Julie Andrews' Marriages: All About the Actress's 2 Husbands

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Julie Andrews is one of the most prolific actresses of the last six decades, having starred in many iconic films like The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. Her love life, however, was much less broad.

Andrews, 87, had two great loves in her life. She was married to her first husband, set designer Tony Walton, for nine years. They welcomed one child and worked on many creative projects together before their eventual divorce in 1968.

"Marriage is a big up-and-down graph," she told Vanity Fair in 2019. "It's a wondrous thing, but it's probably the hardest work I've ever done, I think."

The Princess Diaries star met her ultimate match in 1969 in director Blake Edwards. The pair were married for more than four decades — until he passed away in 2010.

"Success in our marriage was to take it one day at a time," she said in a 2015 interview with Good Morning Britain, "and so, lo and behold, 41 years later, there we still were."

Here's a look back at Julie Andrews' two marriages.

Tony Walton

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Walton was an award-winning set and costume designer famous for his work on the musicals Pippin and Guys and Dolls. The play House of Blue Leaves earned him Tony Awards while he snagged an Oscar for All That Jazz in 1979 and an Emmy for the Death of a Salesman TV film adaptation.

Andrews and Walton met as teens interested in theater. According to her memoir Home, Walton saw Andrews on stage in a performance of Humpty Dumpty at the George Hotel in Luton in 1948, when she was 11 and he was 12. He reached out and they struck up a friendship as pen pals.

11 years later, they got engaged, quietly, over dinner at the Walton family home. "We looked at each other and smiled, and I honestly don't know how it came about, but one of us whispered to the other, 'We should get married soon,' " Andrews wrote.

They got married on May 10, 1959. By the time Disney snagged Andrews to play the lead in Mary Poppins, they were a package deal — Walton created the costumes for the famous musical film.

The pair welcomed their daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, on Nov. 27, 1962. Unfortunately, the pressures of parenthood combined with the obligations of fame and success led to fractures in the marriage.

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"[That period] was a struggle," Andrews told Vanity Fair. "It's hard because, being a mother, you know that you love your husband and you understand where he's coming from, but you have such a strong bond with your kids [that] you want them to either understand or not be unhappy. It does pull one apart in many, many ways."

The pressure eventually led to a divorce in 1969. "Sadly, I separated from my lovely first husband," she told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. "And separations were always inevitable and the marriage was over and my head was so full of clutter and garbage."

"The worst of it was you feel such a failure because it's certainly nothing that one anticipates going into a marriage," she explained to Now To Love in 2019. "I did feel I'd failed at it miserably and blamed myself for a great deal. Although I think it probably was a little bit of both [of us]."

Walton went on to get remarried to Gen LeRoy Walton in 1991, but he and Andrews stayed great friends and continued to work together. When he died on March 2, 2022, Andrews spoke fondly of her ex-husband.

"Tony was my dearest and oldest friend," she told PEOPLE. "He taught me to see the world with fresh eyes and his talent was simply monumental. I will miss him more than I can say."

"He was a Titan of the Arts. A doting father and husband … and beloved beyond measure," Andrews concluded.

Blake Edwards

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Andrews' longest love was with Edwards, whom she first met in 1959 as "ships that passed in the night at some event," as she recalled to Good Morning Britain in 2015. Years later, they made eye contact, driving in opposite directions from the therapist's office they both went to. "I was going one way and he was going the other," she remembered.

"He rolled down the window after smiling a couple of times, and he said, 'Are you going where I just came from?' ... Very corny, sorry about that."

They got closer as Edwards directed Andrews in the 1969 musical Darling Lili. "It seemed dumb not to admit we were in love," Edwards told PEOPLE in 1977.

While both of their marriages — hers to Walton and his to Patricia Walker — were on the outs, Andrews was shocked the first time Edwards proposed to her. "This came as a total surprise," she wrote in her book. "We had only been seeing each other for a little over a year, and neither of us was yet divorced from our former spouses."

"I think it was about three years before we finally did tie the knot, but we bonded," she told Now to Love of the burgeoning romance. "I felt he was the most charismatic and interesting fellow I'd ever met, and there's no doubt that to this day I don't think I'll ever find anybody quite like him. He was unbelievably terrific."

The pair did tie the knot in 1969. With the marriage came two stepchildren from the Breakfast at Tiffany's director's previous marriage — Geoffrey Edwards and Jennifer Edwards. The couple also adopted their daughters, Amy Edwards and Joanna Edwards, from Vietnam. The family lived a luxurious life, spending time at their homes in Gstaad, Switzerland and Malibu, California.

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Edwards shouted out Andrews while accepting his honorary Oscar in 2004, saying, "Each and every one has contributed to this moment, friends and foes alike. I couldn't have done it without the foes. My father thanks you, my mother thanks you, the beautiful English broad with the incomparable soprano and the promiscuous language thanks you, and I sure as hell thank you."

Andrews shared her own sentimental thoughts about her husband over the years. "Do you know how long we've been married?" she told PEOPLE in 2007. "Thirty-seven years. That's staggering to me. Where did it all go? I cannot stress enough what a fine director he is – and not just because I'm married to him!"

Sadly, Edwards died of pneumonia in 2010 with Andrews at his side. "They broke the mold when Blake was born. I hadn't come across anybody with his wit and sophistication, which I relied on a great deal," she told Oprah.

"I'm still dealing with [his death]," she said on Good Morning Britain in 2015. "There are days when it's perfectly wonderful and I am myself and then it's suddenly [it'll] sock you in the middle of your gut and you think, 'Ah God, I wish he were here.' But he is in a way. I think one carries that love always."

"We were married 41 years and it was a love story, it was," she added. "Success in our marriage was to take it one day at a time and so, lo and behold, 41 years later there we still were."

"I miss him like crazy," she concluded.