Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews
On 30 September 1954 on the eve of her 19th birthday, Julie Andrews made her Broadway debut portraying “Polly Browne” in the already highly successful London musical The Boy Friend. To the critics, Andrews was the stand-out performer in the show. Near the end of her Boy Friendcontract, Andrews was asked to audition for My Fair Lady on Broadway and got the part. In November 1955 Andrews was signed to appear with Bing Crosby in what is regarded as the first made-for-television movie, High Tor.
Julie Andrews
Andrews auditioned for a part in the Richard Rodgers musical Pipe Dream. Although Rodgers wanted her for Pipe Dream, he advised her to take the part in the Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner musical My Fair Lady if it were offered to her. In 1956, she appeared on stage in My Fair Ladyas Eliza Doolittle to Rex Harrison’s Henry Higgins. Rodgers was so impressed with Andrews’ talent that concurrent with her run in My Fair Lady she was featured in the Rodgers and Hammerstein television musical, Cinderella. Cinderella was broadcast live on CBS on 31 March 1957 under the musical direction of Alfredo Antonini and attracted an estimated 107 million viewers.
Andrews married set designer Tony Walton on 10 May 1959 in Weybridge, Surrey. They had first met in 1948 when Andrews was appearing at the London Casino in the show Humpty Dumpty. The couple filed for a divorce on 14 November 1967.
Julie Andrews
Between 1958 and 1962, Andrews appeared on such specials as CBS-TV’s The Fabulous Fifties and NBC-TV’s The Broadway of Lerner & Loewe. In addition to guest starring on The Ed Sullivan Show, she also appeared on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, What’s My Line?, The Jack Benny Program, The Bell Telephone Hour, and The Garry Moore Show. In June 1962 Andrews co-starred in Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall, a CBS special with Carol Burnett.
In 1960 Lerner and Loewe again cast her in a period musical as Queen Guinevere in Camelot, with Richard Burton and newcomer Robert Goulet. However movie studio head Jack Warner decided Julie Andrews lacked sufficient name recognition for her casting in the film version of My Fair Lady; Eliza was played by the established film actress Audrey Hepburn instead.