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Julie Andrews is a dazzling performer on stage and screen, with a career that spans many decades. She has been featured in numerous beloved musicals, including Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Sound of Music, and Mary Poppins, for which she received an Academy Award. Younger audiences from the early 2000s might know her better from her roles in more recent classics like The Princess Diaries and the popular Netflix series Bridgerton.
Throughout her professional life, Julie was united in marriage to two individuals: Tony Walton and Blake Edwards. While her union with Tony concluded in divorce, she remained married to Blake until his passing in 2010. Here’s a closer look at both of Julie’s husbands.
Tony Walton
Julie Andrews & Tony Walton on their wedding day (Linda Spillers/AP/Shutterstock).
Julie exchanged vows with British set and costume designer Tony Walton on May 10, 1959, in Weybridge, Surrey. The actress first encountered Tony in 1948 while performing in Humpty Dumpty. Growing up, Julie frequently performed alongside her mother and stepfather, and at the age of 13, she became the youngest performer to be featured in a Royal Variety performance.
After meeting Tony and developing a romantic connection, she got married at 24. They are parents to one child, a daughter named Emma, who is now a children’s author. Julie welcomed Emma in 1962, shortly before her breakthrough performance in Mary Poppins. Notably, Tony was the designer behind Mary Poppins’ unforgettable costumes for the film.
Actress Julie Andrews of ‘My Fair Lady’ fame pictured in the London Clinic with her new baby daughter. It was also announced today that Julie will make her film debut in Walt Disney’s ‘Mary Poppins.’ 28th November 1962. (Photo by Monte Fresco/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
The couple eventually divorced in 1968, and Julie later married director Blake Edwards (more details below). Tony passed away on March 2, 2022. Although their marriage was relatively brief, Julie shared fond reflections on their bond with PEOPLE after his death. “Tony was my dearest and oldest friend. He taught me to see the world with fresh eyes and his talent was simply monumental. I will miss him more than I can say.”
She further added, “We are a huge, blended family and as we hold each other close, we take comfort knowing that he lives on, not only in his children and grandchildren, but in the memories of thousands who cherished his warmth and generosity and the glorious gifts he gave us. Gifts of theatre and film, ballet and opera, the graphic arts and illustration.”
Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards & Julie Andrews (Linda Spillers/AP/Shutterstock).
Julie’s second marriage was to director Blake Edwards, a filmmaker, producer, and screenwriter, in 1969. In a 2015 interview with Good Morning Britain, Julie recounted meeting Blake a decade prior to their wedding, describing it as “ships that passed in the night at some event.”
They later crossed paths again, making eye contact at an LA intersection while driving from the same therapist’s office in opposite directions. “I was going one way and he was going the other,” Julie shared with the outlet. “He rolled down the window after smiling a couple of times, and he said, ‘Are you going where I just came from?’ … Very corny, sorry about that.”
Furthermore, in a conversation with Diane Sawyer, Julie expressed that she was “afraid” she was “trying very hard not to fall in love with him.” For Blake, the director behind classics such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Pink Panther, their memorable first encounter was “wonderfully Hollywood.”
At the time of this notable meeting, both Julie and Blake were already married (Julie to Tony Walton, mentioned earlier). In 1967, they each finalized their divorces from their respective spouses and reconnected, subsequently beginning a relationship.
Blake and Julie exchanged vows at Julie’s residence in November 1969, two years after they started dating. They continued to raise their family together (he had two children, Jennifer and Geoffrey from his initial marriage to Patricia Walker). Additionally, they adopted two daughters, orphan girls from Vietnam named Amy and Joanna. Their residences were spread internationally, including homes in LA, London, and Gstaad, Switzerland.
Blake died in 2010 at the age of 88 due to pneumonia complications, following a struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome. They had been married for 41 years at the time of his passing.
“Blake was the most charismatic and interesting fellow you could possibly meet,” Andrews reminisced during a talk promoting her 2019 memoir Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years. “He was hilariously funny and had such a dark sense of humor that just put me away, that I loved so much. But he was also, at times, a very depressive personality and had a very difficult time.”
The Sound of Music star recalled her challenging childhood, marked by an alcoholic mother and stepfather, as a potential reason for her attempts to “save” her husband from his “monsters.”
“You have to remember, I was very used to that kind of thing, because I was a very big codependent with my own family, and so I became that with Blake,” she stated.
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THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, Julie Andrews, 1967
MARY POPPINS, Julie Andrews, 1964