Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
by Julie Andrews
Jim Herrin's Review For Www.Thejaneellen.Com
Syphilis, alcoholism, infidelity, and indeterminate parentage may seem
improbable touchstones in the back story of one who didnt so much
portray as embody the blithe Maria in The Sound of Music. But as this
memoir of her formative years makes clear, there is more gravitas to
Andrews than meets the eye. From her childhood in rural England and
initial forays into British theater, to her first massive successes on
Broadway and in the West End--notably as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady--
Home puts her celebrated career in context. While arguably offering more
detail about the Andrews family than necessary, it nevertheless dishes
wonderful anecdotes about legends and Andrews contemporaries like Noël
Coward, Rex Harrison, Robert Goulet, Richard Burton, and Rodgers and
Hammerstein, in prose as crisp and immaculate as the author herself. It
also offers a revealing look into the intricate, exhaustive craft of
performing--skills often taken for granted in tabloid times. Since the book
ends just as Andrews is about to launch into the celluloid stratosphere, can

Volume II be far behind? After Home, it would be most welcome. --Kim
Hughes
Personal Review: Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie
Andrews
Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews
As memoirs go, this book is better than most, perhaps because Andrews
is talking about events that happened many years ago and about people
who are long since dead. This is not an attempt to cover her entire
career and, unlike some autobiographies, doesn't really read like a
self-congratulatory "look at how great I am" recounting of her life.
What it offers, instead, is an intriguing look at the early life and
career of a woman who many of us remember mainly as either Mary
Poppins or the governess from The Sound of Music. There are several
"I did not know that" moments as Andrews recounts how her mother
essentially abandoned the family to live with a travelling musician;
how her birth name was changed from Julia Wells to Julie Andrews when
her mother divorced her father and re-married; and how she and her
family survived during the days of World War II. It also, as Jane
noted, does not appear to have been ghost-written by someone else with
Andrews name simply put over the title. There are certain turns of
phrase that seem particular to someone who would have been raised in
the time and places described by Andrews. If she is less than
objective about her own limitations as a performer, that's to be
expected. After all, most fans don't want to hear about how someone
is undeserving of any success they may have had. They want to know
precisely what Andrews provides them here, which is the answer to the
question: "How did it all begin?"
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