Best Actress: Julie Andrews

You know what happens when you haven't watched Mary Poppins since the last time you watched all the Best Actress winners, but you've watched The Simpsons? You get their parody song versions stuck in your head during the musical numbers!

via retrodisneydaily

Julie Andrews is such a delightful actress, singer, persona, and woman. I'm sure many people share the sentiment that she feels almost like your grandmother; she's in some of our favourite classic films, there to teach and guide us. Not to discount any of her other films or Broadway , but name a more influential run of films for the zeitgeist than Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and The Princess Diaries (for us gals of a millennial age). Julie is like a guiding light. A legend. It'll be a sad, sad day when she's no longer with us. But what an indelible mark she's left on cinema.

And it begins with her screen debut: Mary Poppins. That's right, Julie belongs to an elite club of actors who won Oscars for their first films. Walt Disney had been so enamoured of her performance in Camelot on Broadway that he personally requested her for this film, and offered to pause filming for both her pregnancy and for the opportunity, should she be cast, to film My Fair Lady, as Eliza Doolittle, the role she'd originated on Broadway (more on that later). She had her child and was not cast in My Fair Lady, freeing her up to make Mary Poppins without much delay.

As the cheerful yet proper magical nanny Mary Poppins, Julie gets to show off her comedic timing, her crystal clear voice, and the charming way she controls every scene. She teaches lessons while ensuring the children have the utmost fun. Her friendship with Bert (atrocious Cockney accent aside) is a fun side story. It's so fun watching Julie and Dick van Dyke bounce off of each other. You believe in the magic because Julie believes in the magic. 

Julie was nominated against Anne Bancroft (The Pumpkin Eater), Sophia Loren (Marriage Italian Style), Debbie Reynolds (The Unsinkable Molly Brown), and Kim Stanley (Séance on a Wet Afternoon). The only one I haven't seen is Kim Stanley's film. I think Julie truly deserved her Oscar, but I hope Sophia Loren was the runner-up. I adore Marriage Italian Style.

If you're interested in the gossip, as mentioned above: Julie originated the role of Eliza Doolittle on Broadway but when Warner Bros. adapted it, Jack Warner didn't think she was a big enough name. Audrey Hepburn was cast instead and caught flack for not singing on her own (she was dubbed, unbeknownst to her, by Marnie Nixon, and walked off set when she found out the truth). My Fair Lady did wind up being the biggest film of the year, but Audrey was snubbed for major awards in favour of Julie; and Julie even thanked Jack Warner at the Golden Globes for freeing her up to make Mary Poppins. I don't believe there were any truly hard feelings between Julie and Audrey personally; they both knew it was showbiz (and Audrey even declined the role, thinking that if she did it would go to Julie, but it was said it would be offered to someone else, so she took the role after that).

But because of this, we got Julie Andrews as an icon of the screen, committing truly great performances to film. So, in a way, I'm glad she was free to make Mary Poppins. Think of what we'd miss out on without it!

DID I LIKE MARY POPPINS? I do have to confess that this doesn't really hold me under a spell the way that The Sound of Music does, and it wasn't on heavy rotation in my childhood, but I do so love Julie Andrews's performance.

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Did you like Mary Poppins? What are your thoughts on Julie Andrews's Oscar win? 

Keep up with all my Rewatching the Best Actresses posts here.