London, March 09: Oscar-winning-actress Julie Andrews has disclosed in her autobiography that she was conceived as the result of her mother’s extra marital affair.
In her memoirs, to be published in Britain by Weidenfeld & Nicolson this month, and in America next month, the 72-year-old actress has revealed that she was born in a passionate relationship her mum Barbara, a professional pianist, enjoyed ‘with a man by a beautiful lake near Walton-on-Thames’.
During the affair, Barbara was staying in outward respectability in Surrey as the wife of Ted Wells, a woodwork teacher.
Later, Barbara told Julie that "Daddy and I weren’t being very romantic in those days,” so she looked for a true love somewhere else.
The actress kept her mother’s affair under wraps for 58 years and in the book, Andrews has spoken of the day she came across the truth.
In 1939, Julie was just four when her mother, after splitting from Wells, married Ted Andrews, a Canadian entertainer.
In the autumn of 1949, when Julie was already a young singing sensation, Barbara asked her to perform at a friend’s house.
“After I had sung, the owner of the house approached me. He was tall and fleshily handsome, and I recognised him as a man who had come round to visit the Meuse once or twice in earlier years,” a website quoted Julie, as stating in her book.
The Meuse was the house where Andrews stayed with her mum and stepfather.
“That evening the man came and sat on the couch next to me. I remember feeling an electricity between us that I couldn’t explain,” Julie added.
On the way back home, Barbara asked her if she had liked the man. Julie said that ‘he seemed pleasant’.
Then the actress’ mother asked her if she knew why she was taken to the place.
Before Julie could think of a possible reason, her mother delivered the truth: "That man is your father."
In her book, Julie has written how her brain ‘slammed into defence mode’ as she grappled with the thought that ‘Daddy’ was not her father.
Bureau Report
