“Julie Andrews” by Gloria Steinem, was originally published in the March 1965 issue of Vogue.
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The secret of Julie Andrews’s success is very simple: she just manages to be regal and gauche, witty and non compos mentis, dewy-eyed ingénue and old theatrical pro, sweet-tempered and acerbic, level-headed and wacky, monumentally sexy and quite ladylike all at the same time.
Consider, for instance, her recent impact on the glazed habitués of a New York discothèque.
She entered wearing a plain white shirtwaist and dark skirt, quite a contrast to the pavé jewels and drooping necklines around her. “How sweet!” said one woman. “Who’s Miss Goody Goody Two Shoes?” said another. She danced a few sinuous frugs, her face a picture of girlish concentration on getting-it-right and the rest of her getting it very right indeed. By now, it was clear that five feet seven inches of sensational figure was encased in that schoolgirl outfit, and her translucent English skin was glowing with excitement. “I don’t think she has any makeup on at all,” said one woman. One of the men watching her dance asked who she was. “That’s Julie Andrews?” he exclaimed. “But here she’s quite sexy and on stage she seemed so… so cool.”
As the music switched to three-quarter time, Miss Andrews led her partner and two other couples in a blank-faced, outrageous burlesque of an English hesitation waltz. There was appreciative laughter all around. Miss Andrews fixed the laughers with the aloof stare of a dowager and an imaginary lorgnette. More laughter. “Who,” asked a gossip columnist, “is that man she’s with?” “Her husband,” his neighbor replied. She left the floor with her friends, executing a small vaudeville exit step as she went. The man who found her sexy stopped her to say hello and to exclaim over her successes in Hollywood; Miss Andrews listened with delight. “Obviously,” said the man’s wife sotto voce to the columnist, “all that ladylike business is a pose. She’s just another starlet.” The man introduced his wife. “Oh,” said Miss Andrews enthusiastically, “what a perfectly marvelous dress!” Looking down at her own shirtwaist, she added that she felt rather silly dressed like this, but she and her husband had decided to come only at the last moment. She straightened her skirt and looked uncertain. “Never mind,” said the wife, now completely won over, “you look beautiful.”
The evening proceeded. Miss Andrews drank brandy and soda sparingly (“I always think brandy is so much healthier than gin, don’t you?”) and danced a lot. In between, she played a favorite game with her friends: one person pantomimes a famous cinematic moment and the others must guess what movie it’s from. First she was Joan Crawford in Sudden Fear, then Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon, and was equally convincing as both. The rest of the group—including expert movie buffs Stephen Sondheim and Mike Nichols, as well as her husband, designer Tony Walton—howled with delight. People at surrounding tables caught the spirit and smiled too. Mr. Sondheim did Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead, and Miss Andrews guessed it. (“You know,” said the wife, “she’s one of the few beautiful women who looks friendly.”)
Now, even the dour columnist smiled. He continued to smile as he watched her get up to leave and cover the cotton shirtwaist with a full-length pastel mink. “She’s the kind of girl,” he said, groping for the last word, “that you could take home to Mother. Providing, of course, that you could trust Dad.”
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