Okay, every time I recap a memoir, I feel like I'm always saying how I'm not really a "memoir girl". And I stand by that, I do. But they have been sneaking into the reading rotation more and more in recent years and I feel the need to say, right at the outset: Julie Andrews' memoirs are the first I've picked up and read for the pure fandom. Mary Poppins was my first ever favorite movie. My mom can attest to the fact that I wore out a VHS watching it on repeat. And as you know, I paid good American money a couple weeks ago to go and see The Sound of Music in the cinema, even though I own it on DVD and just watched it earlier this year. Ever since I was a teeny-bopping middle schooler, Julie Andrews has been my number one choice of the person I'd love to sing a duet with if I could choose anyone in the whole world. When Princess Diaries 2 came out and Raven-Symoné got to sing with Queen Clarisse Renaldi at Mia's bachelorette party, I died a little inside. That could have been me, y'all. And listen, if these references are lost on you, don't sweat it, but maybe go to your local library and check out these movies. You're in for a great time.
When these memoirs first came on my radar a few years ago, they immediately went on my wishlist because Julie Andrews, duh. And by the time I came across two pristine copies at my local Friends of the Library bookstore a few months ago (for a mere $2 apiece, I might add), I already had my ticket to the 60th anniversary screening of The Sound of Music in theaters. And even though these books were obviously not on my list for 2025, I can't turn up my nose at these serendipitous events of circumstance that life sometimes throws us. So shortly after finishing The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Trapp, I picked up Home, the first of Julie Andrews' two memoirs, published in 2008.
This book is a memoir of Andrews' early years, starting with a bit of her own family history. Throughout the course of her narrative, Andrews takes us along as she remembers what it was like living in and around London during World War II, her parents' sad divorce that consequently split her and her brother Johnny up between her mother and father, and then beginning voice lessons and touring with her mother and stepfather's vaudeville act. Then getting her big break to star as Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, a role she originated there (oh, to have seen that!). She details more of her stage career leading up to Walt Disney himself contacting her and asking her to be his Mary Poppins.
While I found this first of her memoirs to have a lot of interesting information, it was a bit slow-going at times. The memories of her early childhood are a bit disjointed (as I imagine most everyone's are), and the details of the different performers and managers she worked with in vaudeville and the stage throughout England were largely unfamiliar to me, making the reading a bit of a slog.
Her second memoir, Home Work published in 2019, picks up where Home left off, with Julie and her first husband and baby daughter traveling to Hollywood to work on Mary Poppins. This is the book about her Hollywood years—from Mary Poppins to Victor/Victoria—and the flow of this memoir was a lot better, in my opinion. The names cropping up in Home Work were also a lot more familiar to me so naturally it made the reading a bit more interesting. The introduction in Home Work serves as a very serviceable review of Home so unless you are also a diehard fan, I would recommend skipping Home and just reading Home Work. The disappointing thing about her second memoir is that it ends before the infamous throat surgery that ruined her singing voice. While I imagine it wouldn't be pleasant to relive that time in her life for any reason, I was sort of hoping for Andrews' own perspective on the aftermath of that surgery and the impact it had on her life.
Julie Andrews has always been class personified, and that shines through in her books. Everything in her life, even the difficult things, she writes about with a sort of rose-colored tint to it all—with a spoonful of sugar, if you will. It didn't feel very personal at all, more like she was just relating all the events of her life from almost an outsider's perspective. It was interesting. As much as I enjoyed reading her memoirs, I don't feel as if I really know her any better for it.
Ultimately, I walked away from these books with a profound gratitude for my own mother. Julie Andrews' mum seemed like a real piece of work, and Julie herself seemed so swept up in her career, her second marriage to a substance-abusing husband, her ideal of living in Switzerland, that she never seemed to prioritize being a stabilizing force in her own children's lives. Her daughter and stepchildren were shuffled back and forth between parents, and the two little girls she adopted from Vietnam were raised by nannies. My own mother is an incredibly talented woman with a remarkable work ethic, and I'm not being glib when I say she could have done or been anything she wanted to be. But she chose to be fully present in the lives of her four children. She gave us the foundation to be anything we wanted to be. And I've watched her be my dad's rock my whole life. We would all fall apart without her, and I'm thankful she didn't leave my upbringing to chance or someone else.
While I still wouldn't classify myself as a big memoir reader, I appreciate the compassion for others and the gratitude for my own life that reading these books brings up in me. And I guess that's a compelling enough reason to pick one up every once in a while.
What memoir would you read based solely on your personal fandom of the writer? What person do you wish would write one?
Oceans of Love my wonderful daughter and friend!!
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