In her 2008 memoir Home, Academy Award winner Julie Andrews wrote about her early years—growing up in a blitz-ravaged London, winning over audiences and critics in My Fair Lady and Camelot on Broadway, and preparing to head West for her first film role. In her second memoir, Home Work—out October 15—Andrews, writing with her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton, picks up where Home left off, taking readers through her storied movie career. In these excerpts from the memoir’s first chapter, Andrews describes in exquisite detail her experiences making Mary Poppins: the learning curve she faced moving from the stage to the Disney lot; meeting her costar Dick Van Dyke; and the challenges of filming the practically perfect nanny’s flying scenes.

It had been eight years since I first made the leap across the Atlantic from England to Broadway. At that time, I was 19, totally on my own, and desperately worried about leaving my dysfunctional family behind and the huge unknown that awaited me. I didn’t know where I would be living or how to balance a checkbook, let alone function in an overwhelming metropolis like New York City.

Now, here I was, with three shows—The Boy Friend, My Fair Lady, and Camelot—and several thousand performances on Broadway and in London behind me, beginning yet another journey into a new unknown: Hollywood.

This time, thankfully, I was not alone. My husband, Tony, was with me. We were embarking on this new adventure together, along with our baby daughter, Emma. We were green as grass, had no knowledge of the film industry, and could not possibly envision what lay ahead—but we were industrious, open-minded, and we had each other. We were also blessed to have the great Walt Disney to guide us.

Tony and I spent a few days getting over jet lag and settling in. Emma was only three months old, and we had brought her nanny, Wendy, with us to help care for her during the five days a week that we would be working. On weekends, she could take time off and we would have Emma to ourselves. I was still breastfeeding my baby, and I hoped to do so for as long as possible. I had a fair way to go to get myself back into pre-pregnancy shape, so I was grateful that there would be a period of dance rehearsals before filming began.

A few days after our arrival, I went with Tony to the Walt Disney Studios, located in Burbank. Tony and I had visited there once before, and we were again struck by the sunny ease of the place; the shady trees and beautifully manicured lawns upon which people relaxed or played table tennis during their lunch hour. Neatly arranged bungalow offices, several large soundstages, construction sheds, and a main theater were dominated by a much larger three-story structure known as the Animation Building. Walt’s suite of offices was on the top floor, and below were airy workspaces where the artists and animators created their magic.

We had lunch with Walt and his coproducer/screenwriter Bill Walsh in the commissary, long recognized as the best in Hollywood for its great food and friendly atmosphere. Walt’s persona was that of a kindly uncle—twinkly-eyed, chivalrous, and genuinely proud of all he had created. His international empire encompassed film, television, and even a theme park, yet he was modest and gracious. Our new friend Tom Jones once said to me that you didn’t last very long at the company if you were mean-spirited or bad-tempered.

I was provided with a car and driver for the first two or three weeks, but eventually, the Studios loaned me a vehicle of my own when it was assumed that I knew my way around. I was nervous about driving on the freeways and received guidelines: “Stick to the right lane, and get off at Buena Vista.” “Stay in the slowest lane; you don’t need to cross lanes at all.” “Go dead straight until you come to your exit,” etc. Being English, I’d never driven on a freeway, or on the right-hand side of the road, and it definitely took some getting used to.

My first weeks at the Walt Disney Studios were consumed with meetings, and wardrobe and wig fittings. I was struck by the differences between preparing for a film role and preparing for a stage performance. For a play or musical, the first few days are spent in script readings and laying out the staging of the scenes. Measurements are taken and you see costume sketches, but fittings generally don’t happen until well into the rehearsal process. A film, however, is usually shot out of sequence, and in very small increments. Blocking for any scene isn’t addressed until the day of the shoot. It felt odd to be fitting costume elements and wigs for a role I had yet to portray, but to some degree, seeing those costumes helped me begin to formulate Mary’s character.

Walt had purchased the rights to the book, but not to Mary Shepard’s illustrations, so Tony’s costumes had to be completely original, yet still evoke the spirit of the characters that P. L. Travers had created. The time period of the film had been changed from the 1930s to 1910, as Walt felt that late Edwardian England would provide richer visual opportunities, and Tony agreed.

I was awed by my husband’s attention to detail: his choice of materials, colors, and accessories, like Mary’s loosely hand-knitted scarf, or her iconic hat with the sprightly daisy on top. While supervising my fittings, Tony pointed out hidden touches like the primrose or coral linings of Mary’s jackets, or her brightly colored petticoats.

“I fancy that Mary has a secret inner life,” he explained, “and when you kick up your heels, you’ll catch a glimpse of who she is beneath her prim exterior.”

Tony also paid close attention to the wigs, making sure the color was right, and that Mary’s hair was softer and prettier for the scenes when she was out and about with Bert. This was all hugely insightful for me as I tried to wrap my head around Mary’s character. What was her background? How did she move, walk, talk? Never having made a film before, and having no specific acting training to fall back on, I was relying on instinct.

I decided to try giving Mary a particular walk. I felt that she would never stroll leisurely, so I practiced on the soundstage, walking as fast as I could, placing one foot immediately after the other to give the impression of hardly touching the ground—the end result being that the children would find it difficult to keep up with her. I also developed a kind of turned-out stance, like a balletic first position, to punctuate the impression of Mary’s character when flying. I recalled certain members of flying ballet troupes from my vaudeville days who had simply let their feet dangle, and I always thought it detracted from the effect. In fact, most of Mary Shepard’s original illustrations show Mary flying with somewhat droopy feet, although when she was on the ground, she was trimly turned out. I suddenly remembered that when I portrayed Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady on Broadway, I unconsciously toed-in, giving the flower girl a slightly pigeon-toed lack of grace in her clumsy boots, then I straightened my feet when she acquired confidence and poise as a “lady.” It made me smile to think I was doing the exact opposite for Mary Poppins.

It was during dance rehearsals that I first met Dick Van Dyke. He was already well established as a consummate comedian; he had starred in Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway and in the film, and had completed the first two seasons of his famous sitcom, The Dick Van Dyke Show. We hit it off from day one. He was dazzlingly inventive, always in a sunny mood, and he often made me roar with laughter at his antics. For instance, when we began work on the “Jolly Holiday” sequence, the first step we learned was the iconic walk, arm-in-arm, our legs kicking up ahead of us as we traveled. I performed Mary Poppins’s demure, ladylike version of the step—but Dick flung his long legs up so high that I burst out laughing. To this day, he can still execute that step.

Dick’s performance seemed effortless to me, although he did struggle with Bert’s Cockney accent. He asked for help with it, so J. Pat O’Malley, an Irish actor who voiced several of the animated characters in the film, tried to coach him. It was a funny paradox: an Irishman teaching an American how to speak Cockney. I did my best to help as well, occasionally demonstrating the odd Cockney rhyming slang or a lyric from an old vaudeville song, like “I’m ’enery the Eighth, I Am” or “Any Old Iron.” I don’t know if it helped, but it was Dick’s turn to laugh.

Dick also secretly played Mr. Dawes Sr., president of the bank, with the help of brilliant makeup disguising him as an old man. It was something he had actually begged Disney to let him do. Walt rather cheekily made Dick do a screen test for the part, and word flew around the Studios that he had been hilarious, totally persuasive and completely unrecognizable. Dick wanted the extra part so badly that he offered to play it for free, but Walt was nothing if not wily. He took Dick up on that offer, and also persuaded him to make a $4,000 donation to the California Institute of the Arts, which Walt had recently cofounded.

In addition to the dance rehearsals, we had to prerecord the songs before we could actually begin shooting the musical numbers. The delightful score for Poppins had been written by Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman, two brothers referred to as “the boys.” They had been working for Walt for quite some time, being the first in-house songwriters he had hired under contract to the Studios. They’d written for such films as The Absent-Minded Professor and for Disney’s television shows and his theme park, Disneyland.

Robert, the elder brother, was primarily responsible for the lyrics. He was tall, heavy-set, and walked with a cane, having been injured in World War II. Despite his gift for words and kindly manner, he often seemed quiet and somewhat removed. Richard was shorter and thinner, and was ebullience personified. He had boundless energy, always demonstrating at the piano with great enthusiasm.

My singing teacher, Madame Stiles-Allen, flew over from England to visit her son and to work with me privately on my songs. Because I had been studying with her since I was nine years old, there was now a shorthand between us. I recognized immediately what she was asking of me in reference to a particular passage, or where my thoughts should be directed. So many times, she emphasized not reaching up to a high note, but rather following it down a long road, while being sure to articulate the consonants and keep the vowels true. It was all about unifying the levels in my voice, across an even plane—much like a string of matched pearls, each note placed exactly where the previous one had been.

I discovered that prerecording for a film was a very different experience from recording a Broadway cast album. The latter is normally done after the show has opened, by which time the cast knows exactly what is happening at that moment onstage and how to sing the song accordingly. In film, however, the songs are typically recorded in advance of shooting the scene, so I seldom knew what would be happening in terms of action, and therefore what was required vocally. For instance, if I am singing in a scene with a lot of action, such as the chimney sweep dance, a certain vocal energy or breathlessness is required to match that action, as compared to a lullaby sung by a bedside. Yet when prerecording, all the specifics of the action are still relatively unknown and must be guessed at. Fortunately, choreographers Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood were at these sessions, as was our screenwriter and coproducer Bill Walsh, for whom I had great respect. I could turn to them for guidance if I was unsure about a particular moment, but to a great extent I was operating on instinct.

Filming finally commenced with the “Jolly Holiday” sequence. Our director, Robert Stevenson, was English, and though he was courteous and kind, initially I found him to be a little distant. I soon realized he was somewhat shy, and hugely preoccupied with the monumental task ahead of him—juggling live-action scenes, animated sequences, and a host of special effects, many of which were being attempted for the first time. Bob had worked in the industry for more than 30 years, and had directed many films for the Walt Disney Studios, including Old Yeller and The Absent-Minded Professor. He was patient with my lack of experience, guiding me gently through what I needed to learn—simple things, like the difference between a close-up and a waist-shot, the nature of an establishing shot, the need for a reverse angle, and so on.

My first filmed scene simply required that I strike a pose, hands on my umbrella, while Bert said, “You look very pretty today, Mary Poppins!” I then had to walk past him and say, “Do you really think so?” I was extremely nervous and fretted over how to say that one simple line. I had no idea what my voice would sound like or how to appear natural on film. Onstage, you have to project your voice to be heard by the last row of the audience, and your entire figure is in full view all the time. I was acutely aware of the camera’s presence and surprised by the number of shots required to make up one small scene. Shooting a few lines was like working on a jigsaw puzzle. Not knowing which pieces of film the director would finally select in the editing process made it difficult to know when to spend my energy or save it.

Robert Stevenson didn’t have time to help me much with my acting, so I worked on my scenes by reading lines in the evenings with Tony. In the end, I simply said the words and hoped for the best. If I happen to catch the film these days, I’m struck by the seeming lack of self-consciousness on my part; a freedom and ease that came from total ignorance and flying by the seat of my pants (no pun intended!).

All of the “Jolly Holiday” scenes were filmed in front of a giant yellow screen, and the animated drawings were added later. This technique, known as sodium vapor process, was very new at the time. The high-powered lights were excruciatingly bright and hot, making our eyes squint, and lending a slightly burned quality to our faces—as if we were in direct sunlight, with intense spotlights added. The wigs and costume layers made it even hotter.

I’ve always hated wearing wigs, and the Poppins wigs drove me nuts. My hair was long at that time, and I began to cut it shorter and shorter, the better to endure the wig every day. I also wore false eyelashes; in those days, we used strips, rather than individual lashes. Although the strips could last for a few days, they had to be meticulously cleaned after each use. My makeup man, Bob Schiffer, was well known in the business for being one of the best, but once he inadvertently used a tube of glue that had become rancid, and I got a blistering eye infection. I was unable to work for a day because my eyes were so swollen, and the company was forced to shuffle the schedule and film something else instead.

Because all animation for the film was added long after the live action had been finished, we had little to guide us in terms of what to react to and how we should behave. For the tea party under the willows with the penguin waiters, a cardboard penguin was placed on the table in front of me. Once I’d established the sightline, the penguin was taken away, and when cameras rolled, I had to pretend it was still there. The problem was that my eyes automatically adjusted to the farthest point of vision, so it was very hard to maintain that close focus on a now-imaginary penguin. It added yet another layer to everything I was trying to concentrate on.

The turtle in the pond was actually an iron anvil, such as a cobbler might use for making a shoe. It just fit the size of my foot. I stepped on it and balanced, and they later drew the turtle and the water around it.

The daily schedule was unrelenting. I was up at dawn every morning, rolling out of bed for a quick stretch on the bedroom floor, followed by a snuggle with Emma before I left for the Studios, then a full day of filming, punctuated by visits from Emma and Wendy so that I could nurse my sweet daughter and spend time with her.

Every working morning, while walking from makeup and hair to the soundstage, I would practice a series of breathing and facial exercises to help me wake up and look alive. Every evening, and on the weekends, I was a full-time mum. I seldom wanted to leave the house on my days off, so Tony and I would play with Emma in the garden, read to her from picture books, and take her for strolls in her pram or dips in the swimming pool. When Emma napped, I napped. People often ask me if I sang to her, and I did—though it was never songs associated with my work. Rather, I would sing little ditties that applied to the bond between us, such as “You Are My Sunshine” and “I See the Moon, the Moon Sees Me.”

I had read the Mary Poppins books and script, so I knew I would be flying in the film. What I hadn’t bargained on was how many different tricks it would take to pull it off onscreen. Sometimes I was suspended on wires; other times I sat on a seesaw or atop a ladder, depending on the camera angle. In the tea party scene with Uncle Albert—played so adorably by the legendary comedian Ed Wynn—we shot some takes with the set completely turned on its side. When the film was ultimately righted to match everything else, no wires were apparent.

Many of my costumes needed duplicates in a larger size to accommodate the harness I wore when flying. This was a thick elastic body stocking, which started at my knees and ended above my waist. The flying wires passed through holes in the costume and were attached to steel panels on either hip. I literally did a lot of “hanging around” between takes, and when I was suspended, the steel panels pressed on my hip bones, which became very bruised. Sheepskin was added, which helped, although it was barely enough, since I couldn’t look too bulky.

My most dangerous flying sequences were saved for the end of our filming schedule, presumably in case of an accident. In one of my last takes, I’d been hanging in the rafters for quite a while, waiting for the tech team to be ready. Suddenly I felt my supporting wires drop by about a foot. I became extremely nervous, and called down to the stage manager below:

“Could you let me down very gently, please? I felt the wire give a little. It doesn’t feel safe.”

I could hear the word being passed along the full length of the studio, to where the man who controlled my wires and counterweights was standing.

“Let her down easy, Joe!”

“When she comes down, take it realllly gently…” At which point, I fell to the stage like a ton of bricks.

There was an awful silence, then Joe’s disembodied voice from afar called, “Is she down yet?”

I have to admit, I let fly a stream of colorful expletives. Fortunately, I wasn’t harmed because the balanced counterweights did their job and broke my fall, but I landed hard and was quite shaken.

It is amazing to me that, even now, one doesn’t see the technical difficulties in Mary Poppins that were ever-present while shooting. In those days, there were no computers to assist with the special effects. Every single scene had to be storyboarded, and these hand-drawn renderings created the visual road map for the film. Bob Stevenson worked hard to make sure that each shot faithfully followed those designs, and that no one could spot the brilliant technical work behind the Disney “magic.” So often, the film called for something that had never been achieved before in terms of special effects. It was up to Walt’s brilliant technical crew to figure out how to make it happen.

Walt visited the set from time to time, and when he did, everyone was thrilled to see him. He was always very encouraging and full of bonhomie—I never heard him critique what he saw. He was clearly very excited about this new project. I got the feeling that he would have liked to visit more often, but he wanted to be tactful and not appear concerned or be intrusive. There was always a special aura when he was on the set; that charismatic sparkle that he conjured so well.

Principal photography for Mary Poppins finished shooting in August, yet there was still a ton of post-production work to be done, including all my “looping” on the film. I discovered that sound defects often disturb a scene—an airplane flying overhead, wind blowing across a microphone if we were outdoors, a camera being bumped, a body mic rubbing against clothing or being brushed by a hand, and so forth. The smallest flaw necessitates rerecording that piece of dialogue in a sound booth. Sometimes, it’s actually possible to improve a performance, with better emphasis on a word here or more nuance there. Between looping and all the animation and special effects that still had to be added, it was several months before I saw any part of the film assembled, and another year of editing, color-correcting, and sound balancing before Mary Poppins was finally completed.

In retrospect, I could not have asked for a better introduction to film, in that it taught me so much in such a short period of time. The special effects and animation challenges alone were a steep learning curve, the likes of which I would never experience again. I had as yet no idea how to assess my performance, or how the film might be received, but I did know that the hard work had not precluded my enjoyment of the process. From the kindness and generosity of Walt Disney himself, to the camaraderie on set, the pleasure of performing the songs, and of course, the creative collaboration with my husband, it had all been an unforgettable experience.

One day, during my last weeks in Los Angeles, I happened to be driving across the valley toward the Hollywood Bowl. I passed the Warner Bros. Studio, where the film of My Fair Lady had just commenced shooting, with Audrey Hepburn playing the role of Eliza Doolittle opposite Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway, both of whom had been in the stage production with me on Broadway. Though I totally understood why Audrey had been chosen for the role (I’d never made a movie, and was a relative unknown compared to her worldwide fame), I felt sad that I would never have the chance to put my version of Eliza on film. In those days, archival tapes of an original stage production were still a thing of the future.

As I was driving by the great Warner gates, an impish feeling came over me. I rolled down my window and yelled, “Thank you very much, Mr. Warner!” I was being facetious, but at the same time genuine; so aware of how extremely lucky I was that Jack Warner’s choice of casting for Eliza had rendered me available for Mary Poppins.

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