Blake Edwards

Blake Edwards

Blake Edwards (born July 26, 1922) is an Academy Award-winning American film director, screenwriter, and producer.

Born William Blake Crump in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Edwards was the son of a stage director. He began his career as an actor and script-writer, including seven screenplays for Richard Quine.

His early career as a script-writer was for radio. His hard-boiled private detective scripts for Richard Diamond, Private Detective became NBC's answer to Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, reflecting Edwards' unique humor. Edwards also created, wrote and directed the 1959 TV series Peter Gunn, with music by Henry Mancini. In the same year Blake Edwards produced, with Mancini's musical theme Mr. Lucky, an adventure series on CBS starring John Vivyan and Ross Martin. Mancini's association with Edwards continued in his film work, significantly contributing to their success.

Edwards' most popular films have been comedies, the alcoholism-themed melodrama Days of Wine and Roses being a notable exception. His most fruitful collaboration has been with Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther movies.

In 2004 Edwards received an Academy Honorary Award for cumulative achievements over the course of his film career. His acceptance speech was noted for not mentioning Peter Sellers, his long time collaborator.

Edwards' second wife (from 1969) is Julie Andrews, who has appeared in a number of his films including Darling Lili, 10, Victor/Victoria and the autobiographical satire S.O.B., in which Andrews played a character who was a caricature of herself. In 1995, he wrote the book for the stage musical adaptation of Victor/Victoria, also starring Andrews.

Edwards and Andrews have five children together,. The two oldest ones, Jennifer and Geoffrey, are from his previous marriage, the middle one, Emma, is from Andrews' first marriage and the youngest ones are two adopted orphans from Vietnam, Amelia Leigh and Joanna Lynne. Edwards and Andrews adopted them in the early 70's. All of the children, except Joanna, have appeared in his movies.

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The Great Race

The Great Race is a 1965 slapstick comedy movie directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. Starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, and Vivian Vance.

The Greatest Auto Race of 1908 will also be commemorated on its 100th Anniversary by Great Race, the cross-country rally race for classic cars, held in the U.S., every summer. Great Race 2008 - New York to Paris will start on May 30, 2008 in New York City and will finish at the base of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, France, on August 2, 2008.

Only the approximate race route and the time period were borrowed by Blake Edwards in his effort to make "the funniest comedy ever" . Building on the dedication to "Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy", the film makes use of every silent movie era slapstick and visual gag, along with double entendres, parodies and period-related absurdism (amongst these are the elaborate gowns of Maggie DuBois and the fact that, with limited luggage, she never repeats an outfit). A western saloon brawl embodies a parody of Westerns in general, and a plot detour launched during the final third of the film is a direct parody of The Prisoner of Zenda. The unintended consequences of Professor Fate's order, "Push the button, Max!", is a running gag, along with the untouchability of The Great Leslie.

Music for the film was by Henry Mancini and the costumes were designed by Edith Head. Production design, so important in setting the period but also in establishing a setting for the visual humour, was by Fernando Carrere who also designed The Great Escape and The Pink Panther for Blake Edwards.

The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis), whose full name is Leslie Gallant III, is a wealthy daredevil and showman who is famed for such things as setting speed records and performing escape feats worthy of Harry Houdini. Deliciously devilish Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) is Leslie's nemesis, whose own daredevil shows usually end in failure or at least embarrassment. Leslie has the respect and admiration of businessmen and the media, while Fate sulks behind the walls of his dark mansion and is not taken seriously in general; hence, he bears an eternal grudge against his white-suited rival. On several occasions, Fate attempts to sabotage Leslie's stunts, but each attempt backfires and he ends up a victim of his own scheme instead.

Leslie proposes that the Webber Motor Company promote its brand-new open-top tourer by sponsoring, entering and (hopefully) winning a race from New York to Paris. Fate is at pains not only to build his own supercar, the Hannibal Twin-8 (complete with features reminiscent of James Bond's movie cars), but also to sabotage Leslie's preparations. Meanwhile, the editor of New York City's most prominent newspaper--The Sentinel--is cajoled by Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood), a young female photojournalist and suffragette, into entering a car with her as the driver, since her previous attempts to insinuate herself into either Leslie's or Fate's cars have failed.

As the race begins, Fate's sidekick Maximilian Meen (Peter Falk) carries out his master's instructions to sabotage all the other cars except the Leslie Special (and DuBois' car, since she was late to the starting grid). Fate's motivation is for the race to be a one-on-one standup-fight between himself and Leslie. Max mistakenly sabotages his own vehicle as well, but eventually takes the lead on the road. Fate antagonizes the officials of Boracho, a small western-frontier town where the racers stop to refuel. DuBois' car breaks down in the desert, and she is given a ride by Leslie; she continues the race as a demanding passenger, and switches teams several times throughout. Fate steals the fuel he needs and sets the rest on fire (which destroys half of Boracho), consigning Leslie to a long delay. Yet, in due course, this is erased when both cars reach Alaska and park side-by-side in the snowbound middle-of-nowhere.

DuBois has conned Leslie so she can remain in his car, at the expense of his loyal mechanic Hezekiah Sturdy (Keenan Wynn). As the two cars sit out a snowstorm, Leslie begins his first real efforts to break down Maggie's resistance (which is merely a hard-to-get act; her attraction to Leslie was made obvious earlier in the story). But with both cars parked alongside each other in the snowstorm, a few mishaps compel all four (Leslie, DuBois, Fate and Max) to sleep in Leslie's car. They awake to find themselves adrift on a small iceberg no bigger than their two cars. Fortuitously, as the iceberg melts close to the point of submergence, they drift right into their intended Russian port. There Hezekiah is waiting. To avoid her being left behind ("She is his Achilles-heel! She is our ace-in-the-hole! She must not be left behind!"), DuBois is snatched by Fate who drives off in the lead.

After an uneventful trip across Asia, both racers (now out of contact with each other) enter the small European kingdom of Carpania and its capital of Potsdorf, where Fate's exact resemblance to Crown Prince Hapnick (also played by Lemmon) leads to a significant — and dangerous — interlude, which parodies (at some points literally) the 1937 film version of The Prisoner of Zenda. Rebels under the leadership of Baron Rolf von Stuppe (Ross Martin) and General Kuhster (George Macready) kidnap the Prince. They hold Maggie and Max prisoner, forcing Fate to masquerade as the Prince during the coronation so that the Baron and the General can gain control of the kingdom. The plot is foiled after Max escapes and convinces Leslie to attempt a rescue. Leslie (narrowly) bests von Stuppe in a swordfight, and the main characters go through the (reputedly) biggest pie fight in cinema history (where Leslie's untouchable panache is tainted for the first time).

As the five escape (with Maggie now in Leslie's car), it becomes a straight road race to Paris. Within the city of Paris itself, Leslie and Maggie have a raging argument over the relationships and roles between men and women (one of the film's main themes). The argument ends when Leslie stops his car, just meters from the finish line under the Eiffel Tower, to prove his love for Maggie by sacrificing the race. Fate drives past to claim the winner's mantle, but when it becomes apparent that Leslie threw the race ("You cheated!"), Fate demands a rematch. The film ends with the start of that race back to NYC (Leslie and Maggie are in his car with a "Just Married" sign hung on the rear), and the sight gag to end all sight gags, Fate tells Max to fire the cannon, and they knock down the Eiffel Tower, Shortly after the September 11 attacks the collapsing of the tower was removed from public airings of the movie for sympathetic reasons, but has since been shown again.

The Great Race was generally not well-received upon time of release and was considered both a box office and critical flop, making it the first notable failure for director Blake Edwards. Most critics attacked its blatant and sometimes overdone slapstick humor claiming it was merely a "joke" movie and it had little substance as a film; it also suffered from comparisons with another race-themed "epic comedy" of 1965, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (which was a commercial success and found favor with many critics). Regardless of its initial reception, it has since become something of a cult film due to the solid performances of its main cast (in particular, those of Peter Falk and Jack Lemmon) and such memorable scenes as a large fist fight in a Western Saloon, one of the better sword fights filmed, and a rather lengthy pie fight towards the film's climax.

The film also won an Oscar for Best Sound Effects as well as being nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Song (Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer), and Best Sound. It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy and Best Actor - Musical or Comedy (Jack Lemmon). It currently has a 74% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film was a major influence on Wacky Races, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. The film's characterizations were themselves rather cartoonish. Furthermore, film editor and sound-effects man Treg Brown, who worked on many classic Warner Brothers cartoons, worked on this film, and many sound effects will be familiar to cartoon fans. Brown's sound design won the film its only Oscar.

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The Pink Panther

The Pink Panther is a series of comedy films featuring the bumbling French police detective Jacques Clouseau that began in 1963 with the release of the film of the same name. The role was originated by, and is most closely associated with, Peter Sellers. Most of the films were directed and co-written by Blake Edwards, with notable theme music composed by Henry Mancini.

Despite its use in the titles of most of the films of the series, the "Pink Panther" is not the Clouseau character, but a large and valuable fictitious diamond of the same name which is the "MacGuffin" of the first film in the series. The phrase reappears in the title of the fourth film, The Return of the Pink Panther, in which the theft of the diamond is again the center of the plot; that film also marked the return of Sellers to the role after a gap of ten years, which may have contributed to some confusion between the character and the diamond. The phrase has been used for all the subsequent films in the series, even when the jewel does not figure into the plot (the diamond has only appeared in five of the ten films in the series).

The first film in the series had an animated opening sequence, created by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and set to the theme music by Henry Mancini, which featured the Pink Panther character. This character, designed by Hawley Pratt, was subsequently the subject of its own series of animated cartoons – as well as being featured in the opening of every movie in the Pink Panther film series except A Shot in the Dark and Inspector Clouseau.

Although the two most recent Pink Panther films starred Steve Martin, most of the films in the series starred Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau and were directed and co-written by Blake Edwards. The popular jazz-based theme music was composed by Henry Mancini. In addition to the credits sequences, the theme accompanies any suspenseful sequence involving "the Phantom" at work on a theft, both in the first and in subsequent films.

Mancini's other themes for the first film include an Italian-language set-piece called "Meglio Stasera" whose purpose seems primarily to introduce young actress Fran Jeffries. Portions of its instrumental version also appear in the film's underscoring several times. Other segments include "Shades of Sennett", a "honky tonk" piano number introducing the film's climactic chase scene through the streets of Rome, Italy. Most of the soundtrack album's other entries are early 1960s orchestral jazz pieces, befitting the style of the era. Although variations of the main theme would be reprised for many of the Pink Panther series entries, as well as the cartoon series, Mancini composed a different theme for A Shot in the Dark.

The Pink Panther of the title is a diamond supposedly containing a flaw which forms the image of a "leaping panther", which can be seen if held up to light in a certain way. The beginning of the first film explains this, and then the camera zooms in on the diamond to reveal the blurry flaw, which focuses into the Panther (albeit not actually leaping) to start the opening credits sequence (this is also done in Return). The plot of the first film centers around the theft of this diamond, which is mentioned in only four other films in the series (The Return of the Pink Panther, Trail of the Pink Panther, Curse of the Pink Panther, and the 2006 remake of The Pink Panther). The name stuck once "the Pink Panther" became synonymous with Inspector Clouseau, in much the way that "Frankenstein" was used in film titles to refer to Dr Frankenstein's monster or The Thin Man was used in a series of detective films.

A Shot in the Dark, a film which was not originally intended to feature Inspector Clouseau, is the only film in the series (besides Inspector Closeau) that features neither the diamond nor the distinctive animated Pink Panther in the opening credits and ending. Many critics, including Leonard Maltin, regard this entry as the best in the series.

In the original Pink Panther movie, the main focus was on David Niven's role as Sir Charles Lytton, who is the infamous jewel thief "the Phantom", and his plan to steal the Pink Panther from its owner. The Inspector Clouseau character played essentially a supporting role as Lytton's incompetent antagonist, and provided slapstick comic relief to a movie that was otherwise a subtle, lighthearted crime drama, a somewhat jarring contrast in styles which is not atypical of Edwards' films. The popularity of Clouseau caused him to become the main character in subsequent Pink Panther films, which were more straightforward slapstick comedies.

Mancini's theme, with variations in arrangement, is used at the start of all but a few of the Clouseau films.

The first five Peter Sellers–Blake Edwards films were released theatrically by United Artists until the company was sold to MGM. Then Trail and Curse were released by MGM/UA Entertainment. Son of the Pink Panther, although produced by UA, was released by MGM. As of 2008, the only rights UA holds to The Return of the Pink Panther are the film's copyright and domestic distribution rights (which includes theatrical release, television syndication, and the internet). All other rights beyond said distribution are controlled by Universal Pictures' Focus Features division, in partnership with British production company ITC Entertainment and successor-in-interest Granada International--Focus recently re-issued this film on DVD for Region 1. Ironically, MGM's portion of the rights are the result of the studio handling theatrical distribution for the ITC/Granada theatrical library.

ITC originally intended to make an Inspector Clouseau television series, but Blake Edwards convinced the production company to back a feature film first and then a series if the film proved successful. The film exceeded expectations by becoming the most profitable film of 1975. United Artists quickly bought out ITC's investment and work immediately proceeded on the next feature film.

Although official, the 1968 film Inspector Clouseau is generally not considered by fandom to be part of the Pink Panther "canon" since it did not involve Sellers or Edwards. Some elements of Arkin's performance and costuming, however, were retained when Peter Sellers took back the role for Return in 1975. Despite a common misconception, Alan Arkin does not appear in Trail of the Pink Panther.

A remake of The Pink Panther, starring Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau, directed by Shawn Levy, and produced by Robert Simonds, was released in February 2006. This is the first Panther film to be released by Columbia Pictures, which along with UA sister studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is part of the Sony/Comcast consortium. It is set in the present day and introduces different main characters, therefore belonging to a different continuity. Martin also stars in a sequel, The Pink Panther 2, released in 2009 and has also revealed that he is in talks to do The Pink Panther 3.

Jacques Clouseau is a bumbling simpleton of a policeman who believes himself to be a brilliant detective, if not a genius. He inexplicably speaks in English with a ludicrous French accent, while other characters speak English, often with their own accents. Clouseau's accent is far less pronounced in the first film; from A Shot in the Dark onwards the exaggerated accent became part of the joke. It has been suggested that portraying the incompetent policeman as French is based on a British stereotype of the French police, or even the French population as a whole.

Peter Sellers, the actor portraying Clouseau, remarked that in his opinion, deep down inside, Clouseau knew he was a buffoon; but Clouseau has an incredible knack for survival. Sheer luck or clumsiness usually saves him. In the first film, a farcical car chase around one of Rome's fountains results in the loud collision of all the vehicles (off-camera, witnessed only by a bemused pedestrian), resulting in the capture of the thieves (all of whom were wearing gorilla costumes). This approach accelerates, with Clouseau falling down stairs; falling into pools and fountains; causing fires and disasters; and even being blown up with bombs repeatedly throughout the series. In The Pink Panther Strikes Again, assassins from all over the world are sent to kill Clouseau; he bends down to tie his shoelace, falls over, etc., at just the right moment to ensure that the killers eliminate one another. In Trail of the Pink Panther, we see in one of the flashback that during World War II, Clouseau even fought in the French Resistance movement against the German occupation, but the flashbacks again only serve to reiterate the fact that Clouseau can survive anything despite his incompetence.

Inspector Clouseau is a patriotic Frenchman; his country is professedly his highest priority. He has been prone to infatuation (which is often reciprocated) ever since being cuckolded by Sir Charles Lytton. He is repeatedly perplexed by transvestites, to the extent that he addresses them as "Sir or Madam".

The role was originated by Peter Sellers, but has also been played by Alan Arkin (in Inspector Clouseau), Daniel Peacock and Lucca Mezzofonti as younger versions in Trail of the Pink Panther, Roger Moore (a cameo as a surgically altered Clouseau in Curse of the Pink Panther), and Steve Martin (in the 2006 Pink Panther film and its 2009 sequel).

Clouseau's superior, Charles Dreyfus, was introduced in A Shot in the Dark, where he held the rank of Commissioner. He is constantly driven to distraction by Clouseau's bungling, to the point where he accidentally stabs himself in the chest with a letter-opener, and eventually is driven murderously insane. In The Return of the Pink Panther, Dreyfus has assumed the rank of Chief Inspector, instead of Commissioner. As before, he goes crazy by the end of the film, which ends with Dreyfus straitjacketed in a padded cell writing "Kill Clouseau" on the wall with a crayon held between his toes. As in A Shot in the Dark, Dreyfus initially suffers a variety of personal injuries (involving his gun and a cigarette lighter of a similar shape and accidentally cutting off his thumb with a cigar-cutter in the shape of a miniature guillotine) before accidentally strangling his therapist while fantasizing of Clouseau's death and then trying to assasinate Clouseau with a sniper's rifle. In The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Dreyfus is about to be released from the asylum after making a complete recovery, but within 5 minutes of Clouseau's arriving (to speak to the board on Dreyfus' behalf), he suffers a variety of injuries and relapses back into murderous insanity. Dreyfus breaks out of the insane asylum and kidnaps a scientist, forcing him to build a disintegrator ray; the device is then used to blackmail the rest of the world into attempting to assassinate Clouseau. Dreyfus appears to disintegrate at the end of Strikes Again; but subsequently, and without any explanation, he can be found in the asylum again at the onsets of Revenge of the Pink Panther and Trail of the Pink Panther, and he is allowed to return to his position as Chief Inspector when Clouseau is missing, presumed dead. Herbert Lom famously gave his character a pronounced tic which occurred when he was under particular stress and an accompanying child-like giggle when plotting Clouseau's murder.

In Son of the Pink Panther, Dreyfus (a Commissioner once again) deals with Clouseau's equally buffoonish son Jacques Gambrelli. Compared to his treatment of Clouseau, Dreyfus is more tolerant of Gambrelli. At the end of the film, Dreyfus falls in love with Clouseau's former lover, Maria Gambrelli (Jacques Gambrelli's mother), and they get married. At the subsequent wedding, Dreyfus is shocked to learn that Clouseau and Maria actually conceived twins: Jacques and Jacqueline Gambrelli.

In the 2006 reboot of The Pink Panther, Dreyfus (again as Chief Inspector) uses Clouseau as a decoy while he himself attempts to solve the crimes. Dreyfus merely views Clouseau as an idiot, and never attempts to have him killed; whereas Clouseau attacks his employer at one point, mistaking his identity. Later in the film, Dreyfus is dragged accidentally behind Clouseau's Smart Car. Dreyfus ends up in the hospital, where Clouseau's bumbling causes him further physical pain.

Dreyfus was played by Herbert Lom in the Blake Edwards films, and by Kevin Kline in the 2006 film. He was played by John Cleese in the 2009 sequel replacing Kline.

Cato (spelled "Kato" in A Shot in the Dark) is Clouseau's house boy, and an expert in martial arts. It is unclear whether he believes Clouseau to be a great detective or whether he merely humors him. It is a running joke that he is instructed to unexpectedly attack Clouseau, to keep Clouseau's combat skills and vigilance sharp. If they are interrupted during such an attack (as by a telephone call), Cato ceases to project the image of assailant and becomes a well-disciplined valet.

In later films, Cato helps Clouseau on some cases, including one in Hong Kong. Here, Cato wears glasses to be inconspicuous, but ends up running into various objects because of his now-impaired vision.

At first, Cato appears to conform to the Chinese racial stereotype of speaking in "broken English" and grinning; however, Revenge of the Pink Panther reveals him to actually be fluent in English, including nonstandard English. It is suggested that a love-hate relationship exists between the two men, sometimes bordering more on the "hate" side for Cato.

In Revenge, Cato, believing his master to be dead, ran a covert brothel in Clouseau's apartment. The password used to get into the brothel was to claim to be Inspector Clouseau, which caused a humorous scene when the true Inspector Clouseau showed up. Cato opened another brothel in Curse of the Pink Panther, and converted Clouseau's apartment into a museum featuring all the disguises the inspector had worn over the years.

Cato was based on Kato, the sidekick of the Green Hornet played by Bruce Lee. The credits of A Shot in the Dark even list his name spelled with a "K", though it was changed to a "C" for all subsequent appearances.

Cato was played by Burt Kwouk, who was also considered for a part in the 2006 revival, but could not fit the filming schedule in due to his commitments on the BBC programme Strictly Come Dancing. The role of Cato was then offered to Jackie Chan. Ultimately, however, the character was scrapped completely, for fear that the Chinese stereotype was too politically incorrect for modern audiences. Cato was replaced by a new character, Gendarme Gilbert Ponton, played by Jean Reno, assigned by Chief Inspector Dreyfus to watch over Clouseau. In a reversal of the setup with Cato, Clouseau would often attack Ponton unexpectedly; Ponton always won the fight, as opposed to Cato, who often lost. The fights featuring Cato were always more destructive and longer than those featuring Ponton.

François, Dreyfus' assistant, generally observes his boss's interactions with Clouseau (and subsequent emotional breakdowns) with placid bemusement. André Maranne, a French actor, played François in six Panther films, and in Son of the Pink Panther, he was replaced by Dermot Crowley (as Maranne had died in 1992). He later becomes Clouseau's assistant. In the 2006 reboot, a female version of François (evidenced by being an assistant to Dreyfus and wearing glasses), Nicole (Emily Mortimer), appears as Dreyfus' secretary and Clouseau's girlfriend. In the 2009 movie, Clouseau and Nicole marry.

The opening title sequence of the original 1963 Pink Panther film was such a success with the United Artists executives that they decided to adapt the title sequence into a series of theatrical animated shorts. DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, run by former Warner Bros. Cartoons creators David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng, produced the opening sequences, with Freleng as director. UA commissioned a long series of Pink Panther shorts, the first of which, 1964's The Pink Phink won the 1964 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. By the late-1960s, the shorts were being broadcast as Saturday morning cartoons, and new shorts were being produced for both television broadcast and theatrical release. The animated Pink Panther character has also appeared in personal computer and console video games, as well as advertising campaigns for several companies.

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The Pink Panther Strikes Again

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) is the fifth film in the Pink Panther series and continues the story after the end of The Return of the Pink Panther. However, it is only the third to include the words "Pink Panther" in its title, despite the fact that the story does not involve the Pink Panther diamond of the previous films. Unused footage from the film was later included in Trail of the Pink Panther.

At a psychiatric hospital, former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) is largely recovered from the murderous insanity that saw him repeatedly attempt to kill the thorn in his side, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. He is about to be released but Clouseau (Peter Sellers), who is now Chief Inspector and has arrived to speak on Dreyfus's behalf, comes to visit and his clumsiness and proneness to accidents drive Dreyfus insane again.

Soon thereafter, Dreyfus escapes from the asylum, intent on killing Clouseau. His first attempt involves planting a bomb whilst Clouseau destructively duels with his manservant Cato (Burt Kwouk), who is under orders to keep Clouseau alert by randomly attacking him. The bomb merely destroys Clouseau's apartment whilst Clouseau himself is unharmed (viewers eventually learn that Cato was sent to the hospital), largely because Clouseau was then distracted by an inflatable costume and a telephone call. Dreyfus sets his sights higher; enlisting the help of an army of vicious criminals, he kidnaps nuclear physicist Professor Hugo Fassbender (Richard Vernon) and the Professor's daughter Margo (Briony McRoberts), forcing the professor to build a "doomsday weapon" in return for his daughter's freedom. Because Hugo Fassbender fears to have his daughter harmed, he agrees.

Clouseau travels to England to investigate Fassbender's disappearance, with typically chaotic results, as Scotland Yard Section Director Alec Drummond (Colin Blakely) and Superintendent Quinlan (Leonard Rossiter) painfully learn. Meanwhile Dreyfus reveals an elaborate plot to get rid of Inspector Clouseau by threatening the whole of humanity. Disintegrating the United Nations headquarters in New York City before the disbelieving eyes of the world, he blackmails the leaders of the world, including the President of the United States (a thinly veiled impersonation of Gerald Ford, advised by a similarly poorly camouflaged Henry Kissinger), into assassinating Clouseau.

Forced to take Dreyfus's threat seriously, several nations send assassins to kill Clouseau at the Oktoberfest in Germany. In his typical bumbling fashion, Clouseau manages to evade each assassination attempt just as it is about to happen, so that the assassins all kill each other instead. The assassins of twenty-six nations are killed in the attempt, so that the only survivors are the Egyptian (an uncredited cameo by Omar Sharif) and Soviet operatives. The Egyptian assassin, sneaking into Clouseau's hotel room, shoots a man he believes to be Clouseau (who is in fact one of Dreyfus's henchmen, who had taken it upon himself to kill Clouseau). The Russian operative, Olga Bariosova (Lesley-Anne Down), who has sneaked into Clouseau's room, seduces the Egyptian, similarly mistaking him for Clouseau. His passionate sexuality convinces her not to assassinate him; when the real Clouseau makes an appearance, he is surprised to discover a beautiful woman in his bed who confuses him further by declaring her undying passion for him, and by finding a dead man in his bath. A tattoo on the dead man, combined with Olga's dismissively revealed knowledge, reveals to Clouseau Dreyfus's location at a castle in Bavaria.

Dreyfus is elated at Clouseau's apparent demise, but his joy is soured by a bad case of toothache. Clouseau, who has arrived in the village near Dreyfus's castle and has unsuccessfully attempted to breach the castle, thwarted every time by a drawbridge that appears to be mocking him, eventually infiltrates Dreyfus's castle hideout disguised as a dentist, intoxicates Dreyfus with nitrous oxide, and pulls one of Dreyfus's healthy teeth. Realising the deception and laughing hysterically, Dreyfus orders Clouseau killed, but Clouseau escapes.

Enraged, Dreyfus means to seek vengeance on the world by destroying England; as he prepares for this, Clouseau—who has been thrown into the castle's barnyard—is literally catapulted onto Dreyfus's doomsday machine. Clouseau's weight redirects the disintegrator so that the beam hits Dreyfus (causing his feet to disappear) and Dreyfus's castle. As Dreyfus's henchmen, Fassbender, and his daughter, and eventually Clouseau himself escape the dissolving castle (Clouseau nearly thwarted by the drawbridge), Dreyfus himself plays "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" on the castle's pipe organ, laughing insanely and gradually disintegrating. The castle then disappears entirely.

Returning to Paris, Clouseau is reunited with Olga, who has dismissed Cato for the evening and intends on completing her seduction of Clouseau. This is interrupted first by Clouseau's apparent inability to remove his clothes without a struggle, and then by Cato, who chooses this time to once more follow his orders and attack Clouseau. The consequent struggle ends when all three are hurled by a reclining bed into the Seine. Immediately thereafter, a cartoon image of Clouseau emerges from the water, which has been tinted pink, and begins swimming, unaware that a gigantic version of the Pink Panther character is waiting below him with a sharp-toothed, open mouth (a reference to the film Jaws made obvious by the thematic music).

The Pink Panther Strikes Again was rushed into production owing to the success of The Return of the Pink Panther. Blake Edwards had used one of two scripts that he and Frank Waldman had written for a proposed "Pink Panther" TV series as the basis for that film, and he used the other as the starting point for Strikes Again. As a result, it is the only Pink Panther movie which has a storyline that explicitly follows on from the previous film.

The character Dr. Fassbender is a rather blatant nod to one of Seller's earlier films What's New Pussycat? where Sellers played a character named Dr. Fritz Fassbender.

The original cut of the film ran for 124 minutes, but it was trimmed down to 103 minutes for theatrical release. Some of the footage was later used in Trail of the Pink Panther. Strikes Again was marketed with the tagline Why are the world's chief assassins after Inspector Clouseau? Why not? Everybody else is. Like its predecessor and subsequent sequel, the film was considered a box office success.

During the film's title sequence, there are references to Alfred Hitchcock, Batman, King Kong, The Sound of Music (which starred Blake Edwards's wife, Julie Andrews), Dracula AD 1972, Singin' in the Rain and Steamboat Bill Jr. putting the Pink Panther character and the animated persona of Inspector Clouseau into recognizable events from said movies. There is also a reference to Jaws (film) in the end-credits sequence. Richard Williams (later of Roger Rabbit fame) did the animated opening and closing sequences for the film instead of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.

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The Party (film)

The Party (alternative title: "Hollywood Party") is a 1968 comedy written and directed by Blake Edwards, starring Peter Sellers (in what was his only non-Pink Panther collaboration with Edwards) and Claudine Longet. The film has a very loose structure, and essentially serves as a series of set pieces for the comic talents of Sellers. Sellers had played another Indian man in his hit film The Millionairess, and a similar (though self-important, unlike the humble role he plays here) klutz as Inspector Clouseau. The film remains popular among fans of Sellers as one of his most inventive comic roles, much of which was improvised at the time of filming.

The minimal plot involves Sellers playing a well-meaning, but hapless, Indian actor who is accidentally invited to a lavish Hollywood party, causing havoc.

Hrundi V. Bakshi (Peter Sellers) is a seemingly nameless and faceless actor from India brought to Hollywood for a role in a film similar to Gunga Din. Unfortunately, he manages to blow up the set before the cameras are rolling, ruining the entire film. The director (Herbert Ellis) is beside himself, fires Bakshi immediately and wants him blacklisted. However, instead of being blacklisted, Bakshi's name is accidentally written on the guest list of the studio boss's party.

Invites and attendants include a drunken female guest, a drunken waiter (who becomes increasingly more inebriated as the film progresses) and his irritated superior, politicians, various Hollywood luminaries, and a Russian ballet troupe that arrives towards the end of the party.

At the dinner table, the drunken waiter (Steven Franken) serves the guests Caesar salad using his bare hand instead of the proper utensil. During the main course, Bakshi's roast cornish game hen is accidentally catapulted off his fork and becomes impaled on a guest's tiara. He asks the waiter to retrieve his meal, and the clumsy man complies, unaware that the woman's fall-wig has come off along with her tiara, as she is obliviously engaged in conversation.

Bakshi leaves damaged appliances and havoc wherever he wanders. At one point he mistakenly sticks his hand into a bowl of crushed ice that turns out to be the caviar dish; he spends a good amount of time shaking hands with other guests, passing around a fishy odor.

Other party obstacles include a control panel with various switches that activate the intercom, the slide-out bar (which Bakshi closes while the bartender is still busy mixing drinks), various retractable floor panels that extend the size of the indoor-outdoor swimming pool, artwork, a backed-up toilet with bidet, and an electric toilet paper roll.

The would-be hippie children of the Hollywood executives eventually turn up with a baby elephant covered in stereotypical 1960s slogans. The action of the party then moves to the pool, where Bakshi asks that the elephant be restored to a more dignified state. The entire house is soon overrun with soap bubbles as they scrub graffiti off the animal. The police arrive as well. Bakshi offers to drive Michèle home (in his Morgan three-wheeler car) and the film ends with a hint that this is the beginning of a romantic relationship.

The film's interiors were shot on a set, at the MGM lot. The original script was only 56-60 pages in length. Blake Edwards later said it was the shortest script he ever shot from, and the majority of the content in the film was improvised on set.

The film draws much inspiration from the works of Jacques Tati; Bakshi arrives at the party in a Morgan three-wheeler similar to Monsieur Hulot's cyclecar in Monsieur Hulot's Holiday; the entire film storyline is reminiscent of the Royal Garden restaurant sequence of Playtime; and the comedic interaction with inanimate objects and gadgets parallels several of Tati's films, especially Mon Oncle.

The score of The Party was by Henry Mancini, including the song "Nothing to Lose." Mancini, commenting on audience reactions, noted, "That's what I get for writing a nice song for a comedy. Nobody's going to hear a note of it." During a scene later in the film, the band can be heard playing "It Had Better Be Tonight," which was a song Henry Mancini composed for the first Pink Panther film.

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Trail of the Pink Panther

Trail of the Pink Panther is a 1982 comedy film starring Peter Sellers. It was the seventh film in the Pink Panther series, and the last in which Peter Sellers starred as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, although Sellers died before production began and the film thus contains no original material. His performance only consists of flashbacks and outtakes from the previous films.

Sellers had died before production began, and his performance was constructed from a mixture of flashbacks and deleted scenes (the circumstances of such scenes making it fairly obvious which movie they were originally cut from) from the previous films in the series.

David Niven makes a cameo appearance the film, reprising a role he had first played in the original The Pink Panther of 1963. Due to ill health, his voice was considered too weak to use, and he was overdubbed by impressionist Rich Little.

Returning series regulars include Herbert Lom as Inspector Dreyfus, Graham Stark as Hercule LaJoy (from the 1964 Pink Panther film A Shot in the Dark), and Burt Kwouk as Clouseau's faithful manservant Cato. The film also featured Joanna Lumley as an investigative reporter on the trail of the missing Clouseau. In common with the last few Pink Panther films, Trail featured animated opening and closing credits, which were animated by Marvel Productions.

Director Blake Edwards dedicated the film to Sellers, who is described as "the one and only Inspector Clouseau". Despite the dedication, Sellers' wife Lynne Frederick filed a lawsuit against the film's producers, claiming that it diminished Sellers' reputation. She eventually won over a million dollars. Edwards' wife, Julie Andrews, filled a small role as a cleaning lady as a favor to her husband. Contrary to rumour, Alan Arkin, who played Clouseau in 1968's Inspector Clouseau does not have a cameo appearance.

When the famous Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash, Chief Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is called on the case despite the protest of Dreyfus (Herbert Lom). While on the case, it is revealed he is being followed by the mob.

Clouseau first goes to London to investigate Sir Charles Lytton (Clouseau is not aware he is in fact living in the South of France, but nobody bothers to tell him). Traveling to the airport, he accidentally blows up his car, but believes it to be an assassination attempt. Clouseau decides to disguise himself (wrapped in several bandages) while on the flight, which leads to an awkward hassle with Scotland Yard (there to pick him up).

Meanwhile, it is confirmed there might be an assassination attempt against Clouseau, and he is ordered not to go to Lugash. Unfortunately, Clouseau is later told by Dreyfus to go to Lugash.

En route Clouseau disappears, and Marie Jouvet (Joanna Lumley), a journalist investigating his disappearance, sets out to discover his background by interviewing people with whom he was involved over the years. This provides ample opportunities for flashbacks to scenes from the earlier films. Jouvet also interviews Clouseau's father (a heavily disguised Richard Mulligan), at his vinery, providing glimpses of Clouseau's childhood where he is played by Lucca Mezzofanti, and his early career in the French Resistance in which he is played by Daniel Peacock. Jouvet does encounter a run-in with the mafia, led by Bruno Langlois (Robert Loggia), the main antagonist of the two-part story made by this and the next film. Langlois politely warns Jouvet to stop searching for Clouseau (Clouseau apparently caused trouble for Langlois in the past), but Jouvet refuses, and complains to Dreyfus about the threat. Dreyfus, who wants Clouseau dead just as much as Langlois does, presses no charges against Langlois, much to Jouvet's frustration.

The film ends with Jouvet concluding that Clouseau must be alive. Clouseau (played by Joe Dunne only seen from behind) is seen standing looking over a seaside cliff, when a seagull flies over and messes the sleeve of his coat. The words "Swine seagull!" are heard in the distinctive 'over French' accent of Clouseau. A montage of funny clips from other Pink Panther films is seen until the end credits.

Although the film was marketed as a tribute to Sellers, it was widely panned by the critics. It was released for Christmas 1982, and grossed only $9m. In contrast, the previous film in the series, Revenge of the Pink Panther, had made over $49m. Nonetheless, it was soon followed by a further Pink Panther film, Curse of the Pink Panther, which had been shot concurrently with Trail. That film did not feature Peter Sellers at all, and was instead built around the talents of Ted Wass, as Clouseau replacement Clifton Sleigh.

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Julie Andrews

Dame Julie Elizabeth Andrews, DBE (born Julia Elizabeth Wells on 1 October 1935) is an award-winning English actress, singer, author and icon. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honours. Andrews was a former British child actress and singer who first came to Broadway in 1954 with The Boy Friend, and rose to prominence starring in other musicals such as My Fair Lady and Camelot, and in musical films such as Mary Poppins (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965): the roles for which she is still best known.

Andrews had a major revival of her film career in the 2000s, in family films such as The Princess Diaries (2001), its sequel The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), and the Shrek animated films (2004-2007). In 2005 Andrews revisited her first Broadway success, this time as a stage director, with a revival of The Boy Friend at a theatre in Connecticut.

Andrews is also an author of children's books, and in 2008 she published an autobiography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years.

Andrews was born Julia Elizabeth Wells on 1 October 1935 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom. Her mother Barbara Wells (née Morris), was married to Edward C. "Ted" Wells, a teacher of metal and woodworking, but Julie was conceived as a result of an affair her mother had with a family friend.

With the outbreak of World War II, Barbara and Ted Wells went their separate ways. Ted Wells assisted with evacuating children to Surrey during the Blitz while Barbara joined Ted Andrews in entertaining the troops through the good offices of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). Barbara and Ted Wells were soon divorced; they both remarried—Barbara to Ted Andrews in 1939, and Ted Wells to a former hairstylist working a lathe at a war factory that employed them both in Hinchley Wood, Surrey.

Julia Wells lived briefly with her father and her brother John Wells in Surrey. About 1940, her father sent her to live with her mother and stepfather, who (her father felt) would be better able to provide for his talented daughter's artistic training. While her mother wanted Julia to call Ted Andrews "Uncle Ted", she determined to refer to her stepfather as "Pop", while her father remained "Dad" or "Daddy" to her. Julia Wells's surname was legally changed to Andrews around this time.

The Andrews family was "very poor and we lived in a bad slum area of London", Andrews said, adding, "That was a very black period in my life." In addition, according to Andrews's 2008 memoir, her mother and stepfather were alcoholics. Ted physically abused Julie's brother and twice, while drunk, made advances on his stepdaughter, resulting in Julie putting a lock on her door. But as the stage career of Ted and Barbara Andrews improved, they were able to afford to move to better surroundings, first to Beckenham, and then, as the war ended, back to Andrews' home town of Walton-on-Thames. The Andrews took up residence at The Old Meuse, a house where Andrews' maternal grandmother happened to have served as a maid.

Andrews' father sponsored lessons for his daughter, first at the Cone-Ripman School, an independent arts educational school in London, then with the famous concert soprano and voice instructor Madame Lilian Stiles-Allen. "She had an enormous influence on me", Andrews said of Mme Stiles-Allen, adding, "She was my third mother -- I've got more mothers and fathers than anyone in the world." Andrews developed a strong voice and relative pitch, often referred to as perfect pitch, though noted in her 2008 autobiography Home, is actually relative. After Cone-Ripman School, Andrews continued her academic education at the nearby Woodbrook School, a local state school in Beckenham.

Andrews got her big break when her stepfather introduced her to Val Parnell, whose Moss Empires controlled prominent venues in London. Andrews made her professional solo debut at the London Hippodrome singing the difficult "Je Suis Titania" aria from Mignon as part of a musical revue called "Starlight Roof" on 22 October 1947. She played the Hippodrome for one year.

On 1 November 1948, Andrews became the youngest solo performer ever to be seen in a Royal Command Variety Performance, at the London Palladium, where she performed along with Danny Kaye, the Nicholas Brothers, and the comedy team George and Bert Bernard for members of King George VI's family.

Andrews followed her parents into radio and television. She reportedly made her television debut on the BBC program RadiOlympia Showtime on 8 October 1949. She garnered considerable fame throughout the United Kingdom for her work on the BBC radio show "Educating Archie", which she played from 1950 to 1952.

At the age of 14, in 1950, Andrews was asked to sing at a party, and it was then that she learned that Ted Wells was not her biological father.

Andrews appeared on West End Theatre at the London Casino, where she played one year each as Princess Balroulbadour in Aladdin and the egg in Humpty Dumpty. She also appeared on provincial stages across United Kingdom in Jack and the Beanstalk and Little Red Riding Hood, as well as starring as the lead role in Cinderella.

On 30 September 1954, on the eve of her 19th birthday, Andrews made her Broadway debut portraying "Polly Browne" in the already highly successful London musical The Boy Friend. To the critics, Andrews was the stand-out performer in the show. In November 1955, Andrews was signed to appear opposite Bing Crosby in what is regarded as the first made-for-television movie, High Tor.

Andrews auditioned for a part in the Richard Rodgers musical Pipe Dream. Although Rodgers wanted her for Pipe Dream, he advised her to take the part in My Fair Lady if it was offered. In 1956, she appeared in the Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner musical My Fair Lady as Eliza Doolittle, opposite Rex Harrison's Henry Higgins. Rodgers was so impressed with Andrews' talent that, concurrent with her run in My Fair Lady, she was featured in the Rodgers and Hammerstein television musical, Cinderella. Cinderella was broadcast live on CBS on 31 March 1957, under the musical direction of Alfredo Antonini and attracted an estimated 107 million viewers.

Andrews married then up-and-coming set designer Tony Walton on 10 May 1959 in Weybridge, Surrey. They had first met in 1948 when Andrews was appearing at the London Casino in the show Humpty Dumpty. The couple filed for a divorce on November 14, 1967.

In 1960, Lerner and Loewe again cast her in a period musical, as Queen Guinevere in Camelot, opposite Richard Burton and newcomer Robert Goulet. After a slow start, cast appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show ensured that the show would ultimately become a hit.

Rave Broadway reviews aside, movie studio head Jack Warner felt Andrews lacked broad name recognition, so he hired film actress Audrey Hepburn to play Eliza for the film version of My Fair Lady. As Warner later recalled, the decision was easy. "In my business I have to know who brings people and their money to a movie theatre box office. Audrey Hepburn had never made a financial flop." Coincidentally, Hepburn's singing voice would be judged inadequate and would be overdubbed by Marni Nixon.

Andrews received the "consolation" of playing her first film in the title role of Walt Disney's Mary Poppins. Walt Disney had seen a performance of Camelot and thought Andrews would be perfect for the role of an British nanny who is "practically perfect in every way!" Andrews initially declined due to pregnancy, but Disney politely insisted, saying, "We'll wait for you." (Confirmed by 40th anniversary Mary Poppins DVD Walt Disney Pictures 2004.) Andrews and her husband headed back to the United Kingdom in September 1962 to await the birth of daughter Emma Katherine Walton, who was born in London two months later. Andrews and family returned to America in 1963 and began the film.

In 1964, she appeared opposite James Garner in The Americanization of Emily (1964), which she has described as her favourite film. In 1966, Andrews won her second Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and was nominated for the 1965 Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music. The movie also starred actors Christopher Plummer and Eleanor Parker.

By the end of 1967, Andrews had appeared in the highly viewed television special, Cinderella; the biggest Broadway musical of its time, My Fair Lady; the largest-selling long-playing album, the original cast recording of My Fair Lady; the biggest hit in Disney's history, Mary Poppins; the highest grossing movie of 1966, Hawaii ; the biggest and second biggest hits in Universal's history, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Torn Curtain; and the biggest hit in 20th Century Fox's history and the most successful film of all time, The Sound of Music.

Star!, a 1968 biopic of Gertrude Lawrence, and Darling Lili (1970), co-starring Rock Hudson and directed by her second husband, Blake Edwards (they married in 1969), are often cited by critics as major contributors to the decline of the movie musical. Both were damaging to Andrews' career and she made only three films in the 1970s, The Tamarind Seed, Little Miss Marker and 10.

Together Edwards and Andrews adopted two daughters; Amy in 1974 and Joanna in 1975. Edwards already had another daughter, Jennifer, and a son Geoffrey who were 3 and 5 years older than Emma, Julie's first daughter.

In 1972 - 1973, Andrews starred in her own television variety series, The Julie Andrews Hour, on the ABC network. The show won seven Emmy Awards. But it was cancelled after one season, adding Andrews to the list of musical superstars who failed on television. She guest-starred on The Muppet Show in 1977. The greatest critical acclaim accorded her TV work was for her Carnegie Hall special with her close friend Carol Burnett.

Several of her 1980s films were seen as attempts to break away from her image as a "sugary sweet" personality. Most notoriously was Blake Edwards's S.O.B. (1981), in which she played Sally Miles, a character very similar to herself, who agrees (with some pharmaceutical persuasion) to "show my boobies" in a scene in the film-within-a-film. For this last performance, late night television host Johnny Carson thanked Andrews for "showing us that the hills were still alive", alluding to a lyric from the title song of The Sound of Music.

In 1983, Andrews was chosen as the Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year by the Harvard University theatrical society. The roles of Victoria Grant and Count Victor Grezhinski in the film Victor/Victoria earned Andrews the 1983 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, as well as a nomination for the 1982 Academy Award for Best Actress, her third Oscar nomination overall.

In 1993, she starred in a limited run at the Manhattan Theatre Club, of the American premiere of Stephen Sondheim's revue, Putting It Together. The show sold out immediately and proved that there was tremendous interest in seeing her return to the New York stage. In 1995, she starred in the commercially successful stage musical version of Victor/Victoria. It was her first appearance in a Broadway show in 35 years. Opening on Broadway on 25 October 1995 at the Marquis Theatre, it later went on the road on a very successful world tour. When she was the only Tony Award nominee for the production, she declined the nomination, saying that she could not accept because she felt the entire production was snubbed.

In the 2000 New Year's Honours, despite Andrews's long exile in the United States and Switzerland, she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE). She also appears at #59 on the 2002 List of "100 Greatest Britons" sponsored by the BBC and chosen by the public. In 2001, Andrews received Kennedy Center Honors. The same year, she reunited with Sound of Music costar Christopher Plummer in a live television performance of On Golden Pond (an adaptation of the 1979 play).

Andrews continued her association with Disney when she appeared as Nanny in two 2003 made-for-television movies based on the Eloise books, a series of children's books by Kay Thompson about a child who lives in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Eloise at the Plaza premiered in April 2003, and Eloise at Christmastime was broadcast in November 2003. The same year, Andrews made her debut as a theatre director, directing a revival of The Boy Friend, the musical in which she made her Broadway debut, at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York. Her production, which featured costume and scenic design by her former husband Tony Walton, was remounted at the Goodspeed Opera House in 2005 and went on a national tour in 2006.

From 2005 to 2006, Andrews served as the Official Ambassador for Disneyland's 18-month-long, 50th anniversary celebration, the "Happiest Homecoming on Earth," travelling to promote the celebration and recording narration or appearing at several events at the park.

In 2004, Andrews performed the voice of Queen Lillian in the animated blockbuster Shrek 2 (2004), reprising the role for its sequel, Shrek the Third (2007). Later in 2007, she narrated Enchanted, a live-action Disney musical comedy that both poked fun and paid homage to classic Disney films such as Mary Poppins.

In January 2007, she was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Screen Actors Guild's awards, and stated that her goals included continuing to direct for the stage, and possibly to produce her own Broadway musical. She published Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, which she characterised as "part one" of her autobiography, on 1 April 2008. Home chronicles her early years in UK's music hall circuit and ends in 1962 with her winning the role of Mary Poppins. For a Walt Disney video release she again portrayed Mary Poppins and narrated the story of The Cat That Looked at a King in 2004.

In July through early August 2008, Andrews hosted "Julie Andrews' The Gift of Music," a short tour of the United States where she sang various Rodgers and Hammerstein songs and symphonised her recently published book, Simeon's Gift. These were the first public singing performances in a dozen years, due to her failed vocal cord surgery.

Julie Andrews has long had something of a dual image, being both a family-friendly icon and an icon for gays and lesbians. According to cultural studies scholar Brett Farmer, she "... is notable as one of the few divas to enjoy a parallel popularization across both gay and lesbian reading formations."Andrews herself has acknowledged her strange status, commenting that "I'm that odd mixture of, on the one hand, being a gay icon and, on the other, having grandmas and parents grateful I'm around to be a babysitter for their kids..." She has frequently appeared as a formative presence and signifier in narratives of homosexual identity, notably in The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire, Does Freddy Dance and Widescreen Dreams: Growing Up Gay at the Movies, and in May 2007, ranked 25th in a major poll ranking top gay icons.

Perhaps more interesting is that there is notable investment in the very films that cemented her alleged "sugary sweet" image, as much as, if not more, than in Victor/Victoria. The Sound of Music has long been a gay favorite, and its recent Singalong incarnation was originally created for London's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1999. Recent gender/cultural studies writers such as Stacy Wolf and Peter Kemp have argued for a different reading of the image projected by her two most famous films, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, as that of a transgressive, subversive and life-changing force, rather than a sugary nanny committed to keeping the traditional status quo. Stacy Wolf's book, A Problem Like Maria-- Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical, analyzes Andrews' unique performance style (alongside stars such as Mary Martin and Ethel Merman) and devotes an entire chapter to The Sound of Music, studying it within a queer feminist context, and shedding light on its importance among lesbian spectators.

Andrews has published books under her name as well as the pen names Julie Andrews Edwards and Julie Edwards.

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