ACTOR · BORN 1935
Julie Andrews
- Born
- 1 October 1935, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, UK
- Known for
- Despicable Me (2010), Aquaman (2018), Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007)
86 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
34 Interesting Facts About Julie Andrews
- #011
She has perfect pitch.
- #014
At the age of seven, she could sing notes that only dogs could hear.
- #015
She returned to work to begin filming Mary Poppins (1964) four months after giving birth to her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton.
- #019
She has a rose named after her.
- #022
Andrews has long owned a chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. Every year she pays for Gstaad's Christmas lights, and each July she presents the prize to the winner of the annual Gstaad Tennis Open. She once said that when she gets nervous before a performance, she has to look at a photograph of "lovely" Gstaad to calm down.
- #027
Andrews lost the role of Eliza Doolittle in the film My Fair Lady (1964) to Audrey Hepburn. Unlike Andrews, however, Hepburn was not a natural singer; she took voice lessons and recorded the film's songs, but the producers had Marni Nixon dub her voice without telling Hepburn. Nixon later appeared alongside Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965).
- #028
As a musical performer, Andrews always preferred to sing "bright and sunny" material, choosing to avoid sad, depressing or sorrowful songs, or songs written in a minor key, for fear of losing her voice "in a mess of emotion." She cited this as another reason for avoiding opera.
- #029
According to her autobiography, Andrews first saw her second husband, Blake Edwards, at a party while she was on her honeymoon with her first husband, Tony Walton. She and Edwards did not become friends until several years later.
- #031
The Walt Disney Company named Andrews the Official Ambassador of "The Happiest Homecoming On Earth: Disneyland's 50th Anniversary Celebration."
- #032
In a 2002 BBC poll, Andrews was voted the 59th greatest Briton of all time.
- #034
In the 1960s, Andrews had a bumper sticker on her car that read "Mary Poppins is a junkie."
- #035
Andrews was considered for the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (1991).
- #037
Instead of singing in the shower, Andrews sings scales.
- #042
When Tony Walton proposed to her, he gave her a brooch instead of a ring.
- #043
Her performance as Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins (1964) ranked 45th on Premiere Magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
- #044
She turned down the role of Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! (1969).
- #047
The Americanization of Emily (1964) is the only black-and-white film she has made to date.
- #048
She was to reprise her stage role as Guinevere opposite Richard Burton's King Arthur in Camelot (1967), but by then she had become such a popular film star that she could not take the part.
- #049
She turned down the role of Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).
- #050
She turned down the role of Elizabeth in Paint Your Wagon (1969).
- #051
She was considered for the role of Nancy in Oliver! (1968).
- #053
Mary Poppins (1964) for Disney, The Sound of Music (1965) for 20th Century Fox and Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) for Universal were the biggest money earners their studios had had up to that point. Her next two films, however, Star! (1968) and Darling Lili (1970), failed to recoup their money, to put it mildly.
- #054
She shot a cameo as a chambermaid in Blake Edwards's 1975 Inspector Clouseau comedy The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), but the scene ended up on the cutting room floor.
- #058
She and Blake Edwards entered psychoanalysis as a way of coping with the downturn in their careers in the 1970s.
- #059
Her first stage show took place in 1947 at the London Hippodrome, when she was 11, where she sang 'Polonaise from Mignon' for two performances every night. This led to her being asked to perform at the 1947 Royal Command Performance, when she was 12.
- #070
She is Steve Hamilton's mother-in-law.
- #072
At one point she was set to appear in The Public Eye (1972).
- #073
Before Joanna Lumley was cast, she was considered to play Aunt Emma in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). Andrews had reportedly injured her ankle.
- #076
Julie Andrews was considered for a role opposite Richard Burton in the 1969 film Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
- #080
Julie Andrews turned down the role of Catherine in Lost Horizon (1973).
- #083
Over a six-year period from 1964 to 1970, Julie Andrews appeared in four different films as characters with rhyming names such as Mary, Emily, Millie and Lili, each of which was part of the respective title: Mary Poppins (1964) - Mary; The Americanization of Emily (1964) - Emily; Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) - Millie; Darling Lili (1970) - Lili. In addition, during the same period she played the similar-sounding but non-rhyming Maria in The Sound of Music (1965), where her character's name was not part of the title. All except Darling Lili were big money-makers.
- #084
Julie Andrews was born at 6:00 a.m. BST.
- #085
Julie Andrews gave birth to her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton naturally.
- #086
In August 2026, Julie Andrews announced her retirement from on-screen acting.
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