Julia Elizabeth Wells was born in Walton-on-Thames,England, on October 1st 1935.Early, she began to learn both tap and ballet from an aunt. When she was 4, her parents, Barbara and Ted Wells separated. Barbara married Ted Andrews and Julia changed her name for Julie Andrews.Barbara and Ted were a musical duo and they discovered that Julie had a "freak" voice with a range of 4 octaves. Julie began singing lessons with Madame Lillian Stiles-Allen at the age of 8. When she was 12, she was cast in Starlight Roof. She also performed in the Royal Command Variety Performance at the London Paladium when she turned 13 years old.There, she sang the "Polonaise" from "Mignon" and "God save the King" in front of the King George VI, Queen Elisabeth, Prince Philip and Princess Margaret.
In 1954, Julie was in the cast of The Boy Friend, at The Royale Theater. She left her family to move to New York. She also performed the role of Eliza Doolittle in the production "My Fair Lady" of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. After that, she was in the cast of Camelot with Richard Burton. She had the role of Guinevere. She stopped in 1962, to give birth to Emma Kate, her first and only child with Tony Walton, her first husband. Walt Disney made a trip to see her in Camelot, and he asked her to be a part of Mary Poppins.She didn't answer immediately because she hoped to be on the cast of the film version of My Fair Lady. But, Audrey Hepburn had the role of Eliza Doolittle and Julie accepted the role of Mary Poppins. She made a lot of movie after that including, The Sound of Music with Christopher Plummer.
In 1967, she divorced from Tony Walton. In 1969, she married Blake Edwards, the director of Darling Lili. She adopted, in 1974, two orphans children, Amy and Joanna. She wrote children's books. Mandy , The Last of the Really great Whangdoodles and more recently, Little Bo. In 1995, she casted on the broadway version of Victor, Victoria. She palyed the same role that she played in the movie in 1982. In 1998, Julie lost her wonderful voice. This was due to an operation that she had on her throat, to remove non-cancerous nodules, but in may 1999, she made her first attempt at singing in public. It was at the Tony Awards and it was great.
In 1999, for the third time in her career Julie teamed up with James Garner to make a TV movie for CBS called "One Special Night".
In May 2000 Julie was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. In the same year, Julie was back on the big screen, in a film adaptation of the Noël Coward Play Relative Values, using an adaptation of the original script. Also in this year Julie began work on a new Walt Disney film The Princess Diaries.
In December 2001, Julie was honoured at The John F. Kennedy Centre for the 24th annual national celebration of the arts for her unique and extremely valuable contribution to films and the musical theatre.
Filming began on "Eloise at the Plaza" and "Eloise at Christmastime" in November 2002, both staring Julie Andrews, who plays Eloise's Guardian Nanny. Both films were shown in 2003 as part of ABC's "Wonderful World of Disney.
In August 2003 Julie Andrews made her directorial debut with the play 'The Boy Friend' the same show in which she made her Broadway debut.
In 2004 Julie played Princess Fiona's mother, Queen Lillian in the animated movie Shrek 2. In this year Julie also returned to the screen as Queen Clarisse of Genovia, in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.
In October 2004 Julie played host to a six-part PBS documentary series on the history of the American musical.
