SPOTLIGHT; From 'Do Re Mi' to 'The Rain in Spain'
By Peter Marks (Oct. 22, 1995)

They just don't make musicaltheater stars like Julie Andrews anymore. Then again, they don't really make musical theater like they used to, either. In the 1950's and early 60's, the heyday of the musical comedy, Ms. Andrews originated not one, not two, but three legendary roles, any one of them a careermaker by today's paltrier Broadway standards. In just six years, she created the characters of Polly Browne in "The Boy Friend," Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" and Queen Guinevere in "Camelot."

Now, she is starring again in a big Broadway musical, an adaption of the 1982 film hit, "Victor/Victoria" (Ms. Andrews, in photo, in the stage role.) And as GREAT PERFORMANCES: JULIE ANDREWS BACK ON BROADWAY indicates, the musical theater is where she truly belongs. Having been blessed with what she describes in the 85minute documentary as "a freak adult voice as a very little girl," Ms. Andrews began her career at the age of 12 as a singer in England. By 19, she was a Broadway star.

The documentary, which includes interviews with her longtime friend, Carol Burnett; her first husband, Tony Walton and her current husband, Blake Edwards, is most moving when it concentrates on Ms. Andrews's early years and initial stage triumphs. There she is in grainy blackandwhite footage from the 1940's, singing "God Save the Queen." There she is again, singing "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" with a young and dashing Richard Burton, in a scene from "Camelot" on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

The film tracks her career to the present, and touches on the lows as well the highs. Friends talk about Ms. Andrews's disappointment at the selection of Audrey Hepburn to play Eliza in the film version of "My Fair Lady," and the film makers chronicle the succession of movie flops, from "Star!" to "Darling Lili" that Ms. Andrews made after her early successes in "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music."

But Julie Andrews fans take note: the film reveals little about Ms. Andrews herself (although it does include a clip from the 1981 "S.O.B." in which the acress threw her image to the wind and bared her breasts). "I never felt I really knew her," an old friend says in the film.


Source: https://nyti.ms/298kEwF


ps: BBC' Omnibus "The Julie Andrews Story" took much of their footage from this documentary it seems. Take out the many Victor/ Victoria bits and you have the BBC version.

pps: slightly better quality:    • Julie Andrews  Back On Broadway (199...