Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on October 1, 1935, in England. Her
mother, Barbara Ward (Morris), and stepfather, both vaudeville
performers, discovered her freakish but undeniably lovely four-octave
singing voice and immediately got her a singing career. She performed
in music halls throughout her childhood and teens, and at age 20, she
launched her stage career in a London Palladium production of
"Cinderella".
Andrews came to Broadway in 1954 with "The Boy Friend", and became a
bona fide star two years later in 1956, in the role of Eliza Doolittle
in the unprecedented hit "My Fair Lady". Her star status continued in
1957, when she starred in the TV-production of
Cinderella (1957) and
through 1960, when she played "Guenevere" in "Camelot".
In 1963, Walt Disney asked Andrews if she
would like to star in his upcoming production, a lavish musical fantasy
that combined live-action and animation. She agreed on the condition if
she didn't get the role of Doolittle in the pending film production of
My Fair Lady (1964). After
Audrey Hepburn was cast in My
Fair Lady, Andrews made an auspicious film debut in Walt Disney's
Mary Poppins (1964), which earned
her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Andrews continued to work on Broadway, until the release of
Meine Lieder, meine Träume (1965), the
highest-grossing movie of its day and one of the highest-grossing of
all time. She soon found that audiences identified her only with
singing, sugary-sweet nannies and governesses, and were reluctant to
accept her in dramatic roles in
Nur für Offiziere (1964)
and Alfred Hitchcock's thriller
Der zerrissene Vorhang (1966). In addition,
the box-office showings of the musicals Julie subsequently made
increasingly reflected the negative effects of the musical-film boom
that she helped to create.
Modern Millie - Reicher Mann gesucht (1967)
was for a time the most successful film Universal had released, but it
still couldn't compete with Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music for
worldwide acclaim and recognition.
Star! (1968) and
Darling Lili (1970) also bombed at
the box office.
Fortunately, Andrews did not let this keep her down. She worked in
nightclubs and hosted a TV variety series in the 1970s. In 1979,
Andrews returned to the big screen, appearing in films directed by her
husband Blake Edwards, with roles
that were entirely different from anything she had been seen in before.
Andrews starred in 10 - Die Traumfrau (1979),
S.O.B. - Hollywoods letzter Heuler (1981) and
Victor/Victoria (1982), which
earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
She continued acting throughout the 1980s and 1990s in movies and TV,
hosting several specials and starring in a short-lived sitcom. In 2001,
she starred in
Plötzlich Prinzessin! (2001),
alongside then-newcomer Anne Hathaway. The
family film was one of the most successful G-Rated films of that year,
and Andrews reprised her role as Queen Clarisse Renaldi in
Plötzlich Prinzessin 2 (2004).
In recent years, Andrews appeared in
Zahnfee auf Bewährung (2010), as well as a
number of voice roles in Shrek 2 - Der tollkühne Held kehrt zurück (2004),
Shrek der Dritte (2007),
Verwünscht (2007),
Für immer Shrek (2010),
and Ich - Einfach unverbesserlich (2010).
