Chapter 2 of 100
Julie Andrews
b. 1935 | English singer/actress
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At The Bottom |
— 1997
Andrews had missed over thirty performances. Sidelined with bronchitis and pneumonia...
For the past year and a half, Julie Andrews — one of the most accomplished stage and screen actresses of the late 20th century — had been starring in the Broadway version of Victor/Victoria, the musical film Andrews had starred in 14 years earlier. Audiences flocked to hear the voice that had sung in such memorable classics as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music — the voice that had helped her win an Academy Award, two Emmy awards, and five Golden Globes over the past three decades. During the last few months of the stage show, however, Andrews had missed over thirty performances. Sidelined with bronchitis and pneumonia, Andrews was having trouble with her beautiful singing voice, which had taken a beating over her career. By the time Victor/Victoria ended its run, Andrews had developed a non-cancerous cyst on the left side of her throat. Doctors removed the cyst, promising her that her voice would return within six weeks. It didn’t. She later described her voice as having a “fried sound,” with “certain notes that just don’t appear.” Her husband, the filmmaker Blake Edwards, told a reporter a year after the operation that he didn’t think she’d ever sing again. “It’s an absolute tragedy,” he said. “If you heard [her voice], you’d weep.”
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At The Top |
— 2004
She might be able to help guide young readers to see the silver lining during difficult times...
Seven years after her disastrous throat surgery, Julie Andrews sang again for the first time on screen. The film was The Princess Diaries 2, a lighthearted sequel to one of the surprise hits of 2001; in the two films, Andrews played the queen of a fictional country called “Genovia.” Marketed to pre- and early-teen girls, both films did quite well at the box office, drawing $300 million in combined revenues and introducing Andrews to a new generation of filmgoers. Although her singing performance in the sequel was brief (and pitched lower than her usual soprano), anyone who had followed Andrews’ career would have appreciated what that moment had meant to her. By 2004, Andrews had also pursued a new avenue for her creative talents, as she and her daughter Emma had begun writing a series of children’s books that told stories about characters who triumph over adversity. The books — especially the “Dumpy the Dumptruck” series — were well received and earned high marks from educators and librarians. For Andrews, the messages in the books were drawn from her own experiences, and she drew inspiration from the idea that she might be able to help guide young readers see the silver linings during difficult times. As she explained to a group of educators, “If you think about it, the books I write for children are really an extension of my singing voice.”
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The Comeback |
She still had much to offer to her audience...
Andrews describes herself as an extremely private person, and so for several years after her surgery she quietly focused on recovering from the trauma of the surgery and its aftermath. To friends, she admitted that it was unlikely that her voice would return to its previous level, but she was confident that “a certain part of it” would return with time. Even so, with the loss of her “stock-in-trade,” she found herself asking, “Who am I? What do I do?” She kept busy with a string of non-musical roles in plays and films and tried not to dwell on the fact that her singing voice was not improving. She kept a stiff upper lip and refused to brood about her condition in public; she recognized that she had enjoyed a remarkable career and that she still had much to offer to her audience. She also realized that she could develop a new audience and even venture into new areas of creativity with her writing — something she’d always hoped to do more of but had never had the time to pursue.
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