|
| Home: A Memoir of My Early Years | 
 enlarge | Author: Julie Andrews
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $13.98
You Save: $12.97 (48%)
New (47) Used (11) Collectible (8) from $12.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 1964
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0786865652
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.4028092
EAN: 9780786865659
ASIN: 0786865652
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new -- great gift. I ship day of order and include USPS delivery confirmation.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Syphilis, alcoholism, infidelity, and indeterminate parentage may seem improbable touchstones in the back story of one who didn't so much portray as embody the blithe Maria in The Sound of Music. But as this memoir of her formative years makes clear, there is more gravitas to Andrews than meets the eye. From her childhood in rural England and initial forays into British theater, to her first massive successes on Broadway and in the West End--notably as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady--Home puts her celebrated career in context. While arguably offering more detail about the Andrews family than necessary, it nevertheless dishes wonderful anecdotes about legends and Andrews contemporaries like Noel Coward, Rex Harrison, Robert Goulet, Richard Burton, and Rodgers and Hammerstein, in prose as crisp and immaculate as the author herself. It also offers a revealing look into the intricate, exhaustive craft of performing--skills often taken for granted in tabloid times. Since the book ends just as Andrews is about to launch into the celluloid stratosphere, can Volume II be far behind? After Home, it would be most welcome. --Kim Hughes
Book Description
Since her first appearance on screen in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews has played a series of memorable roles that have endeared her to generations. But she has never told the story of her life before fame. Until now. In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in America. Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world's most famous nanny. Along the way, she weathered the London Blitz of World War II; her parents' painful divorce; her mother's turbulent second marriage to Canadian tenor Ted Andrews, and a childhood spent on radio, in music halls, and giving concert performances all over England. Julie's professional career began at the age of twelve, and in 1948 she became the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Command Performance before the Queen. When only eighteen, she left home for the United States to make her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and thus began her meteoric rise to stardom. Home is filled with numerous anecdotes, including stories of performing in My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison on Broadway and in the West End, and in Camelot with Richard Burton on Broadway; her first marriage to famed set and costume designer Tony Walton, culminating with the birth of their daughter, Emma; and the call from Hollywood and what lay beyond. Julie Andrews' career has flourished over seven decades. From her legendary Broadway performances, to her roles in such iconic films as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, 10, and The Princess Diaries, to her award-winning television appearances, multiple album releases, concert tours, international humanitarian work, best-selling children's books, and championship of literacy, Julie's influence spans generations. Today, she lives with her husband of thirty-eight years, the acclaimed writer/director Blake Edwards; they have five children and seven grandchildren. Featuring over fifty personal photos, many never before seen, this is the personal memoir Julie Andrews' audiences have been waiting for.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 42 more reviews...
 She Has Confidence...in a Gracious, Generous Memoir of the Years Before Her International Stardom April 1, 2008
85 out of 89 found this review helpful
I am convinced that any baby boomer who does not admit to having had a bit of a crush on Julie Andrews is lying. I recall even as a toddler how I begged my parents to let me see Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music multiple times only to enjoy those movies again in sing-along versions forty years later. The crispness of her vocal delivery and the angularity of her wholesome appeal just seemed right before the counter-cultural revolution took over with the escalation of the Vietnam War. However, she does not get to that career pinnacle in her memoir, as her story stops just as she flew to Los Angeles in 1963 to film Mary Poppins. It's a major credit to Andrews that she makes intriguing those early years prior to her international success with such perceptive candor and gentle humor. Perhaps because of her long-standing success as a children's book author, she displays a great deal of dexterity as a writer.
Andrews' childhood memories are full of self-effacing observations about a most unenviable home life. Belying her image of elegant breeding, she was raised in poverty by an alcoholic mother and a lecherous stepfather during the dwindling days of vaudeville in England. Already a part of her parents' music hall act by age nine, Andrews found she had an acrobatic soprano voice that so astounded the press that she performed for the Queen and became a nightly sensation at the London Palladium. She had a range of over four octaves and yet most tellingly labels her voice "freakishly high". Her talent certainly impressed others more than herself as she became the toast of Broadway and London first in Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend and then legendarily as Eliza Doolittle and Queen Guinevere in Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady and Camelot, respectively. Andrews' professional recollections are full of celebrity dish but not obnoxiously so between Rex Harrison's flatulence, Richard Burton's amorous advances, Cecil Beaton's bitchiness about how she wears his clothes, and impressionable backstage visits from the likes of Laurence Olivier and Ingrid Bergman.
However, the book's most resonant passages focus on her conflicted and still painful memories of her rather dysfunctional family - her late mother, a promising classical pianist who let the bottle overcome her; a philandering grandfather whose indiscretions eventually cost the life of her grandmother; and most harrowing is her stepfather whose violent tendencies instilled an unsettling fear in the young Julie. There are some surprising revelations Andrews willingly shares in that recognizably crisp manner, and reflecting the woman herself, there is no doubt of the personal bravery it took for her to share them. With the inclusion of over fifty personal photos, the 339-page autobiography really whets the appetite for the sequel which I am hopeful is in the works since it will cover her impressive big-screen career. In the meantime, this first volume clearly reflects how she evolved into the iconic persona that is her legacy - classy, disciplined, forthcoming, amusing, a bit starchy, and truly one of the great treasures. I think I still have that crush.
Practically perfect April 6, 2008
30 out of 37 found this review helpful
"Home" was the first word that toddler Julia Wells -- soon to become Julie Andrews -- spoke. Though it was denied her as a young girl, a normal home life was important to Andrews from the beginning.
The embodiment of a class act, Julie Andrews tells the story of her impoverished upbringing in London with grace and candor. She recounts what must be painful memories in a straightforward way, never whining or asking for pity. She holds nothing back.
Stories of her alcoholic stepfather -- and his obvious efforts to molest her -- left me shaken. When she was 9, he insists he show her "how I cuddle with Mummy." At 16, he shows up in her bedroom and demands that he "really must teach you to kiss properly." Her uncle installs a padlock on her bedroom door. Julie's two younger brothers are regularly beaten and abused. When her 3-year-old brother has a potty-training accident, the stepdad rubs the little boy's nose in it.
Andrews began performing to support the family while still very young. She tells fascinating stories of learning to sing properly and working the shabby vaudeville circuit. The result of her first screen test? "She's not photogenic enough for film." To combat the stress the 12-year-old would go to a nearby cinema to watch Mickey Mouse cartoons between her two performances of the night.
The fact that Cinderella is her door out is almost too perfect. Later, when Walt Disney picked her to play Mary Poppins, she gets a whirlwind tour of Disneyland by Walt himself, riding the Jungle Cruise and seeing the Swiss Family Treehouse. "Mary Poppins" author P. L. Travers even calls her, complaining: "Well, you're much too pretty, of course. But you've got the nose for it!"
The memoir ends there, with Andrews on the cusp of real stardom.
An Amazing Woman's Early-Life Story Beautifully Told April 2, 2008
27 out of 31 found this review helpful
I read the book in one evening. I could not put it down. I found myself at times forgetting that it was a book about Julie Andrews' early years and would get caught up in the storytelling. I found it to be occasionally very candid and, as with everything I've ever read, seen or heard from Ms. Andrews, included a great deal of humor. I laughed out loud many times.
What an amazing woman and a wonderful book. I eagerly await the next "chapter".
Julie Andrews's Unflinching Memoir Plumbs the Depths April 2, 2008
26 out of 29 found this review helpful
I came of age listening to the original cast recordings of MY FAIR LADY and CAMELOT, and my first glimpse of Julie Andrews was in snippets from the latter show on ED SULLIVAN. I fell in love with her crystalline soprano and crisp diction and have always followed her career. When I heard she was writing a memoir of her early years, I couldn't wait to read it. After the book arrived from Amazon, I devoured it in two sittings, staying up late to finish. In beautiful, unflinching prose she fills in the gaps I've wondered about over the years, giving insights into her evolution from a young English girl with a big voice to the coloratura toast of Broadway--a transition she made with grit and talent. Ms. Andrews depicts a childhood that forced her to leave school at 14 and support her family with her singing, but there's not a trace of self-pity. She also shares details about her vocal training with Lilian Stiles-Allen. If you're a Julie Andrews fan, you'll want to buy this book and immerse yourself in her memories. She's a "fair lady," all right, and still the queen of the golden age of musicals. Brava, Ms. Andrews, and many thanks! -- from Susan Dormady Eisenberg, contributing writer to Classical Singer Magazine & author of the novel, THE VOICE I JUST HEARD.
Home Sweet Home April 4, 2008
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
When it was announced that Home, Julie Andrews' much anticipated memoir would only cover until she began Mary Poppins, I was initially disappointed. But as I began delving into Home, I realized the detail she was able to afford her early years by doing so allowed a story to unravel that was absolutely absorbing; something that likely been comprised had Home chronicled her entire illustrious career. I was very ignorant of Julie's early career, thinking it essentially began with My Fair Lady on Broadway. What I didn't know was the dark lonely childhood lived in poverty during the war. Unlike Elizabeth Taylor, Julia (as she was originally named) did not have the luxury of seeking refuge elsewhere, and was forced to remain in a very bleak and dark London; many nights spent huddled in one of the city's Underground stations with her mother and her new stepfather who she despised. Weekends spent with her father in the countryside provided fleeting moments of happiness for the young girl.
As she grew a little older, her stepfather discovered that she had an extremely powerful singing voice, and she was quickly enrolled in lessons. In no time she was shoved onstage to entertain crowds alongside her parents in dusty old music halls across England. Julie, known as the "pigtail prodigy," became the centerpiece of the act, much to the frustration of her jealous stepfather, who was an alcoholic. In Home, Julie intimately remembers her early days spent touring around England during the dying days of vaudeville. As interest in the family act begins to dissipate, Julie appears in Christmas pantomimes and on the radio, and catches the eye of producers who are mounting the Broadway production of The Boy Friend, a recent musical hit there on the West End. By the end of Home, Julie is the toast of Broadway, originating the lead roles in My Fair Lady and Camelot, and is to begin work on the film that made her an icon, Mary Poppins.
In Home, the story of Julie Andrews' early career tumbles out a rapid pace, all the while displaying grace, wit, humour, and surprising honesty. It was quite clear to me just how meticulously researched Home actually was. As this book took ten years to complete, I doubt we'll see another so soon--although I pray I'm wrong. I'd love a follow-up just to know what happened in the lives of Dad, Mum, Pop, Aunt Joan, etc. after the book's completion. The characters are that endearing. Home is one of the greatest memoirs I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It's not hard to know why Julie Andrews and her films have become such an important part of our lives. Bravo, Julie. Bravo.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
