‘Mary Poppins’ turns 60: Celebrating Julie Andrews and her Oscar-winning movie debut
What is your favorite Sherman Brothers song from the endearing 1964 Walt Disney musical fantasy “Mary Poppins”? Perhaps it’s Robert B. and Richard M’s peppy “Spoonful of Sugar.” Or the Oscar-winning “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and tongue-twisting “”Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” It’s no secret that Disney himself loved the haunting “Feed the Birds.” Disney would often summon Richard M. to his office to play the ballad. “It’s about a lot more than birdseed for birds,” Sherman told me in a 2018 L.A. Times interview. “The song is about the simple act of giving. He’d just say, ‘Play it for me.’ And I’d sing and play it for him, and he’d say ‘Yep, that’s what it’s all about.”’
And it seems that even decades after his death in 1966, it was still what it was all about for Disney. Back in 2015, the studio unveiled the restoration of Disney’s office on the Burbank lot. Richard M. (who died earlier this year at 95) and Robert B. (who died 12 years ago), sat down at the vintage piano for the invited guests. “The piano started rapping started beating time. It was amazing. Something was clicking away.”
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Karen Dotrice, who was eight years old when she played Jane Banks in the blockbuster and has a cameo in 2018’s “Mary Poppins Returns,” recalled, “the lights were flickering. All of the heads of the studio were there. The people who organized the event were mortified. We went ‘Don’t worry. That’s Walt. He’s joining in.’ Walt was completely present.”
Disney, she added in a 2018 GoldDerby interview, was a constant presence on the set back in 1963. “I have vivid memories of him standing behind the camera and just like leaning forward, smiling and then mouthing the words to the songs. This was his baby. He put every ounce of himself into that original film.”
“Mary Poppins,” based on P.L. Travers 1934 children’s book, had its star-studded premiere Aug 27, 1964, at the then-Grauman’s Chinese Theater where it broke first-week records at the movie palace making $57,119. In fact, it played 17 weeks there before moving to the Cathay Circle Theatre. It had its New York opening on Sept. 24; by year’s end “Mary Poppins” was in 16 theaters, with more rollouts in 1965. The soundtrack album had reached a cool million in sales by the end of 1964.
The movie made a superstar out of Julie Andrews, who had appeared on Broadway in “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot.” She made her film debut in “Mary Poppins” as the practically perfect nanny winning the best actress Oscar. Dick Van Dyke, who was the star of the classic CBS sitcom “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and had won the Tony for “Bye Bye Birdie,” played her platonic Cockney friend Bert. It was Van Dyke who introduced “Chim Chim Cher-ee” in the movie. Still, Van Dyke told me in 2010 L.A. Times chat that “British people never left me off the hook” over his less than perfect Cockney accent. “They just teased me to death,” he added with a laugh. “Somebody sent me a British magazine listing the 20 worst dialects ever done in movies. I was No. 2 with the worst Cockney accent ever done.”
Rounding out the cast were Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson as Jane and Michael distracted parents; Robert Stevenson directed. “Mary Poppins” earned 13 Oscar nominations including best picture; Andrews’ first husband Tony Walton was among the nominees for best costume design. The film would take home five Oscars.
Reviews were generally strong with the New York Times declaring it “a most wonderful, cheering movie…” describing Andrews superb at the nanny. In 2006, the AFI named it the sixth greatest American musical and in 2014, the Library of Congress inducted it into the National Film Registry.
It wasn’t until the 2013 movie “Saving Mr. Banks” starring Tom Hanks as Disney and Emma Thompson as Travers did audiences learn just how many hurdles, he had to jump to get Travers to sell him the rights to the beloved book. Travers must have had a deaf ear because she hated the Shermans songs and score. Richard M. described it as going through the “tortures of the damned…with this strange woman, trying to create a great story and a great score. She knocked us down at every turn.” Of course, not only did they win the song Oscar, but they also took home the Academy Award for best music, substantially original score. “This was our dream,” said Sherman. “This is the one we really poured ourselves into.”
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