Home Work

by Julie Andrews

  SHOOTING FOR TORN CURTAIN began at Universal Studios on October 18, 1965, and the following weekend, Emma and I moved into our new house on Hidden Valley Road.

  The first scene that Paul Newman and I shot was the opening love scene. Both of us were supposedly nude, in bed. Although we’d met briefly during the on-camera tests, we’d barely had a chance to say two words to each other.

  The scene took place aboard a ship heading to Russia. Hitchcock wanted to suggest that while it was bitterly cold outside, buried beneath several duvets and blankets, we were warm and cozy and making love. It may sound dreamy, but it was anything but. Despite only being clad in undergarments, with all the hot studio lights and with so many covers on us, both Paul and I became seriously overheated. Eventually, since we were shooting in close-up and sweat was now dripping off our faces, the covers at the bottom of the bed were lifted and a large fan was aimed at our bare feet. It didn’t help much.

  Paul was easy to get along with—and oh, those blue eyes! There was something endearingly collegiate about the way he dressed, always with white socks and sneakers. We didn’t get to socialize much, though he did tell me about his morning ritual when working on a film: plunging his face into a bucket of ice water upon rising. He claimed it worked wonders to firm his skin and freshen him for the day ahead. I considered trying it myself, but never had the guts to do so.

  HITCHCOCK WAS AS large in personality as he was in size. His main objective was to manipulate his audiences; scaring them to death one moment, then making them laugh with relief the next. He was enormously creative in his concepts, but once the script had been written and he’d chosen his shots, he seemed to feel that the actual filming was an afterthought.

  Early in the schedule, Paul and I realized that neither of us was very happy with the screenplay for the film. We asked if we could take a meeting regarding a scene we thought could use some better dialogue. Hitchcock’s reply was “Say anything you like,” which surprised us.

  Paul and I did try to improve the dialogue, and at the time, we thought our adjustments made more sense than the original. Looking at it now, I don’t think we did Hitchcock any favors.

  Hitch was equally detached directing his actors. One day, I was shooting a scene on an airplane, sitting by an exit door that opened to the tarmac. Hitchcock said, “Julie, in this shot, I’d like you to look left as though the door has just opened.”

  “What am I looking at?” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he replied.

  “Well, I mean . . . are there photographers out there, or press, because in the script they seem to know I’m coming?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. “I just want you to be looking forward, and then turn your head. That’s all you have to do.”

  It didn’t give me much to work with; there was nothing behind my eyes, but that was the way he wanted it, I suppose. Considering that he had worked with so many incredible actors, it didn’t seem right to complain.

  That said, Hitch couldn’t have been more generous to me regarding the technical aspects of filmmaking. One day, a cameraman asked him about a close-up on me, and whether he should put a certain lens on the camera. Hitchcock was aghast.

  “On a woman? Good heavens, no! You should use a such-and-such.”

  I was suddenly ashamed of how little I knew about lenses, and I said so.

  “Come with me,” Hitchcock stated. “Every actress should have a good understanding of what the camera is doing to her.” For the next twenty-five minutes, he drew lenses for me and explained their differences. I wish I’d retained more, but I do remember him saying, “You see, the lens that our cameraman wanted to use would have widened your nose in profile and made it grow. You should never use that one in a close-up.”

  Another day, he was preparing a two-shot of me and Paul.

  “Look! I’ve made a Mondrian,” he said.

  I went over and peered through the camera. The background was indeed like a Mondrian painting—red on one side and blue on the other, with our two heads in between. Hitchcock was very pleased with himself. I was just grateful that I knew the artist he was referring to.

  As was his wont, Hitch gave himself a small cameo appearance in the film. He planted himself in the lobby of the supposed Hotel d’Angleterre, with his back to the camera and a baby seated on his lap. For years, people have thought that the baby was Emma, but it was not. Emma was three at the time, and the baby in the shot is barely a year old.

  I got the impression that Hitchcock loved his actresses, even to the point of being a little possessive. I was sitting in a tall director’s chair one day and someone I was due to have lunch with arrived. Hitchcock came over to chat with me, and I looked over his shoulder and called to my guest, “I’ll be right with you.”

  Hitch then moved directly into the center of my focus, putting a hand on either side of my chair and blocking my view. He continued to hold my attention, talking to me and not allowing any distraction until he chose to let me go.

  Once shooting was over, I made the mistake of saying in an interview that I was not very happy with my performance in the film. I got a terse letter from Hitch, saying that he hoped I would never do that again. I realized that when a new film is coming out, you should never reveal that you aren’t pleased with any aspect of it. I wrote back and apologized. It was an important lesson.

  6

  IN EARLY JANUARY of 1966, my mother and stepfather finally came to Los Angeles for a visit. They accompanied my brother Chris, who was to be staying with me for the next few months until he got settled in school and was ready for his own apartment. Though Mum and I had spoken on the phone most weekends, I hadn’t seen her or Pop for nearly two years. I was nervous about how it would be having them in my new home, and especially how Pop might behave—but to my surprise, he was sober and appeared to be in a relatively good place, though he was puffy and overweight. Mum was rather quiet, though she seemed to take pleasure in seeing my new home, playing my piano, and spending time with Emma. She and Pop stayed in the guesthouse by the pool, and Chris moved into a small bedroom off the kitchen in the main house. It was hard to get a reading on how he was doing. I was still shooting Torn Curtain and seeing my analyst every day, and Chris started his photography classes almost immediately, so we didn’t see much of each other.

  One day when I was driving to my analyst’s office, I stopped at a median in the center of Sunset Boulevard to wait for traffic to clear. A Rolls-Royce going in the opposite direction pulled into the median alongside me. I looked across at the driver, didn’t think much of it, and went on my way. A few days later, the same thing happened. The third time it happened, there was a slight smile from the driver of the Rolls. He rolled down his window.

  “Are you going to where I just came from?” he asked. We were at the intersection of Roxbury and Sunset, and almost every psychoanalyst at the time had an office on Roxbury.

  “I—think so . . .” I replied.

  “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Blake Edwards.”

  “Oh! Very nice to meet you.”

  “Good luck,” he said, and drove off.

  A couple of weeks later, Arthur Park called and said, “Blake Edwards has asked to speak with you about a role in a movie he’s developing.”

  I remembered how much I had wanted to do The Great Race, and how much I had admired Blake’s other films. I was curious.

  There was some dithering as to where we would meet. He suggested my house, but I didn’t want him to come there because having just moved in, I still had very little furniture—plus, Mum, Pop, and Chris were in residence. I suggested we meet at the Beverly Hills Hotel, just down the road.

  “I’m not going to keep you more than five minutes,” he insisted. “Really, it’s no problem for me to come to you.”

  It was early evening when he showed up at my house. My family tactfully retired to the kitchen and shut the door. My living room had a couch, a grand piano, and a fireplace, bu
t that was about it—except for the worst carpet imaginable, which I had commissioned. It was white, with a huge orange-and-red sunburst in the middle. At the time I commissioned it, I thought it would be very chic, but I hated it the instant it was in the house.

  Blake sat down on the edge of the couch, and we swapped pleasantries. I found him charming, and surprisingly attractive. At forty-three years old, he was slim, fit, and elegantly dressed, with a sharply etched face and dark eyes that seemed to know something. He told me the story of the film he was thinking of writing, to be called Darling Lili, about a British spy during World War I, very loosely based on Mata Hari. He asked if it was a role that might appeal to me.

  It was hard to say yes to something that hadn’t been written yet, but I tried to be tactful. “It sounds very interesting . . . I hope you’ll write it.”

  I asked him what he was currently working on. He said, “I’ve just finished a film called What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? Actually, I’m having a private screening of it next week for some friends. Would you care to come?”

  I hesitated, feeling shy about not knowing anyone there. But then I thought it might be good for me to get out, and this man was certainly intriguing. I accepted, and he said he would pick me up on the way.

  Six days later, Blake arrived at my house as promised. At the screening, I met a number of his friends, including Dick Crockett, an esteemed stuntman who often worked on Blake’s films. Dick seemed very protective of Blake, and indulged in a few inside jokes with him that went over my head—perhaps he was a little threatened by my presence. But once the movie began, it was so funny that I completely forgot my discomfort and laughed so hard I practically slid off my seat.

  After the screening, everybody said their good nights and Blake asked, rather shyly, if I would care for a bite to eat. I was famished, so we went to La Scala, took a booth, and talked for a while. We discovered that we were both separated from our former spouses. I learned that he had two children who lived with their mother, and that he missed them very much.

  We made a plan to go out again a few nights later, but he then called and said he was in bed with the flu. I asked if I could help in any way, but he said he was fine and would be in touch as soon as he was better.

  I assumed I’d been given the brush-off, but on Valentine’s Day, an enormous bouquet of flowers arrived. The note said, “Happy Valentine’s Day—Blake.” Then he did call, and asked me out again—but by this time, I had come down with the flu.

  Once I felt better, we attended an Arthur Rubinstein concert together at the Music Center, but Arthur Park accompanied us since he had provided the tickets. Two days later, the composer Leslie Bricusse invited me to a party, saying that Michael Caine was coming, among other people whom I might enjoy meeting.

  “May I bring someone?” I asked.

  “Er, yeah . . .” he replied, and Blake escorted me to the Bricusses’. I later learned that Bricusse was hoping to pair me up with Michael, but since I’d brought Blake, Leslie abandoned his matchmaking mission.

  Shortly after that, I had to appear at an evening for the Producers Guild. Blake asked that I call him when the event was over, and I did.

  “Would you like to go for a drive?” he asked.

  “But I’m all dressed up . . .” I said awkwardly.

  Within a few minutes he arrived at my door, and we drove down to the beach and along the Pacific Coast Highway. It was unbelievably romantic; his Rolls purring along, the radio on, and the two of us chatting easily. Blake eventually pulled onto the Malibu Bluffs and parked the car. We gazed out at the full moon hanging over the sea, and he quietly took my hand.

  I thought, “If he doesn’t kiss me, I am going to go crazy.”

  Then he did just that.

  OUR RELATIONSHIP PROGRESSED fairly quickly. One Sunday afternoon, Blake called and said, “I’ll pick you up and we’ll decide what to do.”

  “I don’t mind what we do,” I said. “It’s just pleasant being together.”

  “Well, actually, I do need to do some grocery shopping . . .” he replied.

  “Then let’s go to the market!”

  He seemed rather stunned, even slightly impressed. I think the ladies he usually dated would have expected to do something more grand.

  We also visited art galleries together, particularly along La Cienega Boulevard. We’d park the car and stroll along, window-shopping and comparing preferences. Once, we stopped to admire some bright, bold seascapes in a gallery window. The following day, I arrived home to find one of the larger paintings propped up against my bed.

  Amazed, I called Blake and said, “That is the most generous gift I have ever received!”

  I decided to give Blake a gift of my own. In an attempt to re-create a little bit of England, I had recently bought three lilac bushes for my garden. Knowing that Blake had just purchased a new home at the top of Rising Glen, off the Sunset Strip, I thought he might appreciate having one for his own place.

  Blake took me to see the new house, and as we drove up to the front door, I innocently said to him, “Blake, would you like a lilac for your garden?”

  He looked at me, aghast. “What?”

  “I’ve purchased a couple of lilac trees,” I said. “Would you like one?”

  There was a long pause, and then he said, “Oh . . . you know, don’t you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Don’t do that to me!” he said. “Who told you?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  “Well, you’re either very good at perpetuating the joke, or you really don’t know. I’d better tell you.”

  He proceeded to relate that a couple of weeks before our first meeting, he had attended a party where my name came up. The question circulating was whether I had received the Oscar for Mary Poppins because of my talent in the role, or as a conciliatory prize for losing the part of Eliza in My Fair Lady. Everyone had ventured an opinion, except Blake. He bided his time, and spoke last.

  “I know why she won,” he said. All eyes turned to him. “She has lilacs for pubic hair.”

  Apparently, the room erupted with laughter, and somebody said, “With your luck, you’ll probably meet the lady and end up marrying her!”

  As he finished his story, he looked at me sheepishly. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “That’s all right.” I smiled. “But—how did you know?”

  He got his tree, and from that day on, lilacs were a theme at every birthday and anniversary.

  Blake’s new home was built into the side of a steep hill. It was pseudo-modern, with a French-style mansard roof. Long and narrow, with bedrooms at one end and a kitchen at the other, it had a sunken living room in between, featuring a magnificent view of Hollywood. On a small second floor, he had an office, which was accessible from the outside by a spiral staircase.

  Blake shared the house with a huge, pink-eyed, rather dumb Harlequin Great Dane by the name of Beatle, who had some odd habits, to say the least. The dog seemed to love heights, and climbed that spiral staircase every chance he got. On my second visit, as I stepped out of my car, I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched. Not seeing anyone, I glanced up and nearly jumped out of my skin. Beatle was staring down at me from the roof, having gotten himself stuck there after one of his climbing sessions.

  BLAKE THREW A small housewarming party, which I believe was as much to introduce me to his friends and family as it was to show them his new home. He was particularly keen for me to meet his uncle, Owen Crump. Blake’s father, Don Crump, had deserted his wife, Lillian, when she was pregnant with Blake, and then had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. Blake had never met his father or had any contact with him, and Owen, who was Don’s brother, had been a surrogate dad to Blake all his life. I sat next to Owen at the party, and we talked at length. He was a writer/producer, with an elegant demeanor and a shock of silvery-white hair. He was easy to talk to, and I liked him instantly. He later told Blak
e that he very much approved of his new girlfriend.

  On the other hand, Blake’s mother, Lillian, was slower to warm to me. She was a diminutive lady, originally from Oklahoma. My first impression was that her small stature did nothing to conceal her determination to keep any girlfriend of Blake’s firmly at arm’s length. She had a deeply lined face, iron-gray hair, a voice that could cut steel, and a beady eye that missed nothing. After her husband’s desertion, she had left Blake in Oklahoma with her older sister, Thyrza, and moved to California. There, she met and married Jack McEdward, a Hollywood production manager. He was the son of J. Gordon Edwards, the famous director of epic silent films, most notably Cleopatra starring Theda Bara in 1917. Jack was tall, Cornell-educated, conservative, and rather locked up emotionally, but he was a good man. Lillian sent for Blake when he was about three years old, whereupon he took his new stepfather’s last name. Later, when registering in the Writers Guild, Blake discovered there was another McEdward on the roster, so he simplified his name to Edwards.

  I began to grasp what a difficult childhood Blake had had. He was a rebel, so unmanageable in his early teens that Lillian and Jack had dispatched him to military school, from which he promptly ran away. How this troubled, angry young man had become the stylish, complicated, brilliant gentleman that I was trying not to fall in love with completely eluded me. I’d never met anyone quite like him. He was unbelievably charismatic, and seemed to have an uncanny understanding of human nature; he could assess someone at a first meeting, and his instincts were almost always spot-on. He was devastatingly funny; wicked, even. Blake took delight in tilting at authority, but was generous, humanitarian, and always championed the underdog. He loved taking creative risks, pushing buttons and boundaries. There was something dangerous about him, which was irresistible to my play-it-safe nature. Why he chose to woo me was a total puzzlement—we couldn’t have been more different. I likened us to a lion and a squirrel.