Greatreads

If you are looking for an interesting, fast-paced, enjoyable book, and you like biographies, I recommend reading HOME by Julie Andrews.  Her fans especially will enjoy this memoir, but anyone with even a casual interest in Broadway will enjoy Julie’s memories of staging My Fair Lady and Camelot in the early 1960’s.

Julie Andrews begins with her birth in a small English village, and quickly progresses through her childhood of vocal and dance lessons, her parent’s divorce and her burgeoning career in the last days of the time-honored tradition of English vaudeville. She quickly became her family’s breadwinner, while dealing with a ramshackle upbringing, family tensions and the normal adolescent trials of finding her path in life.  She doesn’t sugarcoat the unpleasantness, but seems to have been blessed with a guardian angel to protect her from the parental neglect and jealous colleagues, and steer her from one triumphant success to the next.  While not exactly a naïf, Julie is able to focus on what was good and positive in her life – she fully appreciates her blessings.  It is up to the reader to do a little reading between the lines to realize that Julie would have benefited from her own Mary Poppins or Maria von Trapp while she was growing up.

Julie Andrews writes in a very readable, flowing style, possesses a wonderful memory for the small details that make memoirs interesting and the good fortune to have come of age nurtured by some of the giants of Broadway, including Lerner and Loewe, Howard Lindsay and  Moss Hart.  She shares anecdotes of performing with Rex Harrison, Richard Burton, tells of her friendship with Carol Burnett and of her first marriage to the set and costume designer Tony Walton.

My one complaint?  HOME ends as Julie accepts Walt Disney’s offer to star in Mary Poppins, while she awaits the birth of her first child.  I can only hope that the next volume of her memories will soon be on its way.

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for another staff selection!