Dame Julie Andrews has won a coveted acting award for her most recent role despite not appearing on screen or even meeting her co-stars.
The acclaimed singer and actress, 89, has been awarded an Emmy for her voice-over performance in the widely-popular Bridgerton series.
The win comes off the back of a lifetime of success on the stage and screen and joins an impressive collection of accolades.
But it hasn’t been all glitz and glam for the performer who was forced to make a major career pivot when a medical disaster left her distraught.
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Andrews voiced Lady Whistledown in season one, two and three of the popular period drama Bridgerton as well as the spin-off series Queen Charlotte.
She had previously been nominated for her performance in the show in 2021, 2022 and 2023 before finally taking home the coveted award this year, claiming the Emmy for Most Outstanding Voice Over Performance.
Her Emmy was awarded at the Creative Arts Emmys which took place a week before the main Emmys Award ceremony set to take place Sunday 14 September (Monday 15 September in Australia).
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Her award also comes despite having never actually met her Bridgerton co-stars.
“You know I’ve never met the company in person,” she told the US Today Show.
“Of course, I see them on the show sometimes. But I do all my recording far, far away from them.”
today with three emmys, two grammys and one oscar to her name, the industry veteran is tantalisingly close to EGOT status and the awards punctuate her impressive performance career which has spanned nearly 80 years.
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Andrews kicked off her career at the ripe age of 10. School had been closed due to the war and so she instead threw her energy into learning to sing and eventually performing with her parents in their musical act.
“My mother and my stepfather for some wild reason decided to give me some singing lessons,” Andrews said in an interview with Variety in 2022.
“To their surprise they found out I had a kind of freaky adult larynx and could sing all kinds of coloratura songs and it wasn’t long before I became part of their act.”
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At just 13, she became the youngest person to perform as a solo musician at the Royal Command Performance in 1948 singing the British national anthem before the late King George VI and the late Queen Elizabeth II.
She appeared on the West End in 1948 and made her Broadway debut in The Boyfriend in 1954 when she was just 18 years old. She was a talented theatre actress and rose to prominence for her performances in Broadway musicals like My Fair Lady and Camelot.
Speaking with Variety in 2022, Andrews shared that she believed My Fair Lady was the catalyst for her rising success.
“I guess my career took off from there,” she said.
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Despite appearing as Eliza Dolittle in the broadway production of My Fair Lady, Andrews was snubbed for the role with the film rendition came about in place of Audrey Hepburn.
It ignited a reported rivalry between the two actresses but they appeared to carry it with grace.
Everything made much more sense in hindsight, as it so often does, with missing out on the My Fair Lady role freeing Andrews to play the title role in the 1964 Mary Poppins which went on to become one of her most iconic roles.
Andrews went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role in 1965. Hepburn and Andrews were captured together as Andrews celebrated her Oscar win.
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That same year, Andrews starred in another of her iconic roles – as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of track.
Her performance in the musical film won her a Golden Globe Award.
Her success went from strength to strength from the ’60s to the ’80s, starring in a new film every few years. Some of her titles included Hawaii, Torn Curtain, Thoroughly Modern Milli, Star!, The Tamarind Seed, That’s Life and Duet For One – many of which were musicals.
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By 1997, however, Andrews’ spectacular singing career came to a devastating halt when she underwent a throat surgery that turned into a medical disaster.
The operation went wrong and the actress claimed that she was left with permanent vocal cord damage and other complications from the botched surgery.
“When I woke up from an operation to remove a cyst on my vocal cord, my singing voice was gone,” she told AARP The Magazine in 2019.
“I went into a depression. It felt like I’d lost my identity.”
Andrews went on to file and settle a malpractice lawsuit for the operation that she claimed ruined her professional singing career.
Ever the professional, Andrews didn’t let the experience dampen her stardom and pivoted instead to non-musical and voice acting roles.
Her most notable role since then is her role in the noughties favourite The Princess Diaries. She has also voiced several characters including the queen in Shrek 2 and Shrek 3, Gru’s mum in Despicable Me and as Karathen in Aquaman.
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The acclaimed actress has also narrated several film projects including Enchanted, The King’s Daughter and, of course, Bridgerton.
Throughout her impressive career, Andrews has won dozens of industry awards and several high honours including the AFI Life Achievement Award and is considered by many to be a living legend.
Her up-to-date Emmy win is simply another addition to a lifelong collection of accolades.
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