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by Julie Andrews

  I was due to leave for America in three days and had much packing to do, but I was hustled into Dad’s car along with Donald, Chris, and Mum. Auntie was in a terrible state, but she was with Dingle. I don’t know where they went that weekend.

  Pop had been working himself up for days, his rage bubbling ever closer to the surface and threatening to explode. It may have been a coincidence that he acted out just as I was due to leave, but he must have seen that I was getting a great deal of attention. In contrast, Pop’s career in vaudeville was nonexistent, and his work as a cash register salesman was not proving successful. Auntie and Dingle’s presence on our premises seemed to drive him crazy; the dancing lessons taking place in the garden studio irked him, my mother’s support of my aunt and neglect of him…he probably felt he didn’t have a friend in the world or a place to call his own. And of course, he was an alcoholic. Later we discovered bottles of scotch and vodka stashed all over the house.

  Mum found out that he’d put an ad in a “lonely hearts” magazine, seeking a dinner companion. When she asked how he could do such a thing, he replied that it wasn’t for sex, it was for company. I don’t know if that was true, but it was deeply sad and it rocked my mother’s world for a while.

  So I spent my last weekend with Dad, Win, and the two boys. Mum returned to The Meuse the following day to talk to the police, who took Pop away, but they released him forty-eight hours later. My mother obtained a restraining order to prevent him from coming near the house, at which point I was able to go back and finish packing for my departure.

  The restraining order was for several weeks. Mum was distraught. Auntie was panicked and angry. I was in a dilemma; how could I leave my mother and the boys? Would she ever be safe? I begged her to file for a divorce. She said that she would.

  Suffice it to say that my departure for America was a nightmare. Everyone urged me to get onto that airplane for the U.S. My mother, Dad, Aunt Joan, Dingle, Auntie Gladdy, Charlie Tucker, Johnny, Don, Chris—they all came to Northolt Airport to see me off. Saying goodbye was agony. Mum and Auntie were stoic, telling me everything would be fine and not to worry. Go!

  I remember the plane’s huge engines warming up on the tarmac. We had been grouped in a sort of army Nissen hut, which was the Northolt holding area for passengers. I walked across the concrete in the dark night and up the steps into the big four-engine Constellation, to take my first transatlantic voyage.

  I had not yet met any of my fellow company members, who were traveling to America on the same flight. Everyone was bubbling with excitement, wondering what awaited us overseas. I tried to fit in, but I was very preoccupied. I sat next to Dilys Laye, the young girl who would be playing Dulcie in the show, and she seemed worldly and calm and not at all worried. She was a pleasant companion. We decided on the journey that we would try to room together. We spent a sleepless night traveling from London to New York, stopping to refuel at Gander, Newfoundland, on the way.

  The trip took about eighteen hours, and I was wiped out and emotionally exhausted by the time we reached that amazing city. I couldn’t stop thinking about the family. Would Mum hold out? Would she really go through with the divorce from Pop? What would happen to the house if she did? Where would she go? Would Don and Chris be all right? My Boy Friend salary was going to be small. I planned to send half of it home—but would that be enough for them, and would that leave enough for me to live on each week?

  We arrived at Idlewild (now John F. Kennedy) Airport on August 24, 1954. We walked down the steps of the plane onto the boiling hot tarmac, to be met by a horde of press and photographers who asked us to pose on a baggage trolley.

  The first thing they said to us was “Show us some cheesecake!”

  I kept saying, “Excuse me?” but a couple of the girls knew what they wanted and hiked up their skirts. I felt embarrassed that the moment we got there, we had to show them our legs.

  I was met at the airport by a diminutive man named Lou Wilson, a friend of Charlie Tucker’s whom Charlie had arranged to be a sort of sub-agent/manager and keep an eye out for me. Lou was a small-time producer, entrepreneur, and a dreamer. He was sweet, kind, welcoming, and I warmed to him right away.

  We were taken to the Piccadilly Hotel on Times Square and 45th Street (today it is the site of the Marriott Marquis Hotel). I was shown to a small room on the third floor, directly above the convention halls. It was noisy and hot.

  I had a single bed, a tiny shower, toilet, and washbasin, and a tiny window that looked out over a large airshaft. I remember shutting the door behind me, feeling alone and somewhat dazed.

  That first evening, there was a small dinner reception for us at Sardi’s.

  When Dilys and I returned to our hotel afterward, we piled into the elevator with a bunch of other people. A total stranger, a gregarious fellow, looked at us and said, “Y’all is mighty purty.”

  “I beg your pardon?” His thick Southern accent was unintelligible to me.

  “Y’all is mighty purty,” he repeated.

  I grasped he was saying that I was pretty and I thanked him. He asked where I came from, so I politely told him, “Walton-on-Thames, Surrey,” and received an empty look.

  “Ah come from Georgia,” he said.

  “Oh, how nice,” I replied.

  When Dilys and I got out of the elevator, I asked, “Did you understand a word that man said?”

  “Nope,” she answered.

  “Neither did I!”

  But I did get the sense that Americans were very friendly.

  Neil called from Canada, and I told him of the chaos surrounding my departure. He said, “I’ll come down right away.”

  At sight of him, I really wept. I collapsed into his arms, and we tumbled into bed.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  REHEARSALS FOR The Boy Friend were held at a theater on 46th Street, a block or so from the Piccadilly Hotel. Vida Hope, our director, was a loving den mother, theatrical and fun. She was a buxom woman and had a slight speech impediment. Our choreographer, John Heawood, was lively, very skinny, and very gay. Since they both had staged The Boy Friend in London, it wasn’t so much a question of finding the nature of the show as it was putting it back together again.

  Dilys Laye immediately found a wonderful character reading for her role as Dulcie. She knew just how to raise a shoulder, assume a stance, or bat her eyes. She had a husky voice, which she used to marvelous effect. Annie Wakefield was the young soubrette Madcap Maisie, Millicent Martin played Nancy, and Stella Claire played both Fay and Lolita, the voluptuous tango dancer. John Hewer played Tony Brockhurst, the boy friend.

  There were perhaps nine English members of the company; the rest of the cast were American Equity performers. Everybody seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Everyone knew how to pose, how to be camp; everyone, that is, except me. I kept thinking “How do they know? I’ve never done anything like this; I’ve never lived in the twenties. How is it they grasp the style so easily?”

  One morning, not long after rehearsals began, I was looking up the airshaft outside my hotel window, checking the weather, and I saw that it was raining. It made me feel much more at home and was certainly welcome, for New York had been unbearably hot and humid. I left for work, and as I walked down the street, I noticed that a lot of signs were swinging and canopies were straining at their bindings. The wind was certainly strong.

  As I rounded the corner of Eighth Avenue and 45th Street, I had to hold onto a lamppost to keep my balance. I turned the next corner and a blast of rain lashed my face and drenched my clothing. I staggered up to the theater stage door, heaved it open, and stumbled inside. The place was empty, except for the doorman, who was in his cubicle.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked him breathlessly.

  “What do you mean?” he said.

  “Well, aren’t we rehearsing this morning?”

  “Honey,” he replied, “that’s Hurricane Hazel out there!”

  CY FEUER ATTENDED rehearsals almost ev
ery day. He had boundless energy and was the complete opposite of his business partner, Ernest Martin, who was dark-haired, very quiet, and a little dour.

  I was still having difficulties with my character, Polly Browne, trying to discover who she was, and what I was supposed to be doing. I watched everybody else and tried to emulate them. I didn’t know how to research a role, had no idea how to “break down” a script. Vida wasn’t much help because she was so busy with the entire production. We were not going out of town for a tryout run, but were to open cold on Broadway since the show was already a known quantity. With so little time to prepare, every day, every moment of rehearsal mattered.

  There were rumors that all was not well between Cy, Vida, and Sandy Wilson. Cy felt that although The Boy Friend had been a big hit in London, it now lacked the punch that was required for a Broadway audience. Sandy objected. He was the author, and felt that the style of the show had proven itself already. He was against any changes, and resented Cy’s interference.

  The day came when, to our dismay and horror, news flew around the company that Sandy and Vida had been dismissed and were actually barred from entering the theater. Cy was to take over the show. Something had obviously happened after hours, of which we were all unaware, and the company was anxious.

  Cy came in like a drill sergeant. The first thing he did was to coach the girls. A lot of their dialogue was spoken in unison. When they cried, “Oh, do tell us about him, Polly!” for example, he energized it and made them say it with precision timing. Wherever the play was soft or vague, Cy tightened it, making it sharp and clean.

  Truthfully, Cy’s phenomenal energy was exactly what was needed. I don’t think anybody, not even Vida or Sandy, had grasped the standard expected for a Broadway show. The English production had been a delicate piece of lace. Our production became crisp, full of liveliness and giddy fun.

  We soon understood that this was not the first production Cy had taken over. But it seemed that whatever he touched, he turned to gold.

  We moved into our own theater, the Royale, for dress rehearsals. We had a sizeable orchestra, bigger than the London production, with soprano saxes, a tuba, “wac-a-doo” trumpets, and a banjo. The orchestrations and the musicians were dynamite.

  We played two weeks of previews, and I continued to feel that I was the only one who still needed to get my act together. Oddly, there were performances when I received wonderful laughs from the audience, and others when there was no reaction at all. I couldn’t figure it out. I tried different things each night. In hindsight I was probably working so hard for a gag that it became the kiss of death; when I was just being real and innocent, people seemed to love it. But I didn’t have the experience to grasp that.

  The last preview of all was my worst performance, and I knew that I was drowning. The following morning, Cy Feuer collared me at rehearsals and said, “Come with me.”

  He took me out to the long, dark alley where the Golden, the Royale, and the Majestic stage doors converge. We sat on the fire escape steps.

  The first thing he said to me was “You know you were terrible last night.”

  “I know!” I replied with equal candor. “I just don’t understand what’s wrong.”

  “Here’s what you are going to do,” Cy said. “I want you to play Polly Browne as truthfully as you possibly can. I want you to forget every funny, campy thing the others are doing and I want you to play her straight—right down the middle. When you lose your boy friend, I want your heart to break. Play the role sincerely; believe it with every fiber of your being. If you do as I say, you may stand a chance of being quite a success tonight.”

  I realized that Cy was giving me the answers I had been looking for, that he was throwing me the rope I needed. I grasped it with both hands, and with sudden clarity everything fell into place. Thank God for his guidance. That night I played Polly Browne as I believe she is meant to be played: an innocent, vulnerable little rich girl who wants nothing more than to be loved for herself.

  It was September 30, 1954, the eve of my nineteenth birthday, and I will always remember that performance. The orchestra was superb, the company was superb, and every laugh I hoped to get came my way. The reception at the end was unbelievable. The audience rose to their feet as one, stomping and cheering. People danced the Charleston down the aisles as they exited the theater.

  The crush backstage was tremendous, noisy, and enthusiastic. I tried to get through to my mum in England on the stage door telephone.

  “Mum, it’s over!” I shouted into the mouthpiece, a finger in my other ear. “We seem to be fine.” But she could barely hear me.

  Bill Birney, one of the authors of Mountain Fire, had asked to take me out for supper, and not knowing the traditions of a Broadway opening, I accepted. Everyone else repaired to Sardi’s to await the reviews, and I went off with Bill to the Ambassador restaurant and had a staid and elegant meal. Eventually we headed for Sardi’s, and the maître d’ informed us that the company was gathered in an upstairs room. People were waving newspapers or poring over the reviews. Dilys received wonderful notices and, miraculously, so did I. The Boy Friend was a smash hit.

  Ten days after we opened, I arrived at the theater and glanced up at the marquee. To my surprise it read: “The Boy Friend—with Julie Andrews.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  ONCE THE SHOW opened, the really hard work began. We had to record the cast album immediately, so there was very little time to catch our breath. Every newspaper and important magazine wanted to shoot its own photo layout and center spreads. These were always done after the evening performance. In a way, it was like doing an extra show, and we often worked late into the night. With matinees as well, it was pretty exhausting.

  Dilys and I pooled expenses and moved out of the Piccadilly Hotel and into a single-bedroom apartment at the Hotel Park Chambers, on West 58th Street. It had a living room, a closet-sized kitchen with a tiny fridge, hot plate, and sink, a bedroom with twin beds, and a bathroom.

  It was a convenient location, and there was a good drugstore with a soda fountain across the street. Compared to the Piccadilly, it was heaven. We didn’t have much room in our closets, or in our one bathroom, but we made it work.

  I discovered that Dilys was wonderfully gregarious. Sometimes she would bring a boyfriend back to the apartment. They would occasionally become amorous, so I would retreat to the bedroom, but I couldn’t help overhearing the mounting sexual exertions taking place on the couch in the next room.

  Neil came down from Canada whenever he could. Most often Dilys let us take the bedroom, maybe because her friends could make their exit more easily from the living room.

  I WAS LONELY at times, and extremely grateful for any connection with loved ones back home. I phoned my mother once a week, which in those days was a very expensive thing to do. In later years, Don and Chris both told me that they had always hovered by the phone, longing to say a few words, hoping for their own moment with me, but perhaps in Mum’s enthusiasm to speak to me herself, she neglected to consider their feelings. Letters became my lifeline and I looked forward to the mail delivery each day. Tony continued to write occasionally, and I to him. I believe he was aware of my relationship with Neil, but he had the grace not to mention it.

  My dad’s letters were always exquisitely written in his fine hand, and full of news of the countryside; what blossom had just appeared, how the daffodils were showing their golden heads, how he had just built a garden gate for a neighbor…things that I relished and could identify with. I was still very concerned about my mother, and continued to beg her to separate from Pop. I wrote to both my father and Charlie Tucker asking them to intercede, and my dad wrote back. His typically eloquent letter is excerpted as follows:

  Ockley, 24 November 1954

  Darling Julie:

  Following your letter of Tuesday 16th…I have phoned Mummy and as a result am now posting her the following:

  “Dear Barbara:

  It was not my wi
sh that last night’s talk should become so bitter, and I do not want to cause you distress at a time of strain and difficult decision…When Julie left for U.S.A. she was happy in the knowledge that at last some positive action to break the impasse in your affairs had been initiated, and she asked me to do my utmost to help bring it to an effective conclusion. For her sake, and yours, I hoped it would be, but if now you decide otherwise, I hope your courage will be rewarded and that the doubts as to your future will be resolved. But, in that event, I propose regularly to enquire into those aspects of the inevitable negotiations that must take place that affect Julie…Please believe that out of this I want only three things: Happiness for Julie; the simple same for you and yours; and for myself the satisfaction of having helped you both.

  Yours really sincerely, Ted.”

  Now, my darling little girl…There is no need to get worried over this; no need to lament your absence as a handicap to communication. Just go on doing your job out there; leave it to us to get things right; and, above all, far above all, look after yourself.

  A thousand blessings,

  Ever, Dad.

  I doubt if Dad’s letter influenced Mum, as before long, she and Pop were back together again. Auntie later wrote me that Pop was “courting Mum madly with phone calls, presents, dates for dinner.”