HOME WORK: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years

With a legendary career encompassing Broadway and London stages, cinema, television, concert tours, recordings, directing assignments and the world of children's publishing, in 2000 Julie Andrews was bestowed with the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire for her lifetime achievements in the arts and humanities. She was married to film director Blake Edwards for 41 years and between them the couple had five children. Told with her trademark charm and candour, Julie Andrews? memoir begins with her arrival in Hollywood to make her screen debut in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins, followed closely by The Sound of Music. The result was an astonishing rise to fame as those now-classic films brought her almost overnight success. She reveals behind-the-scenes details and reflections on her impressive body of work, collaborations with giants of cinema like James Garner, Omar Sharif and her giggle-buddy Dudley Moore. She also unveils her personal story of adjusting to an often daunting world, a new husband addicted to painkillers, impulsively buying a yacht and overspending, dealing with unimaginable public scrutiny, being a new mother, embracing two stepchildren, adopting two more children and being in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards. The pair worked together in numerous films including 10, S.O.B, and Victor/Victoria, the gender-bending comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations. Fascinating to read are her accounts of The Tamarind Seed, Hawaii, her life in the USA, finding apartments every time she filmed in the UK, family problems and a whole series of therapists. 340 desirable US roughcut pages, photos.