Julie Andrews is a beloved Hollywood icon that has seen a decades-spanning career in
the entertainment industry in the years since her star-making turn as the titular magical
nanny in Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins.
Julie further capitalized on her fame by appearing in films like The Sound of Music and, more
recently, The Princess Diaries and its sequel.
Her career has given her a vast amount of wealth and has afforded her a very luxurious
lifestyle.
Join Facts Verse as we explore Julie Andrews’ lifestyle at 86 years old.
Julie Andrews was born on October 1, 1935, in England.
Her parents were both vaudeville performers, and they were quick to notice that their daughter
had an incredibly advanced vocal range at an early age.
Even when Julie was just a child, her vocal range spanned four octaves, making her larynx
stronger than most adults’.
This immense natural talent inspired Julie’s parents to use their show business connections
to secure their daughter an early career singing in music halls throughout her childhood and
teenage years.
In 1954, Julie debuted on Broadway in The Boy Friend, though her breakout Broadway performance
didn’t come until two years later, with 1956’s My Fair Lady.
In 1963, Julie’s stage presence caught the eye of Walt Disney, who had been envisioning
the film that was to become Mary Poppins.
He knew Julie was perfect for the role of the titular character and offered her the
part.
The Hollywood adaptation of My Fair Lady was in production at the time, and Julie was hoping
that she was going to get the part that she had popularized in the Broadway production.
Because of this, Julie initially turned down the role in Mary Poppins.
However, when the role of Eliza Doolittle in the Hollywood adaptation of My Fair Lady
went to Audrey Hepburn instead of her, Julie went back to Walt and said that she would
do it after all.
As was often the case, Walt Disney’s eye for talent paid off, and Julie’s titular
turn in Mary Poppins garnered her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
This victory was made all the more impressive by the fact that Julie's performance in the
film served as her big-screen breakout role.
Julie followed up Mary Poppins a year later with The Sound of Music, which quickly became
equally iconic, if not more so.
The Sound of Music was an adaptation of the hit Broadway play, and it became the highest-grossing
film of its day.
When adjusted for inflation, The Sound of Music still ranks amongst the highest-grossing
films of all time at the box office.
Although Julie was seeing immense success in Hollywood musicals, this success didn’t
translate as well into dramatic performances.
Although Julie received some critical acclaim for her dramatic turns in films such as Alfred
Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain, the audience was never quite willing to remember her as much
for her dramatic performances as for her musical ones.
Throughout the 1970s, Julie performed live and even hosted her own television variety
series.
When it seemed as if the actress’s career might have been on the outs, her second husband
offered her a renewed artistic lease when he began casting her in his features.
Julie’s second husband was director Blake Edwards, who first cast Julie in his 1979
feature 10.
Following this, Julie appeared in more of her husband’s films, including 1982’s
Victor Victoria.
Both features were incredibly well-received, and Julie's performance in the latter feature
even garnered her another nomination for Best Actress.
Julie has continued working in show business up until this day, though a botched surgery
on her vocal cords towards the end of the 1990s made it so that Julie's voice was forever
changed.
Because of this, subsequent roles have had to utilize her speaking voice and stage presence
without any singing.
In the 2000s, Julie returned to cinemas in The Princess Diaries and its sequel, both
of which reunited Julie with Disney.
Although Walt was no longer alive, fans were happy to see Julie back with the brand.
In more recent years, Julie has taken on voice-acting roles and has also branched out into other
ventures, such as authoring children’s books with her daughter, Emma.
The two even recently started a podcast together dedicated to reading books to children.
After all that Julie Andrews has done in her career, she has attained an estimated net
worth of around $30 million.
This vast wealth allows the 86-year-old star to live a luxurious lifestyle, traveling around
to wherever she happens to be working.
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In 1999, Julie Andrews purchased a home with her second husband, Blake Edwards, for nearly
$1.5 million.
The home was located in an exclusive neighborhood known as Brentwood, known as a home to many
stars and located near several major studios.
Julie and Blake lived in the home until Blake’s death, though Julie has since sold the property.
The property was sold for over $2.5 million, which was well over a million dollars more
than Julie had purchased it for.
In the years since her second husband’s death, Julie has preferred to travel around
and live wherever work happens to find her.
Recently, she has spent a great deal of time in England, performing concerts accompanied
by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Still, Julie’s voice has been irreparably altered by the botched vocal cord surgery
that she received before the turn of the century.
Despite Julie’s steady attempts to rehabilitate her voice and gain back control, her voice
has still never fully come back.
The surgery that forever altered Julie Andrews’ voice was meant to be a routine procedure
to remove a benign lesion.
If Julie had known the damage that the surgery was going to cause, she would’ve been better
off leaving the lesion untouched.
Julie went under the knife in 1997, after she had begun expiring issues with her vocal
cords while performing on Broadway.
Apparently, Julie wasn't the only person around the time who was injured from the procedure,
as there had recently been introduced a new method of surgery that was found to leave
severe unnecessary scarring due to the equipment involved.
Julie sued those responsible for the botched operations and received an undisclosed settlement.
The settlement that Julie received after the botched surgery likely meant nothing to a
woman who already had many millions of dollars in the bank and whose whole life revolved
around singing.
Julie was devastated by the loss of her iconic voice and had to go through therapy to deal
with it.
Julie has claimed her mental health was severely affected by the ordeal of losing her voice,
though she has since done her best to try and rehabilitate her singing voice with vocal
exercises, as well as follow-up procedures meant to reduce the damage done by the original
one.
Although Julie’s speaking voice has since returned to normal, her singing voice has
never quite been the same.
Still, that hasn’t stopped Julie from trying her best.
However, she’s also branched out into other ventures besides singing and performing in
the years since the botched operation, including writing children’s books with her daughter.
As well, Julie has taken part in numerous voice acting roles, with some of her most
recent work being in the Netflix series Bridgerton, in which she voices Lady Whistledown.
Julie’s first and only daughter by birth is Emma, whom she became pregnant with just
as she had accepted the titular role in Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins.
Walt was so adamant about keeping Julie for the part that he insisted the production could
wait, and the rest is history!
Emma’s father was Julie’s first husband, who was a man by the name of Tony Walton.
After Julie and Tony’s divorce, Emma ended up splitting time between her father’s home
in New York City and her mother’s home in Hollywood.
Julie ended up marrying Blake Edwards in 1969, only two years after divorcing her first husband.
Blake had two children from a previous marriage, and the couple adopted two Vietnamese children
soon after marrying.
Because of this, Julie has ended up having an incredibly large and varied family, despite
only having one daughter by blood.
Julie and Blake remained together until Blake passed away in 2010, after which time Julie
sold their home.
Julie has never remarried after Blake and still considers the beloved director to be
the love of her life.
In addition to the films that Blake had directed starring Julie, he was also the director of
such iconic films as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Pink Panther.
Blake’s two children from a previous marriage were named Jennifer and Geoffrey, and they
joined Emma as her new siblings after Julie and Blake’s 1969 marriage.
Joanna and Amy are the names of the two Vietnamese children that Julie and Blake adopted as infants
in 1974, making a total of five children for their unique and varied family.
Currently, Julie is hard at work on the podcast that she has started with Emma.
The two also recently collaborated on a memoir together titled Home Work, and have also written
several children’s books together.
These children’s books include The Very Fair Princess and Mandy.
Their podcast together is called Julie’s Library, and it features the mother and daughter
reading stories that are meant for kids.
With Julie’s new podcast, as well as her recent voice work on the Netflix series Bridgerton,
it seems as if she is doing her best to keep active in the entertainment industry!
At 86 years of age, and despite a devastating botched surgery, Julie Andrews is still successfully
adding to her resume with her recent work as a writer and podcaster.
Comment down below to share if you’re glad to learn that Julie has persevered into her
late 80s, or if you’re hoping to see her back on the screen sometime soon!
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