. With that accent and
those china-blue eyes she seems like an engaging child trying out
some new words she picked up from her older brother.
There is
no one else quite like her. She managed to weather one of the
splashiest successes in Broadway history with her sense of humour
intact, and a compulsive fear of getting "big-headed."
The other night she asked Tony if her thought her head had been
turned much since he first know her back home in England.
"Has
it, love? Be absolutely truthful. It's very hard to tell about
one's own head. y'know."
Tony
tried giving it a few turns, just to check.
"No
luck." he said, kissing her on the top of it. "It's
stuck on too straight."
Tony
Walton is a brunette and quieter that Julie, with a dry, subtle
wit that's a perfect foil for hers. They both have that same
squeaky-clean look, line a pair of proper prep-school kids who've
decided to play house for the weekend. They prefer games to night
clubs, avoid large parties when possible ("We loathe making
Entrances") unwind after a hard day by having a banana split
at the corner drugstore.
As a
theatrical designer, Tony is in the same line of work as Julie
without being in direct competition with her. That is a very good
thing since two actors in the family are fated.
The fact
that at times Julie makes more money that Tony doesn't bother
either of them. If that was the basic problem in marriage, few
women in show business would ever go to the alter. Julie earns
more that President Kennedy, let alone her husband, but since
female performers are known to have a short life and a taxable
one, she just counts her blessings and saves her pennies and is
taking up cost accounting.
It is
Julie's opinion that the nicest thing about having money is that
it can fly her parents over for visits and keep Emma in expensive
stuffed animals. She still gets homesick for England - "Your
t terrible Eastern springs are my worst time," she confessed
last May before she left New York for Hollywood and work on the
movie version of Mary Poppins. "But I am getting stiffer in
the upper lip about it, wouldn't you say?"
She is
always trying to be stiffer in the upper lip about something. Her
latest resolution is to work on her rock garden and take tennis
lessons (she is devoutly nonathletic) and be neater and learn to
make a souffle. Promise to tell me the moment you see me
weaken," she said on the phone. "As we know, I'm not
exactly, riddled with self-discipline, Wot?"
Maybe
part of her infinite good nature is explained by the fact that she
is the product of two happy homes. (See - even her family history
is a little off-center.)
Her
parents were divorced when she was quite young and they both made
happy second marriages and remained chummy, in the bargain. Julie
is so close to all four of them that she gave up letter writing
and now rattles on into a dictaphone for an hour a week and
airmails the tape back home. Since Emma's arrival, she has
embarked on an elaborate plan to send over 8-mm. movies with the
arrival of each new tooth.
the day
Emma was born in England (Julie felt such an occasion called for
British soil) I received a cable: SHE'S HERE, KNOWN OFFICIALLY AS
EMMA STOP START LEADING A GOOD CLEAN LIFE STOP YOU'RE HER
GODMOTHER MOTHER WALTON
She
called me the next day from the hospital to report that she was
nursing Emma. "It's heaven," she said, ocean to ocean.
Emma
Kate Walton will be a year old in November and has a Kim Novak
face, the world's most doting parents, an English nanny called
Wendy and a household that revolves around her natural-blonde
head.
Julie
handles her with the confidence of Dr. Spock. I asked her the
other day how she learned so fast.
"As
soon as you have one," she said, burping Emma efficiently,
"all those dormant maternal instincts start popping out all
over you, like German measles."
I think
Emma has changed Julie. You watch when she's holding her and you
can see the difference. She's still Julie, but she's suddenly
full-grown.
Although
it is generally conceded that Emma's mother can do anything she
wants in the theatre, there are some days now that she is not
quite sure that she wants to do anything at all.
I
remember a conversation last summer when I was visiting the
Waltons in Hollywood. We had spent the day at Disenyland and gone
on every ride (Julie has a passion for roller coasters). Then we
had come home and polaroided each other to death (Julie holding
Emma, Tony holding Emma, Emma holding us), and now we were all
sitting around the pool kooing at Emma and talking lazily about
the future.
"I'd
like to take a year to do a picture and then have another
child," Julie said dreamily, "and then a picture and
then a child and then a pic . . ."
"And
then a grandchild," Tony said, and slid into the pool.
Before
all that happens, Julie and I are determined to work together
again. If we do, I hope we'll both survive, because I'd hate to
lose that girl. It's not every day you can run across a British
kook in a Chinese restaurant who turns out to be you best friend.
Article
thanks to Michele Glaser
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