Home Work

by Julie Andrews

  That boating scene was particularly challenging to shoot. It called for the children and me to stand up in a small, shallow boat, and then for it to tip us all overboard. Just before we shot the first take, the assistant director waded rather urgently through the water toward me. As I leaned over the edge to hear him, he whispered, “The little one can’t swim . . .”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Yes,” he said. “We’d be most grateful if you could get to her as quickly as possible once you’re in the water.”

  Kym Karath was only seven years old, and she was being very brave. I was supposed to go over the front of the boat to land right beside her. The first take went perfectly, but Bob felt he needed another shot. Unfortunately, in the second take, the boat rocked so violently that I went over the back as Kym went over the front. I have never swum so fast in my life. I could see the poor child flailing away and going under at least twice. Crew members dove into the water to help save her, and mercifully we got there in time. Little Kym threw up all the water she had swallowed, and we bundled her in blankets and made a big fuss over her.

  The von Trapp family villa in the film was a composite of three different locations—none of them the actual villa, which was dark and gloomy, and not particularly photogenic. The front façade of the film’s villa was one location, and the back garden, terrace, and lake another. As mentioned earlier, most of the interiors were shot in the studio in Los Angeles.

  The real von Trapps had only twenty-four hours to evacuate their home when they escaped Austria, and the film fictionalizes their journey. In reality, they didn’t go over the mountains to Switzerland, as our script suggests. There was a railway line at the bottom of their garden on which the train to Italy came through. The family packed small rucksacks and crept out at five in the morning to board that train, and never went back. It’s hard for me to imagine abandoning your home and everything in it, but their lives depended on it.

  That sad villa was subsequently acquired by Heinrich Himmler, and when Hitler came to visit, there was always a train steaming at the ready in case the Führer had to make a quick getaway. Himmler made Jewish prisoners build a high wall around the property, and once that was completed, he lined them up and had them shot. If he suspected a member of his staff had overheard something they shouldn’t, he’d send that unfortunate person down to the courtyard to fetch something, and then shoot them himself from his upstairs office window.

  I never visited the real von Trapp villa while filming The Sound of Music, but fifty years later, when Diane Sawyer and I were in Salzburg for the anniversary of the film, we went there and we both got chills. Despite the fact that the villa is now a museum devoted to the von Trapp family and there is no mention of the German occupation, you can literally feel the evil that once permeated those walls.

  I HAD BEEN so busy working that I had very little time to do any sightseeing or socializing. When I learned that my good friend from London, Svetlana Beriosova, would be dancing with the Royal Ballet at the Munich Opera House, I arranged for a bus to take thirty of us on our one free day to see her perform. The ballet was superb, and afterward we were given a backstage tour of the opera house. It was great to see my old friend, even so briefly, and I think she was equally happy to see me.

  The only other event I attended was a beautiful chamber music concert. It was at the invitation of Peggy Wood, who played the Mother Abbess; Eleanor Parker, who played the Baroness; and Portia Nelson, who was Sister Berthe. The ladies had done quite a bit of sightseeing together in their spare time, and realizing that I hadn’t, they insisted that I come with them.

  The concert was held in the Salzburg town hall. A small ballroom had been set with chairs, music stands, a white piano, and a yellow-gold harpsichord. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and two tall candelabras flickered on either side of the orchestra.

  “Rather schmaltzy,” I thought. I was cold, and felt I’d be glad when the concert was over and I could go home to a much-needed night’s rest.

  The musicians entered, and from the moment they began to play, something magical happened. That evening, when I returned to my hotel, I wrote:

  The acoustics in the room were incredible. The musicians were young and dedicated. To be so near them, to see their serious faces, hear them breathe, see them frown and communicate with each other was riveting. But mostly, to hear such purity, to drown in glorious sound, to feel it wash over and through me—Haydn, Purcell, Mozart of course—was to be spiritually uplifted.

  The image I have now was that everything was golden. The instruments, the parquet floors, the gilt chairs—all glowed in the candlelight. The experience was utterly sensual. I had always believed composers like Purcell and Mozart to be rather formal and precise, but they’re not. To hear and see the music played in its authentic setting was to feel the composers’ passion and emotion in a way I never had before.

  I stumble around Hollywood, thinking I might just be contributing something worthwhile, flattering myself that I’m “growing,” gaining strength in my work, beginning to feel it pulling together . . . when all along the group that played tonight have been making a perfect contribution to a world that, until tonight, I knew nothing about. In contrast, my work seems slap-dash and haphazard.

  Something happened within me tonight. I gained perspective on an elusive thread that I couldn’t quite catch, but almost did—and I just want to record it on paper, so that one day I might read it again and remember how alive I felt.

  Despite how busy I was, I felt lonely for much of the time in Salzburg. Because of his own work commitments, Tony was unable to visit me, and long-distance phone calls were few and far between, given our competing schedules and time differences. My resources weren’t substantial enough to allow for visits from my family, although my great friend the photographer Zoë Dominic came from London to take publicity shots at one point, and I was unbelievably grateful to see her.

  I took Emma with me everywhere I could. She and Kay came to the flat locations in Salzburg, but I couldn’t bring my seventeen-month-old daughter to the more challenging alpine locations. On those days, Kay would keep her occupied, visiting the Mirabell Gardens, going on sightseeing excursions, or taking pony rides.

  However, when Emma wasn’t around, I was often blue. It was reminiscent of the melancholy I had felt in my teens, when I was touring in vaudeville and had no family members accompanying me. I knew I would have to return to L.A. to finish the film. Would I then wish to return to London, and the empty apartment awaiting me in Wimbledon? Would work continue to pull Tony and me apart? It certainly seemed that it might—Tony’s work was more and more centered in New York, and mine, now, was based in L.A. How could Wimbledon be a home base if we were so seldom in residence and so often away from each other?

  One day, I was having a particularly difficult time. I shared a company car with Richard Haydn, who played the impresario Max, from our location back to Salzburg. He must have recognized that I was struggling emotionally, for he proceeded to make me laugh the entire way home. I didn’t really wish to engage—I just wanted to look out the window and process my thoughts. However, that dear man persisted until I finally laughed so hard that I temporarily came out of my funk.

  DURING PREPRODUCTION, Bob Wise, Saul Chaplin, and Ernie Lehman had decided that we needed a new song to capture Maria’s journey from the abbey to the Captain’s house—something that conveyed her anticipation, excitement, and anxiety. Saul was a consummate musician, and in addition to being our producer, he was the unofficial music supervisor for the film, which encompassed every aspect of the film’s sound. (It was, after all, The Sound of Music.) Saul asked Richard Rodgers to write something appropriate for this moment in the film, but Richard delivered a song that was surprisingly solemn and slow.

  Saul tried his best to have Richard rework it, but the result wasn’t satisfying. So, with Richard’s permission, Saul cobbled bits and pieces of music from the score that had not been used thus far, and added in s
ome music of his own, along with new lyrics. Richard reluctantly gave his blessing, stating that he liked the original better, but that Saul’s was “OK to use.” Saul never told me until many years later that he was largely responsible for “I Have Confidence,” because he was afraid of what my reaction would be. His fears, alas, were well founded.

  When I first heard the song, I was genuinely puzzled by some of the lyrics, which were hard to make sense of. Because I have always relied on lyrics to anchor me in a song, it was hard for me to sing. I decided that the only way to get around those lyrics was to have Maria be so nervous about her upcoming job that she works herself into a state and becomes a bit dotty. I talked with Marc and Dee Dee about it, and they mercifully agreed. So, as the song progressed, I started flinging myself about, skipping and swinging and tripping over my suitcase to make it seem as if I was babbling with nerves.

  The “I Have Confidence” sequence was further complicated by the ever-present Salzburg rain. As I had learned during The Americanization of Emily, it takes a great deal of rain to register on camera, and I doubt anyone viewing The Sound of Music noticed that when I was peering through the gate of the villa, it was actually raining. It wasn’t strong enough to prevent our shooting the scene, but it did make for another soggy day’s work.

  During the making of the film, Saul fell in love with our continuity lady, Betty Levin, and she later became his wife. Poor Betty really had her hands full with this picture. One of the biggest challenges for her was the “Do-Re-Mi” montage, which was shot in multiple sections and filmed in nine different locations. We were all over Salzburg—on the mountains and in the town, riding in a horse and buggy, cycling along a river path. We ran over the Mozart Bridge, around the fountain, and down the covered allée in the Mirabell Gardens. The montage showcases Salzburg as a principal character in the film, and establishes its importance to the von Trapp family. It also shows a passage of time in which the children fall in love with Maria and revel in their newfound freedom. Betty nearly went crazy noting every child’s specific movements, where they were in relation to me and to each other, and what each of us was doing at any given moment.

  The orchestration for the montage builds as the children become more accomplished musically, culminating at the steps of the Mirabell Palace. Saul conceived of the last eight steps as representing the notes of the musical scale, and Marc and Dee Dee choreographed a devilishly complicated series of movements for the children. As I climb a straight line to the topmost step, the children on either side of me jump up and then back down to match the intervals between the notes in the solfège. By the end, we are in full-throated crescendo. This prompted me to ask if I could cap the scale with an octave leap to get us to the last note. Despite its complications, the sequence was tremendous fun to do, and it gave the entire company a real sense of achievement. So many people contributed their considerable talent to those scenes, not the least of whom was our editor, Bill Reynolds, who cut the whole nine-minute number together so skillfully as to appear seamless.

  TOWARD THE END of my work in Salzburg, I heard that the next film scheduled to be shot there would be The Great Race, directed by Blake Edwards and starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. When the new company came in, a lot of our local crew would be re-employed. I had received word from my agent that there had been an inquiry as to whether I might play the role of the suffragette journalist who drives the race car for her newspaper. I was aware of Blake’s work on the Pink Panther films and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and I admired it tremendously. I dearly hoped the production could wait for me. Unfortunately, with all our delays and more shooting still to do in Los Angeles, I wouldn’t be finished in time for their start date. Instead, the role went to the lovely Natalie Wood.

  Ironically, most of our film’s magical opening sequence was the last thing we filmed in Austria. Bob had envisioned an aerial shot to be filmed from a helicopter that would discover me—a speck in the vast alpine landscape—walking toward the camera. He selected a beautiful stretch of countryside high in the mountains, flanked by woods on two sides. Our huge playback speakers were camouflaged among the trees, as was our crew, so that no one else was in view.

  I was placed at one end of the meadow. A helicopter hovered behind the trees at the other end, waiting for me to begin my walk toward it. Initially, I couldn’t hear my cue since the crew’s voices were muffled by the trees. Even the playback, turned up as loud as possible, was almost inaudible over the “clackety-clack” of the helicopter. Finally, Marc Breaux was given a bullhorn, through which he yelled, “GO, JULIE!”

  I began my walk, and as I did, the helicopter rose up and over its cover. It came at me sideways, looking rather like a giant crab. A brave cameraman named Paul Beeson was hanging out of it, strapped precariously to the side where a door would have been, his feet resting on the runners beneath the craft. Strapped to him was the heavy camera equipment. As the helicopter drew closer, I spun around with my arms open as if about to sing. All I had to do was walk, twirl, and take a breath. This required several takes, to be sure that both the helicopter and I hit our marks correctly, the camera was in focus, there was no helicopter shadow, and that everything timed out. Once the take was complete, the helicopter soared up and around me and returned to its original position. At that point I’d run back to the end of the field to start all over again, until Bob was satisfied that he had the perfect take.

  The problem was that as I completed that spin and the helicopter lifted, the downdraft from the jet engine was so powerful, it dashed me to the ground. I’d haul myself up, spitting mud and grass and brushing it off my dress, and trek back to my starting position. Each time the helicopter encircled me, I was flattened again.

  I became more and more irritated—couldn’t they see what was happening? I tried to indicate for them to make a wider circle around me. I could see the cameraman, the pilot, and our second unit director on board, but all I got was a thumbs-up and a signal to do it again. Finally, the shot was deemed acceptable, and I was grateful to return to my hotel and take a long, hot bath.

  By this time, largely due to the weather, we were three weeks behind schedule, seriously over budget, and the studio had summoned the rest of the cast back to L.A. We tried to capture the next small section of the song for several days, but the relentless rain thwarted our attempts yet again. Day after day, we waited for a break in the clouds, everyone cold, damp, and longing to go home.

  There was still quite a bit left to shoot, as each small segment of the song was its own little scene. The brook, for example, was actually man-made, dug out by our crew, lined with plastic and filled with water, boulders, and ferns. Our host farmer lost patience with us, claiming that the film crew’s presence was disrupting his cows’ milk production. Overnight, he took a pitchfork to the plastic lining and punctured it enough times that all the water drained away. Bob was devastated—the 20th Century Fox bigwigs were hounding him to wrap things up, but they had no idea of the obstacles that he was wrestling with.

  Finally, Bob promised the studio that if he didn’t get the last shot he was waiting for, he’d wrap the company nonetheless and come home the following day. By some miracle, that afternoon the clouds parted for a brief half hour, the sun came out, and we got our shot. Bob later said that those constant lowering cumuli set against the magnificent Alps gave the film the drama and authenticity it needed—something we couldn’t have achieved any other way.

  WE RETURNED TO Los Angeles and resumed filming at the studio two days later. We were now shooting the interior scenes in the villa; Boris Leven’s production design crew had built the set for it while we were in Austria. Boris was known for designing Giant and West Side Story, among many other notable films. Being the wife of a production designer, I had already admired Boris’s work before we left for Europe: the vast courtyard of the abbey, the incredibly realistic cloisters with the tombs that conceal the von Trapp family before their escape. But the interior of the villa was even more spectacular.
It was a vast set that included the main hall, the staircase, the great mirrored ballroom, the living room, the dining room, and the outside courtyard. Boris’s attention to detail was extraordinary, and it was a thrill to arrive home and discover what he had created in our absence.

  Of all the scenes we shot in the film, there are three that will always stand out in my memory. The first is just after Maria and the Captain have had a blazing row by the lake and he has fired her. The Captain walks into his house and hears his children singing the song they have prepared for his fiancée, the Baroness. Maria is about to walk up the stairs, but she stops to listen for a moment. The Captain spots her and comes out to speak with her.

  “You brought music back into this house. I had forgotten,” he says, and then, “I want you to stay; I . . . ask you to stay.”

  Looking down at Chris from the stairs, I found his performance deeply moving. I spontaneously clapped my hands together with joy—I didn’t know what else to do—and dashed up the stairs. It’s the sort of moment that Bob let me run with, and I believe it worked so well because Chris had genuinely moved me.

  Another moment was dancing the Laendler with Chris in the courtyard outside the great ballroom during the party. Although it remains unspoken, it is the moment where the Captain and Maria recognize their love for each other. Everything about the scene worked beautifully; Richard Rodgers’s music, Marc and Dee Dee’s choreography, Boris’s setting, Ted’s lighting, and above all, Bob’s sublime camerawork, culminating in that very intimate close-up between the two would-be lovers.

  The third was when Maria is wandering sadly by the lake at dusk. The Captain has just told the Baroness that he is unable to marry her, and he now joins Maria outside.