Julie Andrews Reveals the Famous Love Scene That Made Her “Legs Buckle”
Julie Andrews sat down with ABC's Diane Sawyer for a conversation about her tremendous acting career, her five children, and marriage.
During the interview, the Sound of Music and Mary Poppins star spilled some juicy bits about her meet-cute with her second husband, and what happened during her first love scene.
In a new memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Julie Andrews (and her daughter, co-writer Emma Walton Hamilton) revisits the tales of life behind the scenes of the films that turned her into an Oscar winner. To discuss the book, Andrews sat down for an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer to explore the highs and lows of her career, and to open up about her private life.
Andrews noted she was rather naïve when it came to dating men in the early stages of her career. She met her first husband, set designer Tony Walton, when she was 13 and he was 12, and they married in 1959, later welcoming their daughter Emma in 1962. However, their marriage showed signs of strain as The Sound of Music was released in 1965; they ultimately divorced in 1967.
During that time, she also admitted to being "terrified" over filming her first love scene for 1964's The Americanization of Emily with a young James Garner. "I had no idea what—one [was] supposed to do," she told Sawyer, "with a kiss and all of that."
"James Garner, who was delicious, made it very easy for me," Andrews said. "I began to think, 'It's getting a little hot in here.' And when I got up, I kept thinking, 'I can manage this.' And I got up and my legs buckled, because it really had hit me rather hard." She continued, "But he was lovely about it. And I think he—he might have enjoyed it too."
Later, Andrews went on to share her meet-cute story with the late Blake Edwards, her husband of over 40 years who she first made eye contact with at an intersection in Hollywood as he sat in his Rolls-Royce. "I was trying very hard not to fall in love with him. And that was Blake Edwards," Andrews said of Edwards, the director of Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Pink Panther movies. Edwards himself once described the way they'd met as "wonderfully Hollywood."
Despite their rom-com-appropriate meeting, their marriage was far from easy, particularly because of Edwards's hypochondria, mood swings, and suicidal thoughts. Together, they raised Emma, Amy and Joanna (two adopted daughters), and Jennifer and Geoffrey (Edwards's children). And Andrews admitted that as the daughter of an alcoholic mother and stepfather, she may have tried to "rescue" Edwards in a way. "You have to remember, I was very used to that kind of thing, cause I was—you know—a very big codependent with my own family," she said. "And so I became that with Blake."
No matter what, Andrews told herself, "we will have harmony in this house," and made it work. Andrews and Edwards were devoted to each other from their marriage in 1969 until the director's passing in 2010, and for their 20th wedding anniversary, Andrews read him a poem, one that still remains embedded in her memory: "And darling, when I show you this poem—I know what you will say. 'What else?' You'll grin. 'What else, will you write of me today?'"
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