Julie Andrews Opens Up About 'Times of Sadness' in Revealing New Memoir: 'I Wanted to Be Frank'

Julie Andrews is revealing secrets about her legendary career in her new memoir.

The 84-year-old actress, singer and performer appeared on Today Tuesday morning to promote the book, titled Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years. Andrews wrote the memoir with her daughter Emma, 56, and opened up about the process of reliving some of the busiest and most exciting times in her life.

“It was painful, funny, we wept at times, we laughed our heads off, we drank endless cups of tea. And we worked,” Andrews said. “It was about a 2½, 3-year project when all is said and done. It was a lot of writing with my daughter, which I enjoyed very, very much.”

Home Work, out today, follows Andrews’ career from 1963 to 1986, starting with her arrival in Hollywood to film Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music back-to-back and ending with the film That’s Life!

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“I made three films and was having a wonderful time because none of them had been released, so I was learning about movies and working hard and all of that,” she said of her early acting years. “And then suddenly they were all released. And then, everybody was talking about it. It was an assault, really, for awhile. I’m not complaining, believe me.”

But although her career was blossoming during that time, Andrews also gets personal about the low moments she experienced.

“There were times of sadness and many things like that. I wanted to be as frank as I could,” she said of the book. “If I’m going to write a memoir, I might as well be frank as much as I can. So many things were happening at the time. That’s why I call it Home Work, because it’s about the work I was learning to do on movies which I’d never done before. And also, homework on myself, to a certain extent — how was I growing, what I was learning in life.”

Home Work is out now.