Home Work

A Memoir of My Hollywood Years

By: Julie Andrews, Emma Walton Hamilton

Narrated by: Julie Andrews

Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

In this New York Times best-selling follow-up to her critically acclaimed memoir, Home, Julie Andrews reflects on her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria. 

In Home, the number-one New York Times international best seller, Julie Andrews recounted her difficult childhood and her emergence as an acclaimed singer and performer on the stage. 

With this second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Andrews picks up the story with her arrival in Hollywood and her phenomenal rise to fame in her earliest films - Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Andrews describes her years in the film industry - from the incredible highs to the challenging lows. Not only does she discuss her work in now-classic films and her collaborations with giants of cinema and television, she also unveils her personal story of adjusting to a new and often daunting world, dealing with the demands of unimaginable success, being a new mother, the end of her first marriage, embracing two stepchildren, adopting two more children, and falling in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards. The pair worked together in numerous films, including Victor/Victoria, the gender-bending comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations. 

Cowritten with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, and told with Andrews's trademark charm and candor, Home Work takes us on a rare and intimate journey into an extraordinary life that is funny, heartrending, and inspiring.

©2019 Julie Andrews (P)2019 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"Julie Andrews, along with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, have put together an elegant memoir of Andrews's Hollywood years.... Delivering many of her insightful diary entries, Andrews sounds sincerely amazed and delighted.... Andrews acknowledges her gifts, but she attributes much of her success to luck. We're the lucky ones - to have Andrews and this audio gem." (AudioFile Magazine)

"[Home Work gives] readers long-awaited details about [Julie Andrew's] earliest films like Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.... Andrews continues to approach life - and writing - with strength and grace." (People) 

Love Julie, Didn't Love the Memoir

First things first: Julie Andrews is probably the single greatest hero of my childhood, and to this day, I pretty much think she walks on water. It's really hard for me to give this three stars.

However. I've learned while listening to this memoir that there are two qualities that make a good memoir: plot (stuff happening to the person) and storytelling (the personal, emotional journey). This memoir is absolutely full of the former and sadly lacking in the latter. She told her story as though it had happened to someone else. It was almost journalistic in its detachment. So I was a little disappointed.

On the upside, I haven't seen her entire filmography, and based on this memoir, there are now a few more I want to see. So that's cool.

A bit detailed in parts, but great overall

Summary: Second, in what is probably a trilogy of memoirs, roughly covering 1963 to 1986.

It has been almost exactly nine years since I read, and loved, Julie Andrews’ first memoir Home. That memoir of her early years in vaudeville and her time in the theater and the breakout roles on Broadway was well told and extremely well narrated. This memoir, Home Work, picks up with the filming of Mary Poppins, right where the first memoir left off.

I mostly listened to Home Work, with some occasional reading on kindle (I bought both on sale). The production of this audiobook did not use any music as the first one did, but that makes sense because the period is covering an era when Julie Andrews was mostly acting in film and rather than being known for singing in variety shows or specials on TV.

The weakness of Home Work is an expanded version of the problems of Home, the detail. I am not sure how to avoid the issue as a writer. As a reader, especially as a reader that has not seen any of her movies between Sound of Music and Princess Diaries, the details about shooting and costars was not why I picked up the book. I am sure others are more interested in that portion of the book.

What was engaging about Home and was also present here is her introspection. Mostly she is opening herself up to the world and sharing what her life has been like. The level of drug abuse and alcoholism around her is tragic, with children, siblings, parents, her husband. She shares freely about her struggles of depression as well as the depression of her husband and many others. There are more than a few suicide attempts by those around her.

Home Work is a story of ‘more money, more problems’. Her first marriage ended essentially because both she and her husband were never together. After all, they were pursuing separate careers in the film world. She had long stints filming around the world, and he had long jobs designing films (so that even when they were working on the same movies, they were not working at the same time). Later, when she married her second husband, Blake Edwards, a director, and mostly working together on movies, they bought houses and boats and spent money taking care of dependent relatives so that they felt compelled to keep working. It was a bitter cycle; they had to work to pay for their lifestyle, but also had to pay for assistants and nannies and people to take care of their homes because they were working all the time.

It is incredible to think that Julie Andrews had filmed Mary Poppins, The Americanization of Emily, and The Sound of Music before any of them were released. From 1964 to 1986, she starred in 20 full-length movies, was the host of two TV seasons where she hosted a show and did about 10 network specials. That is in addition to occasionally touring as a singer. During that same time, she had her daughter from her first marriage, two stepchildren from a second marriage, two adopted children and cared for a much younger half brother.

She started psychotherapy reasonably early in her film career, and I think that probably matters to how she introspectively tells the story of her life. (She also frequently quotes extended sections of her diaries.) Her need to care for the people around her, from financially supporting her parents by the age of 16, to caring for a whole host of family and people around her throughout her life, I think she does accurately talk about the importance of home to her. The reason she wanted a home in Switzerland, and worked hard to keep primary residence there, was that she was trying to build a safe place for family. The pressure she accepted to care for others was enormous, not helped by her second husband, who also needed constant care between his depression and addictions to pain pills.

Julie Andrews did not participate in the drug and sex culture of Hollywood, but it still impacted her. She worked hard and tried to take her art seriously. She appreciated that she had been lucky and was rewarded for her talent, while others with equal or more considerable talent had not.

In the end, while I did not think that Home Work was quite as good as Home, I did very much enjoy it, and I do have even more respect for her than I did before, and I will immediately pick up the next memoir when it eventually comes out.

amazing!

So wonderful to hear julie Andrews narrate her amazing story. Like a warm comforting bath!

Dame Julie

I see from other reviewers that I am not alone in feeling disappointed. The parts of her story that deal with film making and what goes into creating the magic on screen is very interesting, but there are long sections of famity drama and dysfunction, and a lot of globe trotting; yet she wants to convey that her life was challenging and the psychoanalysis is the cure-all for emotional dysfunction. Dame Julie is a class act, but this story is a bit of a whitewash. I guess that's her perogative, but it makes for rather dull reading.

A Treasure

It's Julie Andrews. Who could ask for anything more? I absolutely loved it and can't wait for part III!

hmmm,...

How can I love and admire an artist so much and yet be bored out of my skull reading/listening to their bio? It pains me to write it, but, for me, it is true. I adore Julie. Maybe she's just too good of a girl to make it an interesting read. I didn't even make it half way through. I don't hold it against you, Julie. You will always be one of the greats.

A truly enjoyable listen all the way through!

Highly recommend this book to any Julie Andrews fan! I found this book captivating all the way through. Her stories were shared without restraint, and she spoke from the heart about the joys and difficulties of her life. Her own narration in the audiobook was incredibly enjoyed and appreciated. Loved getting a glimpse of the inner world of a true Hollywood icon. Julie Andrews is one of a kind!

A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT

The first book of Ms. Andrews memoirs ('Home') was absolutely outstanding and I have been excited for years for her to write the second part of her memoirs. What a major disappointment now that I have listen to the second part ('Homework'). Her first memoir was beautifully written and researched while this second memoir was neither. It is nothing but a series of minute details strung together. I can't imagine that it took more than a day to write. The editors should never have accepted such shoddy work and Ms. Andrews should be embarrassed to have submitted it for publishing. On a side note, one could not help but feel sorry for Ms. Andrews' home life as an adult. My goodness, all the poor lady seemed to do was fly to back and forth to Switzerland (with stops in London) so that she (and Blake) could avoid paying taxes. She would goes MONTHS without seeing her infant children who she would leave in the care of nannies (the poor kids would be heartbroken when the nannies were replaced). When reading her first memoir, I thought that her own childhood was sad, but it seems like a picnic compared to the bizarre upbringing that Ms. Andrews (and Blake) staged for their children. Obviously, fame and fortune are no guarantees of either happiness or stability nor do they create a foundation for a responsible home life.

Boring second half

I prayed it would finally end. The beginning was good and the rest bored me. Disappointing.

Boring

Julie Andrews is a lovely woman who had led a remarkable life. But the storyline is meandering and dull. Too many details and minutiae. No build up, no drama. Just a recitation of facts and details