Editorial Review
Since her first appearance on screen in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews has played a series of memorable roles that have endeared her to generations. But she has never told the story of her life before fame. Until now.
In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in America. Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world's most famous nanny.
Along the way, she weathered the London Blitz of World War II; her parents' painful divorce; her mother's turbulent second marriage to Canadian tenor Ted Andrews, and a childhood spent on radio, in music halls, and giving concert performances all over England. Julie's professional career began at the age of twelve, and in 1948 she became the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Command Performance before the Queen. When only eighteen, she left home for the United States to make her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and thus began her meteoric rise to stardom.
Home is filled with numerous anecdotes, including stories of performing in My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison on Broadway and in the West End, and in Camelot with Richard Burton on Broadway; her first marriage to famed set and costume designer Tony Walton, culminating with the birth of their daughter, Emma; and the call from Hollywood and what lay beyond.
Julie Andrews' career has flourished over seven decades. From her legendary Broadway performances, to her roles in such iconic films as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, 10, and The Princess Diaries, to her award-winning television appearances, multiple album releases, concert tours, international humanitarian work, best-selling children's books, and championship of literacy, Julie's influence spans generations. Today, she lives with her husband of thirty-eight years, the acclaimed writer/director Blake Edwards; they have five children and seven grandchildren.
Featuring over fifty personal photos, many never before seen, this is the personal memoir Julie Andrews' audiences have been waiting for.
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Customer Reviews
Unendingly Interesting 
2008-06-16
This book is SO interesting! The first half is full of details that seem very pertinent to Julie's life story. I lost interest during the second half because I had a difficult time keeping up with all the different people in her life during that time. Still a very good read! She is an amazing woman!
loved every page 
2008-06-13
What a great life Ms Andrews is having, I hated to see the book end, please write another about your life now...
A frank and surprising autobiography 2008-06-13
Julie Andrews will always be associated with the lovely characters she has played, such as Camelot's Queen Guenevere, sprightly nanny Mary Poppins, and the delightful Eliza Doolittle. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, to read this autobiography and learn about the dysfunctional family she grew up in. There was alcoholism, emotional abuse, and infidelity, but somehow Julie Andrews emerged as a lovely, somewhat vulnerable yet strong young woman. Her singing voice, amazingly mature at an early age, catapulted her to fame by the time she was 20 years old. She is very honest about her past and about those with whom she has lived and worked. The book ends with the birth of her first daughter, Emma Katherine, who was born just before Julie departed for the U.S. with her husband Tony Walton to work on Walt Disney's "Mary Poppins". Hopefully she will write another book about the second half of her life which will be just as interesting as her early years.
HOME: A MEMOIR BY JULIE ANDREWS 2008-06-11
HOME: A MEMOIR BY JULIE ANDREWS IS AN EXTREMELY READABLE BOOK, NICELY FORMATTED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED IN TWO SECTIONS. EXPLORES MID-20TH C LIFE IN RURAL ENGLAND, COMPLICATED LIVES OF HER PARENTS, AND THE STATE OF VAUDEVILLE AND THEN THEATRE OF THE ERA. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN THE BRITISH THEATRE ARTS & ACTORS OF THE TIME. MOVES READER FROM ENGLAND TO NEW YORK AND EXPLORES THE DIFFERENCES OF THE TWO SETTINGS. YOU TRULY DISCOVER JULIE ANDREWS' MINDSET ALL THE WAY ALONG HER ROAD TO SUPER-STARDOM. A NICE ADDITION TO ANY LIBRARY COVERING THEATRE ARTS. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Home - Almost A Love Story 2008-06-10
Whether as Maria Augusta von Trapp or Victor/Victoria, any role that Julie Andrews tackled assured her audience of several things: she would pour her heart and soul into the part, and, it would be a classy bit.
It is no surprise that her autobiography, HOME, is just as classy as the woman who wrote it. Although it stops with Julie Andrews on her way to Hollywood to make Mary Poppins, the parts of her life that were shadowed by her meteoric rise in popularity are now told in a clean, honest way.
Her childhood in England is discussed as is: the war; vaudeville and her early career on the stage in England. Without bragging, Julie Andrews enters the reader's mind as a dedicated, hard working and diligent performer who deserved to succeed.
There are sad parts as well: her dysfunctional family; a rather surprising introduction to a man whom she discovered was actually her father. However, Julie does not dwell on them or detail them with any sense of historonics or self pity. She is, and always was, a very strong woman.
I found her recollections on performing in MY FAIR LADY and CAMELOT to be of particular interest but there is not a dull or lagging part in this wonderful book.
Now, about the sequel . . .
Where Was Her Editor? 
2008-07-11
Julie Andrews, a heroine of my early life, has disappointed me in this poorly written, garrulous memoir. She has all the material for a fabulously written life - but on the page, her writing falls flat. Long chapters on family matters are depressing. Gratuitous incidents involving various English relatives could have been cut. I felt I was listening to a too-loquacious older family member, who remembered everything, but did not remember her listener, or think in terms of what her listener would want to hear. I wanted to read about Julie Andrews' career on Broadway, about the great actors she starred opposite - Rex Harrison and Richard Burton - about working with Lerner & Loewe. And while she did recount theater memories, she did so in such a turgid manner, without the charm that she surely still possesses. I felt I did not know who Harrison and Burton were as people, and I certainly did not gain insight into Lerner or Loewe. Although apparently she has written or co-written many children's books, Julie Andrews is not a skilled, professional writer. She lacks personal insight, for one thing. I know this book will make her many fans happy, but to me, it seems an exercise in dogged grit rather than the natural expression of an inborn talent.
Julie Andrews' Home is a lovely memoir 2008-07-04
I highly recommend Julie Andrews' "Home: A Memoir of My Early Years." It's a beautifully written book that captures the times and places of the events that took place in her early years (i.e before her film career). As one who, as a young child, first heard her sing on the "My Fair Lady" orginal cast recording, I've been a fan for a very long time. This wonderful book adds to her many extraordinary achievments. I'm so looking forward to the next installment of her amazing life.
Julie Andrews Will Always Be One of My Fair Ladies 
2008-06-29
I have loved Julie Andrews since I first saw her in My Fair Lady and Camelot. She is so gracious, talented, beautiful and I've heard bawdy, which I think makes her a well rounded lady. Unfortunately, I preordered this book without realizing what the content would be, and I found it disappointing. She obviously was terribly offended by some of the unpleasant deeds of Rex Harrison, but she was too gracious in her reflection of their appalling behavior. The memoir just wasn't what I expected. It boring and after laboriously reading most of it, I put it aside. This memoir has nothing to do with my admiration of Julie Andrews and all of her awesome accomplishments.
After "Home" by Julie Andrews, we eagerly await Volume 2 of this great star's autobiography! 2008-06-26
"Home," Julie Andrews' superbly written autobiography of her earlier years, simply makes the reader eagerly await a second volume, covering the subsequent years of this great star's life. The book is written in a frank and interesting manner, revealing the happenings in a performer's life before and after the curtain is raised and lowered. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
--Ron Howe (a.k.a., Toby Martin II) / Erskine, Minnesota
Julie Andrews 
2008-06-25
I thought it was very good, however have enjoyed other books about famous people more.
