Home Work

by Julie Andrews

  It was a joy to work with Robert Preston once again, though the role of Toddy was such a departure from the doctor he played in S.O.B. When we finished shooting my part of “Shady Dame,” it was Preston’s turn to use the same setup for his mock version. He was so brave, bursting out of his costume, lipstick smeared all over his mouth, false eyelashes askew, and tottering about in high heels. He had the company in stitches, and Blake just let the camera roll. Toward the end, when Preston was dropped unceremoniously onto the floor by his dancers, he too collapsed with laughter, and Blake never yelled “Cut!” It’s all there, on film.

  When we sang the duet “You and Me,” I was reminded of my days in vaudeville, watching an act called the Western Brothers from the wings of the theater. Dressed in white tie and tails, they would lean against the piano with ease . . . always suave, elegant, and stylish.

  I was also delighted to be reunited with James Garner again. We had bumped into each other a few times since making The Americanization of Emily, and our friendship had never wavered. Blake said to me one day, “Watch Garner, Jools. He’s not only a great actor, he’s a great reactor.” It was the reason Blake chose him for the role. Garner conveyed so much with the mere lift of an eyebrow, and his expression when he first sees Victoria revealing herself to be Victor is priceless. After our first on-screen kiss in Victor/Victoria, when his character says, “I don’t care if you are a man,” my legs buckled again, just as they had done so many years before.

  An entry from my diary:

  Difficult doing the love scene in front of Blake. I wanted to do it well. Garner was tactful and dear, Blake took it all in stride, and I was a basket-case!

  The kiss was cinematic craziness, in that it was supposed to be snowing, and we had to have twice the amount of fake snow in order for it to register onscreen. We were getting flakes in our noses and eyes and teeth, and a build-up on shoulders and hair that looked like dandruff. Also, Jim and I are both so far-sighted now that we couldn’t see each other in the close-up, especially with snow pouring over and between us. It was ridiculously funny.

  My relationship with Jim was always platonic, but the fun and mutual affection we shared was ever-present.

  Learning to throw a punch was a real challenge for me. I’ve never even been able to throw a ball, so I had no idea where to begin. Our stunt coordinator, Joe Dunne, had worked on many of Blake’s films, and it was his job to make me look authentic. I practiced for days, almost throwing out my elbow in the process. In the end, I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed the moment, and how high on adrenaline I felt afterward.

  In truth, there was hardly a day on Victor/Victoria when I wasn’t full of doubt about my performance . . . but there was one day when I got a terrific ego boost. A group of guys—Garner, Preston, and some of the cameramen—were standing together, chatting casually. I was dressed as Victor in a tuxedo, and I sauntered over to join them. Normally in a situation such as that, they would have made some accommodation for my presence—a physical shift, an arm placed about my shoulder, a kind of deference to my being a woman. In this case, they simply carried on without any adjustment whatsoever. I realized with delight that I had been perceived as “one of the guys.”

  Geoff, now twenty-one, was working in the editing department once again, and Blake gave him a small role in the film, as a chorus boy who admires Victor. Emma flew in for a visit, and Blake put her in the audience behind me during the opera scene, when Victor is weeping copiously at Madame Butterfly. She had made the decision not to return to Brown University for her sophomore year. Having so recently moved to New York, she missed the stimulation of that city, and the proximity to the theater scene. She opted to return there and enroll in an acting conservatory. I had mixed feelings about this, but she was persuasive in her assessment of the situation, and I always trusted her judgment.

  Dad and Win came to visit the set from time to time, as did Auntie and Mum, and of course, Amelia and Joanna, whenever possible. One Sunday, Blake and I took the girls to visit Dad and Win at their home in Ockley, and we made a trip to Leith Hill to see the bluebells, which were creating the illusion of a lavender mist as they moved in the breeze. It was a pleasure to share with my girls something I had so loved in my own childhood.

  Although S.O.B. hadn’t yet opened, reviews had begun to come in, and we were relieved to learn that they were mostly positive. Playboy and Life both raved. Vincent Canby said in the New York Times, “It’s difficult to remember a film as mean-spirited as S.O.B. that also was so consistently funny.” I was pleased for Blake, and proud that he had made something so creative, and wickedly hilarious, out of such adversity.

  Toward the end of filming for Victor/Victoria, I began doing publicity interviews for S.O.B. I discovered that the only thing anyone seemed interested in talking about was how I felt revealing my bare chest on-screen. I did my best to turn the focus back to the film itself.

  Victor/Victoria finished shooting in June. I wrote:

  I feel vaguely relieved. A strange sensation. I wish I had given the role a lot more thought and care. Could I have? Yes—but at what expense? And would it have been better if I had sacrificed family, or husband? Or did I do OK under the circumstances? Not questions I can answer yet.

  19

  DESPITE THE MOSTLY favorable reviews, S.O.B. was not the box office success we’d hoped it would be. It seemed the black comedy and the Hollywood send-up were a little too “inside” for the average cinemagoer. Blake was miserable about it, particularly since it had been such a catharsis for him to write, and everyone involved in making the film had so believed in its worth.

  Although Blake had more work lined up with the next Pink Panther film, it wasn’t work that appealed to him. He fretted as to how to write a new script about Inspector Clouseau without the actor who’d created him. Eventually, he settled on the idea of making two films: one primarily comprised of outtakes from previous Panther films, in a story about Clouseau having mysteriously vanished, and the other about a new and equally hapless American detective (yet to be cast) who was hired to find the missing Clouseau.

  Blake invited Geoffrey, now almost twenty-two, to collaborate with him on both scripts, and in the early fall, we headed back to Gstaad, where the men began to write together. Geoff’s passion for cinema had been informed by all the time he had spent on film sets in his youth observing his father at work, and, like his dad, his comedic instincts were infallible. Working with his son lifted Blake’s spirits considerably; he said that their collaboration was the easiest and most fruitful writing partnership he had enjoyed to date.

  Amelia and Joanna began attending the school that Emma had gone to when she lived in Gstaad, and I was happy to have at least some of my family under one roof for a spell and to be back in Switzerland again.

  Once Victor/Victoria had been edited, it was time for me to do looping for it. Blake, Geoff, and I headed to London for a week that happened to coincide with my birthday:

  I had a quiet day—and the most stupendous evening. I had said to Blake that because it was my birthday, with all its attendant emotions, I was feeling a bit blue. He replied, “I can promise you that by this evening you will be very happy.” I took it to mean that the supper we’d planned at Mimmo d’Ischia with Hank Mancini, Loretta Swit, Tony, Avril and Zoë would be pleasant, and it was.

  At one point, I was chatting to Avril, and something caught my eye. I turned and did a huge double-take. Standing in the doorway, all smiles, were Jenny, Emma, and Geoff’s girlfriend, Denise. Blake had flown them all in to surprise me, and they had arrived in London an hour earlier. I burst into happy tears, and hugged them all—and indeed my evening was perfect.

  During the looping for Victor/Victoria, I saw the latest cut of the film. Henry Mancini’s score was consummate, and I felt that his music even enhanced our performances. I was also delighted by how beautiful the film was to look at. I was cautiously optimistic that it might be well received.

  Later that day, we
received the tragic news that William Holden had died after taking a fall in his apartment. It was devastating to us all. Blake immediately boarded a plane for L.A., only to learn when he arrived that there would be no funeral, per Holden’s wishes.

  Perhaps in an attempt to assuage his grief, Blake once again invited a massive group of family and friends to join us for Christmas in Gstaad. We ended up being twenty-two in all, spread throughout the village.

  Mum and Auntie were there, and they bickered as always. I did my best codependent dance between them, trying to appease and placate.

  Mum was in bad health; she was severely overweight, wheezing, and unsteady on her feet. Her stay in L.A. had been short-lived. I had tried to set her up with everything she might need, and to make her life as easy as possible. But foolishly, it hadn’t occurred to me how much she would miss her friends in Walton, and in a matter of months, she had decided to return home.

  Mum had come to Gstaad a few weeks before Christmas to take a treatment at the famous La Prairie Clinic medical spa in Montreux. They gave her a battery of tests, after which she was diagnosed with a distended heart, hypertension, arthritis, kidney problems, arteriosclerosis, and emphysema. I persuaded her to come back to Los Angeles temporarily for further medical tests in the New Year. Postproduction on Victor/Victoria was now complete, and Blake and Geoff had finished the scripts for Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther, which were to begin filming simultaneously in California in February.

  Dr. Tanney confirmed Mum’s diagnoses from the clinic and said she must stop drinking and smoking—easier said than done! He also put her on an antidepressant. There were a bizarre couple of weeks when a visit from my dad overlapped with Mum’s, and they both stayed with us at the same time. Thankfully, he and Mum were easy with each other, and had pleasant chats in the evenings. It may even have helped boost Mum’s spirits. But it was strange for me to have them both under the same roof at the same time.

  VICTOR/VICTORIA OPENED in Los Angeles on March 16, 1982. By now, Blake had begun location filming for the next Panther, but I attended the premiere with Garner and Preston. Afterward, I wrote:

  Crazy world! The heavens opened up and it poured with rain. It blew away the marquee for the after-party, which was a total wash-out, but the screening was successful and a personal triumph for my Blackie. I was more aware than ever of his tremendous talent; his writing, editing, moments of pure directorial joy—of his good eye and wonderful humor. It was apparent that everyone in the audience felt the same way.

  The reviews were sensational. Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times: “Victor/Victoria is so good, so exhilarating, that the only depressing thing about it is the suspicion that Edwards is going to have a terrible time trying to top it.”

  I was profoundly relieved, and grateful that my anxieties about my performance hadn’t been borne out. I was also thrilled for Blake, but I could tell that although he was pleased by the response to Victor/Victoria, he was distracted by the pressures of the new Panther films, and regretting having agreed to do them.

  After the premiere, I was busy with press conferences, interviews, and publicity for the film—but unable to focus on much of it, due to the challenges with my mum. My worries for her consumed my every waking thought. I arranged a live-in aide and companion for her once she was back in Walton. Unfortunately, Mum became abusive to the poor lady, and eventually she left. I was heartsick, as I knew that Mum would fall back into all her old habits, and that she was now totally incapable of looking after her house or herself. But Mum was as stubborn as ever, and there was only so much I could say or do.

  WHEN BLAKE FINISHED shooting his two Panther films, we headed for Gstaad for the better part of the summer. I tried to press ahead with my children’s book about the ship’s cat, while Amelia and Joanna attended summer school. As usual, Blake began to slip back into depression. He was angry with himself for having done the Panther films, which he felt were not what he should be focusing on at this point in his career. He was also approaching his sixtieth birthday. He had always hated his birthday, and this one made him especially miserable.

  There was one evening when the situation morphed into black humor. We were in bed with the lights out, when suddenly I heard the familiar throat-clearing—and my “little boy tenor” began to serenade me once again with a medley of songs. I quickly realized that, perhaps unconsciously, he was choosing titles that were a reflection of his state of mind. He launched into “High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’),” followed by “I Can’t Begin to Tell You,” “You’ll Never Know,” and “My Love and Devotion.” Through my laughter, I found myself wanting to sing “Why Can’t You Behave?” and “I Cain’t Say No” from Oklahoma!

  Knowing that we would be celebrating Blake’s birthday in Gstaad, I had arranged a video of all his family, friends, and colleagues sending him well-wishes. These days, one can simply record oneself with a smartphone, but back then, it required a great deal more effort. Tony Adams and I hired three different camera crews—one in the States, one in London, and one in Gstaad—to capture all the messages, and we had the results professionally edited.

  On the big day, Blake awoke in a funk, but Geoff, Amelia, Joanna, and I managed to jolly him out of his mood. By the evening he was in better spirits. He loved the video, which was truly an outpouring of affection and respect, and had turned out better than I’d dared to hope.

  AT THE END of the summer, we returned to Los Angeles. Blake and Geoff had been discussing a remake of François Truffaut’s The Man Who Loved Women, and Columbia Pictures signed on to the project. As always, the prospect of work buoyed Blake’s spirits a little.

  Tony Adams would be coproducing the film, as usual, but in the meantime he was committed to another trip with Operation California, this time to Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The founder of the organization, Richard Walden, invited me to join them. I was apprehensive at first, but decided it would be good for me, and would help my advocacy work if I could speak from experience. I also wanted to see Vietnam for Amelia and Joanna’s sake. I felt that if they chose to visit the country themselves one day, I would be better prepared to help them do so.

  I received a battery of vaccinations, and began taking malaria pills. We departed on August 30, 1982. As I hugged Blackie goodbye, I longed to tell him how insecure I felt about the trip, but I said little, since he wasn’t particularly happy about my going. I climbed into the car, and Jo yelled out enthusiastically, “Have a good time in Vietnam!” which made me smile.

  Our preliminary destination was Bangkok, with layovers in Tokyo and Hong Kong. Besides Tony Adams and Richard Walden, I was traveling with an American dentist named Glen Herman, who was planning to set up a dental school in Cambodia on behalf of OpCal. Also on the trip was a social worker from Thailand, who helped to process Cambodian refugees.

  The experience is best described by some excerpts from the extensive diary I kept of the trip:

  Driving from the airport to the hotel, I saw shanty towns of unbelievable poverty; houses tilting, falling down, open to the elements, showing single lightbulbs and families sitting on the floor.

  First impressions of the city are of shuttered shops, tiny-windowed rooms above them. Tangled masses of telephone wires. The heat and humidity are intense.

  * * *

  Couldn’t sleep last night. Dressed and went down to the lobby this morning, and it was only seconds before the perspiration started to run. We met with a colonel from the Green Berets, by the name of Mike Eiland. He is the U.S. head of refugee processing. He tried to give me a picture of all that’s going on here. He wants us to visit a border camp before we leave. He said that anyone getting word back can be of great help—particularly someone who can communicate with the media.

  * * *

  Traveled to Saigon on the one flight that goes in and out per week. I had such mixed feelings landing at the airport. Amelia and Joanna were once on this very airfield, prior to their flight to the U.S.
There must have been so much army equipment, so much U.S. machinery.

  Madame Hua, head of the Saigon Pediatric Research hospital and other medical facilities and orphanages, was at the airport to meet us. She’s tiny, tough, humorous, and has an aura of power.

  Our hotel overlooks the Saigon River, which is full of cargo ships—Vietnamese, Russian, Indian, Chinese—all unbelievably rusty.

  * * *

  Must tell about the orphans who sell peanuts outside the hotel. They are heartbreaking—outcast because they are mostly mixed-race children of the war. Yet they are cheery, feisty, smiling. They all hang together and are very loving with each other. None of them wear shoes, and they beg for soap.

  One of the girls took a fancy to me. I guessed her to be twelve years old. She said proudly, “I’m American, too.” She didn’t know where her father was, and said her mother had recently died.

  * * *

  Went to the street market and picked up a ton of soap for the kids, plus toothbrushes and toothpaste and some cakes, which they shared. We saw puppies, kittens, birds, monkeys, all in tiny cages, making a fearful racket. Their fate is not a good one. There was a woman on a bicycle carrying a huge load of piglets in a rope basket, and a chicken strutting on the street, plucked totally bare, except for a few tail feathers. People were asleep on the sidewalk. Others cooked over open fires.

  * * *

  Visited Madame Hua’s hospital. She has hundreds of babies, suffering from every kind of disease; malnutrition, rickets, birth defects. Many are virtually blind. Madame cautioned us about what we would see on the other side of the compound, which is the public children’s hospital, and not her domain. It is unpainted, smells of urine, and is packed with more desperately ill children. Scabies are rampant, and a lot of kids have hideous looking boils, especially around their feet and heads. Madame can “rescue” a child from here and send it to her side. When we were there, she decided on at least six kids that were so malnourished that they needed to go to her facility, but they have to wait until she has a vacant bed.