April 5, 1965 – Mary Poppins Wins Five Academy Awards
Julie Andrews after winning the Academy Award for Best Actress
“The press had made such a big deal out of it, and although I knew why I didn’t do My Fair Lady…and sure, I was sad about it, but I completely understood why I wasn’t chosen to do it…” – Julie Andrews
The 37th Academy Awards were held in Santa Monica, California on April 5, 1965. Of the 13 nominations it received – the most of that awards year – Disney’s Mary Poppins won five: Best Film Editing, Original Music Score, Best Song for “Chim Chim Cheree,” Best Visual Effects, and Best Actress for Julie Andrews.
Julie Andrews had been passed over for the lead in My Fair Lady at Warner Brothers. Time Magazine, outraged, wrote: “Someone, somewhere, made the decision to include Andrews out of the [film]. There is an evil and rampantly lunatic force at loose in the world and it must be destroyed.” Producer Jack Warner responded with, “No one in the sticks has ever heard from her,” and cast Audrey Hepburn as the lead role. Andrews remarked later that had she done My Fair Lady, she never would have been able to do Mary Poppins.
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