The 76th Venice Film
Festival's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement was awarded
Monday to Julie Andrews, star of classic movies such as Mary
Poppins (1964), The Sound of Music (1965) and Victor Victoria
(1982).
"I'm still amazed, I've been a lucky girl who got to play
beautiful roles," said Andrews, 83, after singing bits of a
couple of Italian arias she used to sing as a girl and saying "I
didn't know what they meant, however, so I'd better speak
English".
After an impassioned encomium from Italian director Luca
Guadagnino of Call Me By Your Name fame, Andrews said "I'm a fan
of your cinema too", before being greeted with a 10-minute
standing ovation.
Julie Andrews, accepting the proposal, declared: "I am so
honored to have been selected as this year's recipient of the
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. The Venice Film Festival
has long been recognized as one of the world's most esteemed
International Film Festivals. I thank La Biennale for this
acknowledgement of my work and I look forward to being in that
beautiful city in September for this very special occasion."
Venice Festival Director Alberto Barbera declared: "At a very
young age, Ms Andrews made a name for herself in the music halls
of London and, later, on Broadway thanks to her remarkable
singing and acting talent.
"Her first Hollywood movie, Mary Poppins, gave her top-tier
star status, which was later confirmed in another treasured
film, The Sound of Music. Those two roles projected her into the
Olympus of international stardom, making her an iconic figure
adored by several generations of moviegoers.
"Above and beyond the different interpretations that can be
given to her two most famous films (and highlighting the
transgressive value of her characters rather than their apparent
conservatism), it must be remembered that Andrews went out of
her way to avoid remaining confined as an icon of family movies.
"She accepted roles that were diverse, dramatic, provocative
and imbued with scathing irony.
"For example, The Americanization of Emily by Arthur Hiller,
and the many movies directed by her husband Blake Edwards, with
whom she formed a very profound and long-lasting artistic
partnership, a marvelous example of human and professional
devotion to a captivating esthetic project that prevailed over
the commercial success of the individual movies.
"This Golden Lion is the well-deserved recognition of an
extraordinary career which has admirably parsed popular success
with artistic ambition, without ever bowing to facile
compromises."
Julie Andrews has been a beloved and much-honored star of
stage, screen and television for more than half a century. She
was already a Broadway legend when she made her feature film
debut in 1964's Mary Poppins. Andrews' iconic performance in
the title role of the magical nanny brought her an Academy
Award©, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award. The following year,
she earned a second Oscar© nomination and won another Golden
Globe Award for her unforgettable portrayal of Maria Von Trapp
in The Sound of Music. She received her third Academy Award©
nomination and won another Golden Globe Award for her "dual"
role in Victor/Victoria.
Today's young film audiences may be more familiar with
Andrews as a queen trying to train her teenaged granddaughter to
be a princess in the hit films, The Princess Diaries, and its
sequel, The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement.
Most recently she gave voice to the aquatic creature Kharaten
in the recent blockbuster Aquaman, but is also well known
voicing the character of Queen Lillian in Shrek 2, Shrek the
Third and Shrek Goes Fourth as well as Gru's mother in
Despicable Me and Minions movies.
Ms Andrews was born and raised in England, where she first
came to fame at the age of twelve as a young singer with a
phenomenal voice performing on stage and on radio. She was still
in her teens when she made her way across the Atlantic to
Broadway, for her 1953 debut in the musical The Boy Friend.
In 1956 she created the role of Eliza Doolittle in Alan Jay
Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Broadway musical My Fair Lady,
which became an instant classic. In 1961 Julie originated the
role of Queen Guinevere in Lerner and Loewe's musical Camelot.
In 1964 Ms. Andrews was called to Hollywood to play the title
role of the magical nanny in Mary Poppins, which earned her an
Academy Award.
In the same year, Andrews starred opposite James Garner in
The Americanization of Emily (1964), for which she was nominated
for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. A
comedy-drama war film set in London during World War II, Andrews
has described it as her favourite film, a sentiment shared by
her co-star Garner.
The following year she portrayed Maria von Trapp in the
iconic film The Sound of Music.
In 1966, Andrews starred in Hawaii, the second
highest-grossing film of its year. Also in 1966, she starred
opposite Paul Newman in Torn Curtain, which was directed by
Alfred Hitchcock. The following year, she played the title
character in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), for which she
received a Golden Globe nomination. At the time, Thoroughly
Modern Millie and Torn Curtain were the biggest and second
biggest hits in Universal Pictures history, respectively.
Andrews next appeared in Star! (1968), a biopic of Gertrude
Lawrence; and Darling Lili (1970), co-starring Rock Hudson and
directed by Blake Edwards. Ms Andrews and Mr Edwards were
married soon after and for the next 25 years, they made a string
of movies that include The Tamarind Seed, 10, S.O.B., That's
Life, and Victor/Victoria.
Ms. Andrews has been honoured for her work in television,
beginning with her 1957 performance in the title role of Rodgers
and Hammerstein's musical Cinderella, and many years later
starring in her own musical variety series, The Julie Andrews
Hour. In addition, there were numerous television specials
including three with her 'chum' Carol Burnett and another with
John Denver and Placido Domingo entitled The Sounds of
Christmas. Movies made for television include One Special Night
with James Garner, Eloise At The Plaza, and Eloise at
Christmastime.
An accomplished best-selling author (Mandy, The Last Of The
Really Great Whangdoodles) Ms. Andrews joined talents with her
daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, in 2003 to create The Julie
Andrews Collection. To date they have released over thirty
books.
Their current franchise of books entitled, The Very Fairy
Princess launched as No.1 on the New York Times Children's Best
Seller list and several of their subsequent releases within the
franchise earned best seller list status as well.
Ms. Andrews' biography, Home - A Memoir of My Early Years,
was released in April 2008 and immediately climbed to No.1 on
the New York Times Best Seller list. The second installment of
her memoir, Home Work, is scheduled to be released this October
and covers Julie's life from 1963 through the late 1980s.
Several other projects created and/or authored by Ms Andrews
and her daughter have been or are currently being developed for
TV, film and stage. This includes a new television series
recently launched worldwide on Netflix entitled Julie's
Greenroom, which the mother/daughter team co-created, wrote and
produced with the Jim Henson Company.
Concurrently, Ms Andrews has come full circle and is
delighting in her work as a director of musicals. Recently she
helmed an extraordinary revival of "My Fair Lady" (the very
musical in which Julie starred in the original 1956 Broadway
production creating the Eliza Doolittle character) which opened
at the Sydney Opera House to rave reviews and breaking all box
office records and subsequently toured through Australia to the
delight of multi-generational audiences.
Earlier in the decade Julie directed a musical adaptation of
one of her children's books (co-authored with Emma) entitled
"The Great American Musical" in addition to two separate stage
productions of The Boy Friend (in which Julie starred in the
1953 Broadway production).
Julie is dedicated to several charitable causes including
Operation USA, which she and her late husband of 41 years (famed
writer/director Blake Edwards), helped to found. She is on the
board of the Foundation for Hereditary Disease, supports
Americans for the Arts and is an enthusiastic board member of
the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
From 1992 to 2006, Ms Andrews served as Goodwill Ambassador
for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
In the year 2000 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II bestowed upon
her the title Dame Commander of the British Empire. Aside from
an Oscar, Ms Andrews has received several Emmys, Golden Globes,
a BAFTA and Grammy award, among others. In 2001 she was made a
Kennedy Center Honoree and in 2011 was celebrated with the SAG
Lifetime Achievement Award.
Together, she and Blake raised five children -and much to her
delight, ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
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