The time 13-year-old Julie Andrews sang the national anthem for the King and Queen

The time a 13-year-old Julie Andrews sang the national anthem for King George VI. Picture: YouTube / British Pathé

By Sian Moore, ClassicFM London

 

Remembering Julie Andrews’ days as a child star, with the time she sang a typically elegant rendition of the national anthem as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth watched on.

Her grace and unique musicality are unmatched to this day. But did you know just how long Dame Julie Andrews has been performing under the spotlight?

In an unearthed video from British Pathé, an archive of newsreels and documentaries, we can see one of the singer’s earliest performances, at the age of just 13.

Standing on the great stage of the London Palladium, for the Royal Command Performance in 1948, the young soprano began to sing.

Her performance, which took place before King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, made her the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Variety Performance.

Even at such a young age, it’s easy to see how Andrews blossomed into a legendary soprano.

Standing ahead of a choir and orchestra, while shoulder-to-shoulder with the evening’s other talents, The Sound of Music star confidently sings the first verse of ‘God Save the King’.

And with a crash of cymbals following a crescendo from the musicians at the back, her on-stage companions join in for a triumphant rendition of the nation’s song.

Julie Andrews singing on stage aged eleven in 1946. Picture: Getty

That evening, Andrews had performed alongside American actor and singer Danny Kaye, dancing duo the Nicholas Brothers and comedians George and Bert Bernard.

Decades on, the American Film Institute (AFI) is honouring Julie with a Life Achievement Award gala in 2021.

The event was originally scheduled to take place in April 2020, but had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

President and CEO of AFI, Bob Gazzale, said: “Julie Andrews has lifted the spirits of the world for generations.

“Now, more than ever, AFI looks forward to gathering the globe to celebrate the many gifts and joy she has given us – proving her, of course, ‘practically perfect in every way’.”

The time real-life Maria Von Trapp taught Sound of Music’s Julie Andrews how to yodel

Real-life Maria Von Trapp teaches Julie Andrews how to yodel. Picture: The Julie Andrews Hour/The Sound of Music Blu-Ray/YouTube

By Maddy Shaw Roberts

 

How do you solve a problem like Maria? Well, how about a yodelling lesson, for starters…

In 1965, Julie Andrews yodelled her way into all our hearts with her portrayal of Maria Von Trapp, governess to the seven Von Trapp children in The Sound of Music.

And it turns out, Andrews really got to meet the real Maria Von Trapp whose family’s story – somewhat loosely – inspired the hit film.

In one scene, Maria helps the children put on a puppet show, and sings along to ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ (that’s the one that goes ‘High on a hill was a lonely goatherd, lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo’) as they perform.

But according to real-life Maria, well, “There is yodelling, and then there’s… yodelling.”

During an episode of The Julie Andrews Hour, a television variety series which ran for one season in 1972, the two Marias appeared on stage together to act out a yodelling skit.

In typical Julie Andrews style, she opened the dialogue with a classy, comic line: “You know I played you in the picture and you are you, and I am me, and since you are you and I was you, and since you’re here, and I’m here, and I was you, um…”

Watch: Real-life Von Trapp great grandchildren sing a breathtaking, impromptu ‘Edelweiss’ >

“What do you want to know?” real-life Maria prods her.

“I want to know… how was I?” Andrews smiles.

“You were absolutely wonderful,” Maria replies. “But,” she adds, Andrews’ yodelling could do with a little work.

Von Trapp offers to teach Andrews a “genuine Austrian yodel”, first demonstrating the melody that Andrews should sing underneath Von Trapp’s yodelling descant (watch above).

Once Andrews has got the two phrases nailed, Von Trapp bursts into a virtuosic display of yodelling, eager to show the world the real singing tradition of her home country, not the one portrayed in Hollywood.

For years, alpine yodelling was a rural tradition in Switzerland, Austria and southern Germany, but in the 1830s it also became a popular sound in theatres and music halls.

In real life, Maria Von Trapp joined the Von Trapp family as a tutor for just one of the ten children, who was recovering from scarlet fever. She married Georg, their father (played by Christopher Plummer in the film) a year later, in 1927.

The family, and all its 12 singing members, emigrated to the US when the Second World War hit, to escape the Nazi regime in Austria. There, they became well known as the ‘Trapp Family Singers’. And in the 21st-century, the Von Trapps are still going – here’s four of Maria and Georg’s great-grandchildren, singing a breathtaking ‘Edelweiss’:

I went into a depression

Julie Andrews on losing her voice after an operation...

Julie Andrews lost her voice after an operation. Picture: PA

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

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After having vocal surgery to remove ‘nodules’, Julie Andrews was left with permanent damage that destroyed her four-octave soprano voice.

Julie Andrews, the 84-year-old soprano and musical theatre legend, has opened up about the 1997 operation that caused her to lose her singing voice, saying: ‘I went into a depression’.

“When I woke up from an operation to remove a cyst on my vocal cord, my singing voice was gone,” she told AARP The Magazine for their October/November 2019 issue.

“I went into a depression. It felt like I’d lost my identity.”

Andrews, who won an Academy Award for her starring role in Mary Poppins (1964), first noticed her voice was hoarse during a Broadway show in 1997.

Shortly after, she had surgery to remove what she thought were ‘non-cancerous nodules’ from her throat at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital. The surgery left her with permanent damage that destroyed her voice.

Julie Andrews had surgery that permanently destroyed her singing voice. Picture: Getty

In 1999, Andrews filed a malpractice suit against the doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital. The lawsuit was settled in September 2000.

Ten years later, the Sound of Music actress revealed that she did not have cancer or nodules but was suffering from ‘a certain kind of muscular striation’ on her vocal cords, after straining her voice while making Victor/Victoria – the 1982 comedy directed by her late husband, Blake Edwards.

Read more: Emily Blunt was intimidated by filling Julie Andrews’ shoes in Mary Poppins >

Andrews has since had several unsuccessful operations to repair her voice. Fortunately, around the time of operation, a new path opened up for the singer.

“But by good fortune,” she tells AARP, “That’s when my daughter Emma and I had been asked to write books for kids,” she said. “So along came a brand-new career in my mid-60s. Boy, was that a lovely surprise.”

“But do I miss singing,” she added. “Yes. I really do.

“I would have been quite a sad lady if I hadn’t had the voice to hold on to. The singing was the most important thing of all, and I don’t mean to be Pollyanna about how incredibly lost I’d have been without that.”

Julie Andrews is best known for her role as Maria in The Sound of Music (1965). Picture: 20th Century Fox

On being cast as Mary Poppins – her feature film debut – she said: “I don’t know what P.L. Travers [the author of the Mary Poppins books] thought. She said to me, ‘You’re very pretty, and you’ve got the nose for it.’ I’m sure she laughed all the way to the bank. She was very tough and canny.”

Now, Julie is starring in the TV series Bridgerton and has a new book coming out on 15 October, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years.

But it seems those aren’t the only plans on the horizon for the singer.

“I’d love to be able to paint,” she tells AARP. “I’d love to be a good cook, but I’m rotten. I don’t have the patience for it. But I have to say, I’m a very good whistler. A lot of singers are.”