Katie Bohl Mr. Henager Choir 16 November 2015 Dame Julie Andrews Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on October 1, 1935, in England. Her mother and stepfather, both vaudeville performers, discovered that she had a four-octave range singing voice and started her out performing in music halls throughout her childhood and teens. At age 20, she launched her stage career in a London Palladium production of "Cinderella". Julia starred on Broadway in 1954 with "The Boy Friend", and later starred in the role of Eliza Doolittle in the unprecedented hit "My Fair Lady". Her fame was furthered in 1957, when she starred in the TV-production of Cinderella in 1957. Through 1960 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 in 1964. After Audrey Hepburn was cast in My Fair Lady, Andrews made an auspicious film debut in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins in 1964, which earned her an Academy Award for …show more content…
The Sound of Music was the highest-grossing movie of its day and one of the highest-grossing of all time. She soon found that audiences associated her only with singing, and sweeter tempered acting roles, and were reluctant to accept her in dramatic roles like The Americanization of Emily and and Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Torn Curtain. 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. Thoroughly Modern Millie 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! and Darling Lili also bombed at the box