Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An actress and Broadway star, she won an Oscar for Mary Poppins and was beloved worldwide for The Sound of Music.
On the island
Eight records
it's the first memory I have of music, and it my mother used to play this piece. ... she used to sit in our lounge when I was quite a young child and play it very beautifully.
it reminds me of my dad who loved the country and nature ... this is my real father ... he was a gentle and strong and lovely man. He was a school teacher, so this is for him really.
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
When I was in New York for the first time ... I used music as a kind of drug to make me forget some of the pressures ... this piece was what I played probably most of all.
one of my great loves has been the opera Turandot and the beautiful aria Nessun dorma. ... I thought I'd just ask for the lovely aria, if possible, sung by Pavarotti.
Piano Concerto in G majorFavourite
My husband and I, we courted to this music and so of course it has lovely memories.
When we are together as a family, we quite often put on music, and there is a kind of unspoken understanding that at a certain moment in the record the entire family ... get up and tear around the dining room ... because it's so joyous.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26
I wanted to not only take away to the island things that would remind me of the past, but something that would keep me really stimulated and fresh and make me think a lot and something that I could learn from.
Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47
Sinfonia of London, Sir John Barbirolli
It absolutely for me sums up all that is lovely about Britain, and it's deeply moving and stirring, and I'd have to have it because I couldn't live without it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
10:13Was your stepfather Ted Andrews a hard taskmaster in driving your career?
I think it was probably the combination of of Ted Andrews and my mother, really. Probably my mother was influential in getting him to do the driving, if you know what I mean. She probably was a bit of a stage mum in that respect, but a good one
Presenter asks
15:50Was it a terrible blow when you didn't get the film role of Eliza Doolittle and Audrey Hepburn did?
Well, at the time I think, you know, in retrospect I suddenly thought, Oh, it is a shame that I didn't put the role down definitively somewhere. But at the time I really did understand why Audrey was chosen, because I was only known on Broadway in those days. I wasn't known across the country. I wasn't a film star, I'd never made a movie. So she was more bankable, basically. ... She's a very good friend of mine and she said to me just afterwards she said, Julie, I didn't have the guts to turn it down, and I can understand it. But then it wasn't so tough, Sue, because very, very shortly afterwards, almost as the most wonderful compensation. Walt Disney asked if I would like to do Mary Poppins.
Presenter asks
19:23Did you accept the role in The Sound of Music with alacrity, or were you hesitant?
The keepsakes
The book
T. H. White
he was a great friend, and it's the book that Camelot was based on.
The luxury
I thought it would keep me very busy ... as long as the piano didn't go wildly out of tune, I could really learn.
No, I don't recall being unhappy about it at all, Sue. ... I tell you that the truth of it is that we all thought that with that amount of sort of sugary content, we had to be very careful to keep it as astringent as possible, that was for sure.
Presenter asks
20:26Are you heartily tired of the wholesome image associated with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, or are you really like that?
Well, I suppose a certain amount of that rubs off in one's performances, and perhaps there is that in me. I think that one gets bracketed, you see, by the things that one has done that were the most popular. ... I hope that these days the body of work speaks for itself. And it only disturbed me in that if it prevented other people from thinking of me for a role in a different way, in a different light, then it was sad. But I don't knock that image because it did give so much pleasure.
Presenter asks
23:36Do you think that your husband Blake Edwards saw the other side of you and chose roles that contradicted the Mary Poppins image, and was that one reason you were attracted to him?
Well, he obviously knew me much better than most, and so hopefully saw that there was the potential for something else as well. But people in the beginning said that you and he were an unlikely combination. Well, I think we both thought that, and I didn't think the marriage would last, and we said that we would take it a day at a time, and that's exactly what we've done for this last twenty-three years.
“he did discover that I had this freak voice, and he must have been as surprised as anybody. ... freaky in the sense that it was very, very long and thin and incredibly powerful and strong. I had about a four octave range and a sort of adult larynx and could do the most extraordinary vocal gymnastics with it.”
“You would think that I would have resented it, but I didn't. And looking back on it, I think that I was unconsciously so grateful to have a talent that gave me an identity, because being from a divorced family and being rather lost and somewhat without any self-pity, just a little bit lonely, I think. ... it was wonderful to have something to hang on to, and this gave me something to do and made me feel special and important.”
“I'm very good at hiding my shyness, but I am rather shy. And I do get absolutely panic stricken and I have to sort of deal with that. ... opening night for instance. ... it's the only time I'm really known to pray hard.”
“I do feel very English, and I feel it I know it's terribly corny, but I do feel a sort of responsibility to take what's best of England with me wherever I go and sort of speak for England in a way a sort of silent ambassador, if you will, or vocal ambassador, I'm not sure which, because it's important to me that we reach out to each other and I think, well, if I can sort of give a good image of my country wherever I go then I've sort of helped a little bit.”