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She and Walton talk on the trans atlantic telephone often. "We are good friends, as corny as that sounds," she explains. Her favorite date is Director Blake Edwards (Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Pink Panther, The Great Race). As Julie says: "People will talk and gossip, and there is nothing you can do about that, so you might just as well go your own sweet way. I don't think anybody goes out of her way to be a scarlet woman, but then there is very little I can do about it if that's what they want to make of it."
Icky Wine. The center of Julie's life, however, is Daughter Emma (pronounced Emmer by the family), a blue-eyed blonde who most resembles her father. Julie chauffeurs her to nursery school every day in her 1965 Falcon station wagon, and at least one day a week sends the nanny off and takes over completely. The two paint together (Julie took up oils this fall) or belt out duets of Daisy, Daisy, although Emma doesn't like to hear Mummy rehearse—which is why she has to practice while driving to work.
Her social life is focused on a small group of friends—Edwards, Mike Nichols, Carol Burnett, Composer-Conductor Andre Previn and his wife Dory. At Christmastime, she invites them all in, and "to everyone's annoyance and chagrin, I make mulled wine, all icky and sticky. I'm the only one who likes it." When she can manage to avoid the endless squads of fans, she sneaks off to concerts (preferences: Mahler, Rachmaninoff), but no longer goes to the movies. Instead, for privacy's sake, she runs films in her home—"on the smooth wall of the playroom if it's a good movie, on the brick wall of the living room if it's bad." She cares little for haute couture. Dory Previn charitably describes Julie's wardrobe as "old-fashioned"; the less charitable call it "frumpish." Burton's exwife, Sybil Christopher, adds that "Julie is hopeless with servants, and they take advantage of her. She ends up pouring their tea."
Ambivalence. In her more introspective moments, Julie suffers the familiar agony of one who has risen high but cannot comprehend the forces that lifted her. She sees a psychoanalyst once a week ("My Ju? Bloody nonsense," huffs her mother. "Of course, you understand we still look on them as quacks in England"). Says Julie: "I needed some answers, and I think I'd have been a rotten mother without analysis." She is concerned about "the real me. I have an absolutely fearful temper. I always get upset when people don't get on with the job at hand. I always feel like saying 'Let's get on with it; it's the piece that matters, not our own personal thing.' I suppose another of my failings is that I am a thoroughly ambivalent person. Ambivalence can either be a vice or a virtue. But I am able to see both sides of anything to such an extent that it is terribly hard for me to make a decision or do anything involving a drastic change."