Home: A Memoir of My Early Years

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years

by Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews has always been a Broadway star who I grew up dreaming to work with someday (remember, I had hoped to be a Broadway director at one point in my life).  So reading Home: A Memoir of My Early Years provided me great perspective on the author’s life.  Andrews begins with historical perspective on her heritage: three generations of Andrews/Wells families.  While Andrews shares her own naiveté, she actually lived a pretty difficult life in England as a youth.  Moving between her father’s and mother’s homes after a divorce, she helped raise a sibling and faced a great deal of poverty. She is encouraged to pursue singing/acting through her mother and stepfather’s work as performers.  At one point, Julie is the breadwinner that keeps the family afloat.  From stage productions, radio shows, television and finally to Broadway, this book goes through her life up until her role in Camelot.  She shares the various relationships with stars, dealing with alcoholic parents, a stepfather who borders on the line of sexually abusive, and learning from her mother as a young adult that her biological father is not the same man who raised her.  The book serves as a bit of therapy for Julie.  It also is a coming of age book that shows how perseverance in life is what drives one to be successful.  I most enjoyed the portion of the book that brought her to NYC on a one-year deal to star in The Boy Friend, followed by a two-year run in My Fair Lady leading to Camelot.  There certainly is a great deal more but not contained in this book.   Dreams can be made in NYC – read this one to see how a Brit from a rural area can make it in the big city!