We are so excited to be back for a second season of Wiser Than Me. I have been and I really do mean this truly blown away by the support that this show has received. We really do have a lot to learn from the glorious older women in our lives. And to celebrate, I've got a super fun announcement to share with you. Wiser Than Me now has its very own merch. Yeah, merch. Our team has whipped up some items we think you're going to love. We're kicking
off the collection with a beautiful Wiser Than Me crossbody tote bag. Oh sure, you think you've got enough tote bags, but if you get one more tote bag, a Wiser Than Me tote bag, you'll have room to buy so many more heads of organic lettuce at the farmers market or to carry that second six pack of Mountain Dew from your local 7-11 all while brushing your teeth with both hands because it's crossbody hands-free baby. What I'm saying
is that this could be a life changer and this bag is made by Bagu. So it's super high quality and it's beautiful design features some of my favorite words of wisdom from the show. Head over to Wiser Than Me Shop.com and get two for yourself and then a bunch more for friends and family and presto holiday shopping done early. I am a hiker. I'm somebody who likes to get out on a trail in the hills and the mountains or along the beach just out in nature. It's an activity that brings me an enormous
amount of solace, of joy, peace of mind. Hiking can really change my mindset. In fact, as I'm saying this, I really got to get out there right now and move which I'm going to do right after we record. There is something about walking and looking at the natural world and feeling and smelling the world around me. Smells are important to me too. My memories are really full of smells for real. Where I live in California, we have seasons, believe
it or not. They're subtle, but we do have seasons that change and the smells and the air from the trees and all the shrubbery, the chaperale changes from season to season for month to month. And I love that. The pitice form, the sea anothus, the jasmine that blooms at night. I mean, one night you can't smell it at all. And then the next night, it's almost dizzyingly sweet. The orange blossoms with just our California to me, the eucalyptus
and the boxwood. Oh, well, I can't smell boxwood without thinking of my dad, my dear dad. This smells, you know, they wax and wane for month to month, from year to year, but they're also wonderful. And I find that if I'm having a hard time or if I'm anxious or if I'm trying to figure something out to get out of my head and to free up my brain, I really need to move in the outdoors. This, to a certain extent, has always been true for me, but as I've gotten
older, it's only become more and more true. My favorite thing to do is to go on a hiking trip. We did that last year with family and friends. We went to the Dolomites in Italy and we hiked thousands of vertical feet and many, many miles a day. And it was super hard and it was as good as it gets. And another benefit of being out walking or hiking in the natural world beyond the self-searching and meditative stuff is that it is a great opportunity
for conversation. Conversation can flow in a way that it just might not otherwise. I think maybe that's because you're both looking forward and you're not looking at each other that is sort of allows a kind of openness and maybe a deeper form of honesty. The ritual of walking and breathing at a pace together is just conducive to a more intimate conversation.
And in fact, it wasn't a hike with my college roommate and dearest friend Paula that we first discussed the idea for this very podcast and how to do it and what it might be like and how it would be devising, who it would be fun to talk to and where do we get the microphones from and what button is record, you know, all of this. And now look, here we are. We're finishing up our second season of being inspired and roused by all these mind-blowing old ladies. I mean, seriously, who to thunk it?
Something happens moving through the natural world, something deep rooted. They say that mountains are nature's cathedral and I do think that's true. You know, maybe the hills really are alive with the sound of music or with something otherworldly, something sacred and what, uh, divine. Mary Oliver has so many great poems about moving through nature
and this is one called Why I Wake Early. Hello, son in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories and into the windows of even the miserable and crotchety. Best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light. Good morning, good
morning, good morning. Watch now how I start the day in happiness, in kindness. Boy, that Mary Oliver, I'll tell you, yeah, the hills really are alive. How fitting then that for the last episode of this season we get to talk to Julie Andrews. Hi, I'm Julie, you'll be dryfish and this is Why's Are Them Me, the podcast where I get
schooled by women who are Why's Are Them Me. I was just four years old when the sound of music premiered in 1965 and for those of you listening who are not a lot in the 60s, we didn't have Netflix or Disney plus or Max or whatever. We didn't even have DVDs or VHS which meant that if you wanted to watch a movie you actually had to go to see it in
the theaters. Well, lucky for me, the sound of music was basically always playing when I was growing up which meant I got to go to the theater and see it as much as I wanted to which was a lot. I simply couldn't get enough. I've seen it more than I've seen any other movie. I mean, I've seen it dozens of times. I saw it last week for God's sakes. Most people have to think really hard for a minute to come up with their favorite movie
but not me, sound of music, that's it. And it's been since I can remember. Why do I love it so much? Well, for starters, it was the soundtrack of my childhood. So, yeah, it is a little hard for me to believe today's conversation is even happening because today we get to talk to the woman behind that incredible voice and performance. I mean,
are we lucky or what? Actually, are we lucky or what is the motto our guest lives by? According to her daughter, she'll even say it under the worst of circumstances, like in the middle of a thunderstorm when the power goes out. But a whole lot more than luck has shaped this
glorious woman's incomparable career. She's been working professionally since she was just 10 years old, performing in a vaudeville act with her family, singing all over England, even performing at age 13 for King George VI and the future Queen Elizabeth. She originated the leading roles in the Broadway productions of My Fair Lady and Camelot, the latter of which put her in front of the eyes of Walt Disney himself, who cast her in the iconic
role of Mary Poppins. And off she went to do all these other incredible films, SOB, Victor Victoria, the Americanization of Emily, and of course, there's the sound of music. And lucky for us, she's still working today. She's a prolific author who's written dozens of children's books with her daughter Emma and continues to star in some of the most beloved family films in history, like Princess Diaries and Shrek. You'll even hear her voice as Lady
Whistle Down in Bridgerton on Netflix. So I am a little overcome that today I'll be talking to the Academy Award winning Emmy winning Grammy winning BAFTA winning Songstress herself, a true English rose, the star of my favorite movie, a woman who is so much wiser than me, Dame Julie Andrews. Hi, Julie. Hello, my dear. How are you? I'm so good. I'm so good. I'm very happy to meet you, my dear. Oh, I'm so happy to meet you too. I've never had as good an introduction as that.
Thank you so much, Julia, of Salone, a name that is actually my name too. I was born in present Julia and it was changed to Julie when my mother remarried Ted Andrews and Julia Andrews didn't roll off the tongue as well as Julie. Yes. So they changed it. I didn't know much about it at the time. But do people call you Julia ever? No, only maybe great aunts and people like that. Yes. Mostly, no, I'm Julie and have been for a long long time. Well, it suits you. Are you at home?
I am at home. And where is where is that? I'm in Santa Barbara, California. Oh, no. Yes. Then you know my charm carols very well. Yes, you know my charm carols very well. We've become friends as a matter of fact. She's adorable and it's such a great friend. Oh, well, we'll talk about that. So Julie, are you comfortable if I ask your real age? Yeah, I don't mind at all. I'm I am I believe 88. And how old do you feel? Well, I probably feel like in my sister's,
honest to God, as long as the brain holds out, I'm doing okay. You know, and I don't feel bad at all. No. Well, what do you think is the best part of being your age, Julie? I don't know. There are times when it's a nuisance. And I want to do, well, I want to do more and I want to exercise more and all of those things. But with the accompanying sort of aches and pains, I bitch a lot about it. But I actually, the best part is to a certain extent, people leave me alone and that I rather like.
Because otherwise, but I mean, I'm being slightly for seizures. No, that's fine. You can just let it all hang out. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. But wait a minute, when you say they leave you alone, what does that actually, in fact, mean because of your age? What does that mean? And no, it's because I don't do as much. I don't go out as much and I love being home. Oh, yeah. And so
life is quieter these days. But I kind of enjoyed that pulling back a little bit now. And I, of course, I got a million thoughts and ideas and hope that I can keep going for a great deal longer. But who knows? And I'm just pleased that I've arrived here. Oh, I'm so pleased you've arrived here too. You know, the, the, the, when we were putting together a wish list to have these
conversations with various people, you are absolutely at the top of that wish list. So I want to just take a breath and say, thank you again for being here today because I admired you my entire life. Well, I'm thrilled to have been asked Julia and it's a lovely medium to, to be on. Yeah. And to see your face and you're seeing mine. And yet here we are in our privately in our homes. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I'll be lucky. All right. That's exactly right. Now listen, I was so pleased,
Julie, to discover that you love cursing. You're a cursor. Am I right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're very body free. Yeah. And I honestly, I myself, I mean, I feel to a certain extent that I've kind of built half of my career on that. And I even cursed once in front of Elmo on Sesame Street back in the day. Do you have a favorite curse word? No, not really. I mean, on an average every day, there's isn't a couple of them, say, it's pop in. But more, um, oh, God, what favorite curse word? Yeah.
My mother had a beautiful curse word because she was, she was much boredier and alive than I was or am. But because of the times and because she was raised as they say in Cockney, she was brung up proper. She was say, Oh, P Po bum draws, meaning knickers. And so P obviously, Po meaning the commode and bum being your backside and, um, draws being a knickers. So it resonated. I don't say it. I just remember it vividly and I would laugh always. That's hilarious. And what's particularly
funny is that it seems so benign to me. That's to me, right? Yeah. But I mean, I'm not, I don't go into it much. I don't think I curse as much as everybody else thinks I do. And maybe because it's Mary, pop, I'm uttering whatever I utter. And I go at it whenever I need to. But, uh, I think that's a surprise, really. Yes, I think so because you played so many so-called good girl characters. Mm-hmm. What's your go to word, Julie? Oh, well, come on, Julie, it's fuck. Yeah. Well, I do have
some of this mostly. I guess mostly shit. Is it with me? You're not that bad. You're not like me. I know. No, it's true. I'm very bad. And, you know, I did a show, uh, uh, called Veepe. And there was a lot. It was very, very show. But, you know, of course, the Brits use certain words that Americans are taken aback by. You know the ones I'm talking about. I know they do. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I won't, I think I won't utter those words today. But, you know, the ones I'm talking about
for female anatomy. And I, it really became a part of my vocabulary after a couple of years in their presence. I have to say, well, that's very useful sometimes. I really do think. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is too. But, you know, it's funny that you say that I think that maybe you just utter a shit and people are probably, uh, maybe it takes their breath away because, of course, all the characters you play were very sort of polyanna types. It was good. It's good.
Girls. Exactly. In what ways do you think, uh, that good girl image has served you or has gotten in your way, if you were going to say? That's a good question. Uh, I think to the extent that I began to be typecast for my image and it's so far from the truth. I mean, I'm a much, I know I'm a much more body, uh, broad, as they used to say, uh, then, then Mary Poppies or whatever. But it, um, it's now of no consequence because I've done enough that's different.
Yes indeed. And I think, I think enough people know, uh, that know me that it's, it's, I'm not that preman proper. Of course, I'm, of course. Although my voice sometimes, uh, gets in the way or gives me a way, one of the two. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, are you a rebel? Are you, are you, are you, are you a nonconformist? You, Julie Anders? Oh, I hope so. I do. Yeah. I am, I think. But not to the extent, I mean, as Eliza do a little, used to say, oh, a good girl I am. And I kind of know
when to be a rebel and when not to be, I like to be a family when working. I'm sure you do too, Julia. It's so lovely to have great collaborators and great people around you and all of that. And when you find them, you must cling to them, don't you think? I think so. Yes, I do. Keep them in your orbit. Yes. For real? Yeah, because it's very, very good. And as you have pointed out on one or two podcasts, I think now that laughter is, yeah, obviously phenomenal,
but it's such a joy and it's frees you up so much. Yeah. And if you can be really healthily, anything from boredies, you're laughing your head off or weeping with laughter, that's where I land, I think. Yeah, that's the best possible place to be, isn't it? It's, I mean, all sorts of endorphins, I think, are released. I mean, it's actually a physical reality that laughing is a release. It's a release and it's good physically for the body. It is good. And I think
weeping too is, but sometimes when the two get combined, I get helpless. I mean, I love so hard, and I weep so much at the idiocy of what I'm hearing. But really, but of course, I was married for 40s, three years to play, play, and if you don't laugh with that man, then you better get out of the room, you know, he made me laugh so hard sometimes. Oh, I'm sure. And I think that it's partially what held our marriage together, the great laughter.
We'll get more wisdom from Juliandres after this super quick break. Stay tuned. Makers Mark Bourbon is a sponsor on this season of Wieser Than Me and Makers Mark is offering you a way to honor the special women in your life in an easy and meaningful way. The co-founder of Makers Mark, Margie Samuels left her own mark on the brand. She was the designer behind the red wax dip,
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Can you believe how fast this year is flying by? Life sure moves pretty quickly if we're not being mindful, and that's why it's so important to step back and celebrate what we've accomplished so far this year no matter how big or small it may be. And it's also important to reassess our goals and adjust our paths as needed to. A good therapist is there as your guide on that path,
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woman's sort of ability to assert themselves or negotiate for themselves? Is that? I'm not sure about that part of it. I think that my mom who was very much boredier and more alive than I seem to be. But she used to say there's always somebody around that can do it better than you. And so do do do do good things and and and be grateful because there are so many people that can that have talent but don't get the breaks and that don't and that's I think where I land mostly.
And it's all a learning experience. I'm still learning. You know I was interested that you said that you hid your Oscar for Mary Poppins in the attic for a while and I was wondering did you feel you didn't deserve it? Probably yes I think that's true. I didn't want to show off. I was very new to this lovely craft that were all in and in terms of movies and things and also I did have a punch maybe that perhaps it was given in lieu of not getting the role of Eliza in the movie of
my fair lady. And I had been passed up for that and I understood it perfectly well but of course it may be sad that I couldn't have a good crack at it on film. Though I'd never done the movie before when I made Mary Poppins so thank goodness Walt saw something that was appropriate for Mary and I didn't mind not doing my fair lady but but I wish I'd had a chance of some kind
to put it down on record. I did do excerpts on television and on different shows but it would have been fun and interesting to see what became of Eliza Doolittle when if I had been in you know my job was in the show for about three and a half years. So you felt like to a certain extent you owned it it was you you felt the character you were playing you gave your heart and
soul to it. Well it took me a long time to get there but I mean I had a long time to get there and yeah it was something like that but I really felt that in a way the the academy was generous enough to honor me for Poppins because in a way it was saying you should have got the other one or something like that there was so much talk about it at the time. So I kind of hid the Oscar away. I didn't want to show off. I didn't want to parade it in my office or anything
like that. But I hope it's out of the attic. Is it? Oh yeah it is yes. I mean I was absolutely thrilled and my mother was terribly thrilled. But I think I was very grateful to it. So beautiful beginning and I couldn't have been more welcomed. Your acceptance speech by the way is divine. Oh you know how swole ago. Yeah right. Yeah and Americans do. I didn't mean to say you Americans but yeah that's right but I felt bad. Yeah they really do. Yeah. So by the way your memoir so
beautiful. Oh thanks. You've done your own work my goodness. Yes well we take this seriously. I mean you take the time to talk to us. We want to take the time to come at you with you know thoughtful stuff based on what you've done. Thank you. But in your memoir you said something that struck me that I thought was interesting. You describe your childhood self as being bossy. Oh that's easy. Tell me what ways were you bossy? Well I had three brothers and I was
the eldest child. So of course they thought me bossy and because my parents were in showbiz and traveled a lot and were away a lot I usually ended up being the head on show in the family when they were away because I was the eldest. And so I think bossy was given I was given that name by then probably more than anybody. Yes but yeah I can be a bit bossy but only you know we get a reputation for that and yet it's only in search of something being as good as it possibly can
and it's not being bossy. Yes. Yeah. I'm sure you feel that way. I do. I think I'm probably very bossy. In fact I'm sure about I'm sure that my husband would say you don't look very bossy. I can be very tough. How long have you been married? I've been married for weight 36 years. 37 actually coming up. Yeah so good. Quite a while. Quite an achievement too. Yes it is. Yeah it is. I'm proud although I also am like oh my god that's so long it's like yeah but in a way
you go through so many phases in a marriage. Boy I'll say yeah. You know there's physical love and adoration and admiration and then there comes the kind of understanding love and then the tolerant love and the understanding of your mate more and it just there's so many phases that one goes through I feel. Yeah and I don't know how Blake and I managed it but we did and I also admired him very much and as I say he made me laugh and anybody that does that is great in my book.
It's a keeper but Julie you had a pretty chaotic upbringing with your family battling poverty and alcoholism. Well you have to remember Julia I didn't know anything else. Yeah. It's the what was what was handed to me and it became I became so incredibly fortunate. I thank God for
the gift of singing and a singing voice. I had a phenomenal teacher who was with me until she passed away and I had such unbelievable help that I think age is about passing on teaching what you know in a gentle way or said I don't think it's exactly setting an example but I'd loved
and hope to do one of those podcasts that are in a class a master class and I'm talking about that because I thought in terms of performing and particularly with lyrics and using them well and so on there's a number of wonderful ways to do that and I'd love to pass that on to young singers who are very talented but don't have that extra bullet in their gun if you know what I'm saying. What is that extra bullet Julie? Is it about absorbing the lyrics and
acting them? Well every every song is the I mean I can't sing a song that doesn't have good lyrics and that sounds very stupid but for instance the memory there's this I don't mean to put it down it's a pretty melody but remember feelings oh whoa whoa oh feelings well I couldn't do that song
I wasn't good at doing the oh whoa whoa and things like that I had to find a way to delve into the song and find out what it meant and I once couldn't sing a song it was a blues song called Come Rain or Come Shine which I'm sure you know and wish I adore it's Harold Arlem and you know I'm gonna love you like nobody's love come Rain or Come Shine and my tutor one day said I said I it's not my kind of song I don't sing sort of bluesy or that kind of deep song and she said
make it about the theater now think of the lyrics and oh my god it changed my life. Oh isn't that wonderful offer and so um wow uh I said oh and so you know I'm gonna be true if you let me I'm you know come Rain or Come Shine in or the way out of the money but I'm with you always come
Rain or Come I mean it couldn't be more appropriate to being in this wonderful business and I know you'll get exactly what I mean so it's get that kind of thing what you mean and if you can find your way into a song that's right if it's something else but you make it a
as a song about how you feel about your husband when he's standing at the dresser after his shower or something like that it brings into it if you make that if you take it on an adopt that attitude it's very very helpful well it's it's an acting exercise is really what you're describing of course
it's all about that I'm big on lyrics I've directed a few things which I loved doing and to see young people and talented people suddenly grasp that if you just emphasize that word or or think about it let's go and do that again and so on it can be enormously helpful and was to me
over the years you know it's all learning and you never stop well I'm jumping around here because since we're talking about lyrics recently just a couple days ago I watch sound of music for the three thousandth time happily so and I was so struck because first of all my favorite things the
lyrics for that tune a great don't they yes and what I was so struck by was the lyrics are like a basis for a gratitude practice almost like yes cognitive behavioral therapy yes simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad and but also picking your
favorite things or remembering them as you say identify all of that yes mind you when I did that and I don't mean to cop out but that was my second movie and so I didn't know as much about it as I do now and I wish that I'd known some of the things I know now but but except Julie in that
performance that you gave I hear what you're saying that perhaps you weren't thinking of it quite like that then but you're in your instinct when you perform that song and how you absorbed it a conveyed that regardless it really did and our music can director salt chaplain a very lovely guy
who worked hand in glove was Robert Wise our director he said why don't we try reciting the first two lines you know raindrops on roses oh and with crystals on then the orchestra comes in and I was so grateful to him because it was exactly what I thought
should be done but he said go with it and the orchestra it went with it and it sort of brought a song from dialogue into music in a lovely way yes it was seamless absolutely seamless and the same by the way is true not to harp too much on this but in the sound of music the themes of nature
actually the themes of nature throughout the entire film are that's very much where Oscar Hamstein was I mean he and all his songs have birds and nature brought into them I mean to be truthful no it's not very it's churly shot me one of the lyrics that I couldn't wrap my head
around the only one in the entire film was like a lock who is learning to pray and that was a list and so I rushed through it as quickly as I can and got onto the next line or the next stanza because I don't know how to say that but let me ask you question is that because it didn't make
sense to yes yeah because it I thought it was a bit sort of a you know artsy farcy and but Oscar loved to write like that and and set the pattern for that and trained sonheim and all those brilliant composers and sonheim ran with that but just came up with such a stringent lyrics that
would be he is I think my warmest one of my favorite lyricists he is my favorite lyricist forget about it he is absolutely incredible I think that is so amazing that that one phrases that's something like a stuck on yeah yes and you blew past it and that's good and it's about the
natural world that tune it's about the value of being in nature you know what the Japanese often call forced bathing again sort of a practice they really I've never heard that yes isn't it marvelous no that's wonderful yeah I get it this whole notion of being out in the wilderness it's a
forest bath and that we all must do it that tune absolutely speaks to that and I know that your life in the natural world you have a huge bond with Switzerland and I do and also my garden and what I put in my garden and I can't wait for spring this year because with all this rain
it's going to look beautiful my daffodils will come out and my blue wells will come out and I try to nothing like obsessive way but I like to kind of plan a succession of things that I can look forward to blossoming and so on love all that Julie we have that in common because I do the same
I have my daffodils are coming up now my blue bell oh yes and I have daffodils and narcissists and then when they peter out my blue bells will come up and it's a blue world and when yes lovely I'm so pleased you're I that's so special I'm glad we have that in common what what
tell me about your life in Switzerland how much time do you spend there and what do you do when you're there I'm dying to know well Blake and I have had a shallet there oh for 60 years maybe now just after we first met we took a vacation with our kids not just after but you know when we were really a team and and beginning to be a family and we fell in love with this beautiful place called starred in Switzerland and the beauty of it is stunning I mean stunning and you talk about wildflowers
blooming and things like that my dad was a great lover also of of the nature and so my real dad that is or the man I thought was my real dad but he he taught me so much about tree he could out he could see the outline of a tree in winter and know what it was and I could not do that and I've been
trying ever since and can't he said oh that's a lime tree or that's a such and such tree but it didn't have a blossom on it you know so you said the man that you thought was your real dad so you're real dad oh no my mum when I was about 14 said to me she we'd gone to some kind of
event and a man sat and talked to me for quite a while and obviously it had been planned and on the way home she said did you like him and I said yeah okay I struck me as odd that he spent as much time on me at this odd party and she said well he was your dad in fact actually and I
could feel this freight train coming at me but in fact it all worked out pretty well because it was nothing I could do about it and he always sent me a loving Christmas card but didn't interfere my request because I didn't know whether the man I thought was my dad knew after he passed away
it transpires that he did and it didn't make any difference and I wish he and I could have talked about it more but I loved him so much for that he was a darling and he was a he absolutely was a country man and the man I thought was my real dad and I had vacations with him and all of that
because in truth he was my dad he raised me you know the man that I thought was my dad yeah I mean whenever I could see him I did and what would that conversation have been like how'd you been able to talk to him do you think well I don't know I just know that I think it would have
made an even more more understand on my part even more love for him once I found out my love that knew no bounds because he was so generous and had no compunction and taking me on and was so proud of me and never ever let me feel that I wasn't his daughter and since I didn't know he was
my dad and he did raise me so truthfully that's where I arrived eventually but the man that raised me he was a lovely nature man and he too would drive me to certain places in the country where the blue bells were rampant and and he oddly enough like a lock who's learning to pray he took me
up a hill near where he used to live in sorry the county of sorry in England and he said one night I he collected me from the steerser brought me down to spend a weekend with him and he said I want to just hear something and he got me out of the car at the crest of the hill and said and he took
me to a five bar gate a big country gate and said now listen and nightingales all over the south downs were singing and you can imagine how magical that was and that's the kind of nature man he he was and he taught me I think my love of books my love of writing you know um 76 this man that I
thought was my dad went back to college and got a degree in German at 76 I mean he was an amazing man he said well I got to do something I got to use my brain and he was loved and loved poetry he got a degree in German you said speaking German speaking German so he took on a new
language at 76 that's extraordinary it's extraordinary yeah that's right it's time for a quick break but don't worry there's more with Julie Andrews and just a bit when you think about it half the time you're traveling during a vacation is spent on the way back
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peloton and choose a flexible payment plan that works for you at one peloton.com slash financing so i want to talk about friendship uh we had carol burnette on this podcast i heard her i heard her and i love her so much isn't she divine yes she is and honest and real yeah and unbelievably talented i mean i admire her so much i do too and she makes me better and uh which is odd she brings out the worst in me the most baudi tell me i do not know why but she does and uh we laugh a
lot well what is it about her that you connected with when you when you first met we're very similar in some ways she had a grand mar that raised her parents that were alcoholics as i did and um one way and another we in in our own countries you know i'm from england she's from here uh we bonded
tremendously straight away with it was as if two ladies discovered that they lived on the same block and they hadn't ever been introduced but once they were it was uh we bonded straight away and every ten years as you probably know we managed to get a special made together and each special
so it became first of all it was like who are you dating and you know are you going to get married and so on then it was about uh parent-teacher conferences and having to get pick up the kids from school and then eventually by the time of the third or whatever the outing that we had together
uh on film or tape it was like uh do you tape met a mussel and stuff like that and it and we don't see each other as much as i wish we did because she's on one end of the country and now i'm out here on the east coast but uh it doesn't matter it doesn't matter where we are we just pick up
where we left off it's so easy yeah that's a true friendship and the very first one we did together which was julienne carol at Carnegie Hall i'll never forget that she was the one that gave me the strength and the courage and we before we taped which was twice we taped one big rehearsal and then
the big night and um i remember we made an entrance she on one side of the stage and i was on the other side and we looked at each other across the stage we were about to make that first entrance and we were doing thumbs up and blowing kisses but it was because i could see her across from me
and i felt her strength and i also knew she knew mine and so you had each other's backs yeah we were there and we weren't there to pull rank and we weren't going to be foolish i hope well foolish in the right way yes of course yeah and you must have met then uh doing theater in
New York because she was probably doing uh uh what mattress or whatever oh well um yes it probably was i met uh during camelot when i was there and uh yes she was and i first of all did um one of her shows which was the garing more show that she was on that's right and then she
she did um once upon a mattress i uh happily was able to see that because um her day off was uh i guess my day off yeah and so uh my manager at the time said you two have to eat you'll adore each other which is quite often the kiss of death as you kiss the time they don't know what they're
talking about but in this case it was a great good fortune magical and nobody else got a word in edge ways and so you've stayed connected all these years it's quite remarkable all these years i wonder is there any advice you might have to give to people who are listening to this
to younger people about cultivating and maintaining friendships which i think personally are one of the big keys to longevity and wellness well why would anybody pull rank when your friends are so loyal and talented and smart and how lovely that you can all bond and either work together
or appreciate each other in some way i don't know um i just think it's great and all of i just about love everybody that i have worked with and uh actually can't remember anybody that ticked me off in in such a way that i wasn't happy and that is such a good fortune i think oh yeah it certainly is
bravo to both of you thank you it's fabulous okay so let's let's switch gears for a second i wanted to talk to you about your voice um you you started having trouble with it in 1997 yeah i think you had nodules on your vocal cords julie is that right how how should i explain it no it wasn't
that was what was so painful to comprehend eventually it wasn't that at all how can i explain it well enough when you if you hop on one knee long enough uh and it sounds stupid when you hop on one leg long enough that leg will buckle and you will get a kind of striation in the limb uh that is just
a bit um it's muscle and uh oh there's another word i'm looking for like a stress Bradshaw or a tear or like tissue that that uh becomes a little bit more hardened because you've been using it so much but it did lead think of this it did lead to my saying i've got to do i mean
a year of waiting and depression and all those kind of things but it led to my finding a new life uh which is the one with my daughter and writing i thought i have to do something and be good for something or good at begin to be good at something and that's what came out of it and i've got
an over it i think i would have stopped singing pretty quickly anyway because i was getting that much older and uh i would have been 65 or something when i finally began writing with my Emma and it's been such a joy this part of my life this latter part of my life that um i have
gotten over it it was a bad period but um and i you can imagine i adore music and i love classical music and all of those things but can you talk a little bit about the experience i mean you had surgery and did you know after it that something had changed for you that something had
had shifted for you yeah absolutely yeah it wouldn't recover it wouldn't recover and i eventually found an absolutely superb um uh vocal uh not coach um doctor and he cleared anything up that he could which is why i'm able to speak and i'm not boss yeah and um i can't
sing now though that's the thing and i miss it very very very much and so so let's talk about sort of the process of making the adjustment to this july because i think you know a lot of people well frankly people have lost in their lives uh a varying degrees right um
what they do and fall away some well but but yours was a radical loss i would say and um you know i had i had uh breast cancer diagnosis uh i don't uh seven years ago now and i had to go through that thank you but i'm fine but it was uh again it's a loss huge huge
yeah huge uh learning curve i would think yeah yeah it's it's your body that you know so fundamentally and that you rely on so completely yes i understand that very very well i do you understand it and it's really there's a shift that happens emotionally and
it is actually but you know what i learned is that uh i was still july i couldn't do that craft and yours you've discovered look at the strengths you've had since then and what the the opportunities and so on that wasn't all that was jurea right so so what advice what would you say
to those who are trying to you know get back up get past something yeah what do you think uh i'm not very good at answering that question because i don't have it fully in my head but i think it's to do with find what you love keep doing something because
women of my age uh can keep being useful that's really a can keep giving pleasure and i wish that i could find a voice again but i found it in my daughter Emma when i bemoaned my fate one day and was getting a bit teary she said mom you've just found a different way to use your voice now
and that the penny dropped in my brain and i became a lot more content and now my whole focus is on communicating teaching writing and helping the arts as much as i can and combining them in some way which is lovely oh yes it's lovely so you met your second husband Blake Edwards in the parking lot
of your therapist's office is that right no but meeting him was on sunset boulevard and i don't you probably know that there's that huge medium across sunset and you can go across that and i had to park in the middle of the medium because it had cars going both ways and cars zooming
down sunset boulevard so i pulled up and waited for the traffic to clear and uh rose voice on the other side pulled up and i looked over and smiled at the very handsome man not in any way thinking anything but just smiled because it happened again and then it happened again and finally
the window of the rolls another day was wound down and Blake said hello i'm Blake Edwards your Julie and i said yes i want an honor and thrilled to meet you he said are you coming are you going to where i just came from and that was analysis my analyst and so yeah we got to
talking and then not too many weeks later i received a call and asked if he could come by he asked if he could come by and run by an idea that he had and that was the first movie we ever made together that was finally made and it was a flop was that darling Lily that was darling
Lily a huge flop and how we ever stayed together after that i don't know but we did and then of course eventually married several years later oh that's so lovely what about him directing you what was that like since you were you know first boyfriend and girlfriend and then a married couple
i know what about him do i did you like it did you like him as a director when he directed you oh i liked him very much and i felt very very safe uh-huh because he was like he was a good director and didn't waste time you know playing director he knew his shots he knew what he wanted
and it was very knowledgeable about film and all of those things i couldn't feel more sick oh that's nice and he had you know six ideas a week yeah and would want to get all of them done and i would think oh yeah you know we'll see about that and then they mostly all came to pass and when i
started writing he was my biggest he encouraged the most of anybody and said darling is what i sort of an idea and thought he might like it and he said do it just keep the pages piling up and um you have said that he had a depressive personality right yes he did and how did you
navigate that as a couple and as his wife by learning more and more about how to deal with it and with the help of good therapy and things like that and i did know when he he would obviously because he was a depressive at times it would have a peak and then it would disappear he loved working he
loved writing so when he was doing that he was usually pretty great um but uh it was other times and he was um he was very sad at times and knowing his background i'm not surprised have you struggled with depression Julie um yes but not not like not like i mean occasionally
no i mean i was depressed when i did have my surgery very depressed but then uh happily time and learning and beginning to do something else uh uh came along and that was very good for me oh i bet so not only are you a grandmother you are a great grandmother right
yes i am yeah okay so you're the first great grandmother we've had on this show so i'm very excited about that how would you yes how would you characterize the difference between being a grandmother and then a great grandmother is there how do you distinguish those
relationship great grandmother is a tiny bit more removed than being a grandma because it's the generations kind of well children get raised differently at times and so on but um in terms of the blessing that they all are and how sweet they all are especially the babies um i don't
i don't care whether it's a grand grandchild or a great grandchild it could be a great great if i get so lucky yes but um i have five kids with my own yes and um then i have like ten grandchild and then they have like three or four i don't know if there are any more hanging around
or waiting in the wings as we say uh but um they're oh god they're so adorable when they're little too and uh july what do they call you granny jewels oh that j o o l s mostly i'm known as granny jewels granny jewels is lovely people call me jewels do they call you jewels
yes yeah how do you spell your jewels j u l e s yeah i've been that and now i'm double o l o s yeah just i don't know why but it seemed easy yeah it does okay jules double o l s um at the end of these conversations i always ask a couple of quick questions for sure this has
been such a delight to talk to you it's just been like a dream uh okay so here's the first question um is there something you'd go back and tell yourself when you're 21 oh well it's something that i get asked a lot in terms of what advice do you have for younger people and i think what i
tried to convey to everybody is finally learning the pleasure of singing and giving giving it back to others i used to do it by wrote i was in my parents voteable act and then i went out on my own for years but it was all because i had to and we needed the money and i would come
on stage and kind of class my hands and sing my big r r r and so on but when i learned that i could give people pleasure and really mean that i did uh that realized that they come to the theatre paying good money to see something and that they go away hopefully feeling happier and more
enlightened let's say at it's it's something i learned when i was about oh 24 i think something like that and i would say if you're passionate do your homework to all the young people trying because if you don't you won't have as many chances you won't be as good and so it's all about doing your
homework and then giving it and giving the pleasure of it and do you is there something that you would like me to know about aging from where you sit right now well uh yes i tell me mostly i say aging sucks but but it but it doesn't really and since there's no alternative why bitch so much about it
and try to find out what i can still do and what i love to do and what gives me pleasure and so on i say yeah and what are you looking forward to what's something you're looking forward to um directing other things passing on more books if i can because i do love doing them i'm still learning about
writing but um as long as people like what's coming out i will continue and i hope to get more and more confident and better you know i but i mean i would love to direct more too so before we say goodbye i want to tell you that uh last year i took a trip with actually my very friend Paula who produces this podcast with me my friend from college yeah and we went hiking in the dolomites and oh yes and so and the wildflowers were bananas excuse it i can imagine and of course what did
we see when we got to high altitudes we saw it was nice that's right and so i wanted to show you the picture of the eight of ice and we took how lovely isn't that lovely yes and every time i have to say it was such um every time we would see one i would scream eight of ice eight of ice and it's
one of my favorite songs by the way from the sound of music that and my favorite things but eight of ice is about anyone's hometown and beloved i love it too and i used to finish my my variety act with that and with a full orchestra it is almost enough to render me very tearful
at times because it's very pretty it's very pretty it's very um it it's a tender song well i have no trouble bringing back happy memories or warm feelings or and to hear the orchestrations i love singing with an orchestra it's like my the one thing i'd love to end with this
when you love what you do and when you sing with a symphony orchestra i tell you it's like my singing teacher used to say singing with a symphony orchestra is like we lift it up in the most comfortable armchair you could sit in and being carried over the orchestra and of course it stimulates you to sing better to try harder and i loved making albums and things like that very much what joy it's not a lovely analogy of how all of that turns you on to be better than you ever thought
you maybe better than you ever thought you could be yeah it's absolutely gorgeous and it's a great metaphor too for a connection because there you are with other musicians who are lifting you up you no doubt are lifting them up as well and so they're i don't know about that but no i guarantee
they attack if they tap their stands at the end of the recording or whatever it's a great accolade but the point being that connection is everything don't you think julie yes i do well i want to thank you for speaking with us today this was a treasure it was a lovely interview julie it was nice
talking about all the things or all my favorite things as they say yeah it really was and i wish you nothing but happiness and health and laughter thank you that's what's gonna do it isn't it yeah it is i think so i hope we meet again soon julie i do too julie i hope we are paths cross i'm i just
i give you my love if somebody loves carol as much as i do and you do we're all gonna meet again mother again i'm gonna text her after we finish and i'm gonna tell her i just spoke with you and so but what gives her my love i will give my chum my love i will indeed
okay well she's just as delightful as i dreamed she'd be god what a perfect way to end season two my mom is gonna freak out when i tell her about this okay i gotta get her on a zoom call hi mommy hi love hi so i just spoke to julie enters if you can even believe that i'm telling you that
oh oh oh oh my god julie and i know like part of our our DNA yeah for real because she was such a huge part of our family and our childhood don't you think and in a kind of perfect way you know she was sort of a perfect gifted performer yeah absolutely she looked perfect she spoke perfectly
and she sang perfectly well one of the stories i grew up with was Mary Poppins and my friend julie used to read all the Mary Poppins books and then she would tell me about them so i had in my image of this Mary Poppins it was always sort of around in the trees and so forth and she was a perfect
Mary Poppins yeah she really hit that one out of the park so you know speaking of perfection she i don't know if you know this but she had a lot of vocal trouble and actually it was very hard for her to talk about it from multiple reasons but her singing voice is highly compromised which
is a great tragedy really and she has overcome this which is beautiful i mean she has found her way through that with the help of her daughter and therapy and she's become a writer which has given her a new voice in fact which is wonderful but it really did it made me think about you because when
i was 18 you got an acoustic neuroma which is a benign tumor but it was in your in your ear deep within your ears on a brain stem so i had this i had the test after test after test and finally it was determined that i had a neuroma on my right my right brain stem brain stem and i went from
you know playing tennis and just doing my my life and all of a sudden this happened and uh i remember that you drove you drove me down to the hospital and your sisters were in the car and when i got out of the the car and daddy was going to meet me in the hospital and when i got
out of the car i remember just a flash for a moment i thought to myself i may never see my girls again oh oh oh because in the the olden days that is just a 20 years before acoustic neuromas could kill people because the surgery was so intricate and so i faced that and so i went into the surgery
and and then came came out of the surgery and then i as i was recovering i very slowly began to comprehend that i was deaf in my right ear can you talk about that transition and what that was like for you mummy you know the thing about it is that it's so much can happen in life
which is that you are going along and you in your whole and you don't even think about your hearing or your taste or your vision because everything works all i can say is that it it equipped me to know that the these wonderful things that we have that we take for granted that we have with which are
human bodies that in a flash uh you can be taken and then i think about julie andruz because it didn't take away my my life force although it did throw me into writing in a certain way uh i'm never right understood exactly what that process has been in me but but it i did find i
mean i'm so happy that chief found writing and i'm so happy that i found writing as a way of going beyond loss or going into into a new life and um i always loved literature but it never occurred to me to make it and making of it i i think really it thrust me into making and in a way i don't think
i would have otherwise i think i would have continued to just receive literature that is um amazing and i hadn't considered the connection between your hearing loss and then your sort of fervor for writing and how it sort of took hold for you and for our listeners just in case
you're interested my mother's written two books of poetry mom what are the names of the two books of poetry uh the gatherer is at first and uh the unlocatable source is the second unlocatable source that's uh as interesting in view of what we're talking about because uh in a way
i wouldn't have known then that maybe a loss had led me toward the importance of expression i mean and i know uh julie andruz work she is a wonderful writer and she's written with her daughter too which is a wonderful thing and it makes me feel so good to think that i'm like i
in some way like her or i found the same path yes and in some ways she's like you and that's really nice i think that that is a perfect way to end this particular season of wise for them me this is the end of season two mom if you can believe it oh honey season two
you believe season two this is no well i have to say something um my friends who are older women have appreciated and enjoyed what you're doing on this this so much and it is so important to have older women listen to and maybe even for them to begin to appreciate who they are and what
they've done because someone's telling your story it's like you have a new appreciation of it so even they're telling it i think is a is a wonderful thing for for women to do me too i think so too so there you go mommy there you go honey well listen uh you're you're a lot wiser than me
now ma you're wiser than me well it works both ways it works both ways is that beautiful yes it's a duble yeah yeah i love you mommy i love you honey talk to you later okay bye bye there's more wiser than me with levinata premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus
content from each episode of the show subscribe now in apple podcasts make sure you're following wiser than me on social media we're on instagram and tiktok at wiser than me and we're on facebook at wiser than me podcast wiser than me is a production of levinata media created and hosted by me
julie luidryfus this show is produced by christie peace jameela zirah williams Alex mikoan and oha lopez brad hall is a consulting producer ray chelneal is VP of new content and our svp of weekly content and production is steve nelson executive
producers are paulakaplan Stephanie widdles wax jesica kordova kramer and me the show is mixed by john evince evans with engineering help from james sparber and our music was written by henry hall who you can also find on spotify or wherever you listen to your music special thanks to will shlegal
and of course my mother judy bulls well we've had a great run dear listeners and because this is our last episode of the season and because it takes a lot of people to make a show like this you wouldn't believe it really i wanted to peel back the curtain and quickly thank all of the many wise people
who helped make this podcast possible our rock star marketing team includes lizi bryer boman jacky westfall sahar baharlue rose dennes amber jirardi robinson sarah Richardson and shenan lock thanks to our friends in business development cc dong brin val bowdurtha mia the key
arti ron russ and dainna wikens with additional support from catherin barns ryan kastio autumn dornfeld christina perdomo Fernandez rochelle green and noisement follow wiser than me wherever you get your podcasts and if there's an old lady in your life listen up
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