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The most celebrated movie actress in the U.S. eats "squashy and gorgeous" boiled-potato sandwiches and drives around Hollywood singing at the top of her lungs. She doesn't do these things at the same time, but nobody would be surprised if she did. In a town where everybody plays the angles and wholesomeness is something of an aberration, Julie Andrews, 31, is tolerated as a delightful kook.
She is rarely seen at the "in" Restaurant-of-the-Month, never swings at the Racquet Club in Palm Springs. She doesn't play the tables at Vegas or pick up a cue in the billiard room of the Beverly Hills Daisy; where Frank Sinatra bides his time, she abides not. If she isn't at home, she is likely to be found with her four-year-old daughter at Hamburger Hamlet or at the Los Angeles Zoo or at a local art gallery. Her night on the town is the Bolshoi or a concert at the Hollywood Bowl.
Julie, in short, is something else—in Hollywood, but not with it. Unencumbered by the cotton-candy fantasy life in which most stars invariably shroud themselves, she has stayed resolutely honest and unspoiled. She is an actress, as Librettist Alan Jay Lerner once remarked, who achieved stardom "with nothing to offer but talent, industry and an uncorrupted heart."
Imp Girl. They don't make them that way in show business much any more, and Americans seem to sense it. Her perfect-pitch soprano has a crystal clarity and superb diction, and yet it can be as warm and soft as a purr. She does not radiate sensuality, nor is she the pulp of publicity campaigns. She is everybody's tomboy tennis partner and their daughter, their sister, their mum. To grown men, she is a lady; to housewives, the gal next door; to little children, the most huggable aunt of all. She is Christmas carols in the snow, a companion by the fire, a laughing clown at charades, a girl to read poetry to on a cold winter's night.
There is something irresistibly luminous and mischievous in her radiant face and blue eyes—not the glaze of an It girl, but the glow of an imp. It is doubtful that the boys in Viet Nam regard her as their favorite pinup. She does have more sex appeal than, say, ZaSu Pitts, but it is also obvious that a Liz Taylor she's not. If there is an animal splendor about her, it is more pussycat than panther. Her curves do not pop the eyes. Her legs are a little too lean and a mite long (she is 5 ft. 7 in.). Her jaw is on the prognathous side. Her feet are a little less than dainty (size 8); when she played Cinderella on TV, her slipper could almost have fit the Prince. And she's got freckles on her nose.
Favorite Co-Stars. If it is not sex appeal, what is it? Julie has a copy of a privately published little book of poetry, written by T. H. White, author of The Once and Future King, from which Camelot was drawn. In it, White wrote "For Julie Andrews":
Helen, whose face was fatal, must have wept
Many long nights alone
And every night men died, she cried,
And happy Paris kept sweet Helen.
Julie, the thousand prows aimed at her heart,
The tragic queen, comedian and clown,
Keeps Troy together, not apart,
Nor lets one tower fall down.