Dame Julie flies in for Mary Poppins
The original Mary Poppins star, Julie Andrews, urged the audience of the West End stage production of the film to keep "the magic alive" after jetting into London for a gala performance of the show
Forty years after winning her Best Actress Oscar for her performance as the brolly-wielding no-nonsense nanny, Dame Julie came to watch 23-year-old Laura Michelle Kelly recreate her famous role.
The actress was cheered as she entered the theatre and clapped her way through the famous musical number Supercalifragilistic.
She said: "What about that, what an extraordinarily wonderful evening. There is only one word I can think of to sum it up. It went 'Super', let me see if I can get that right."
The emotional actress said to Miss Kelly, "And you said it backwards properly. I can only say it the short way."
She said: "Can you imagine the joy and memories that this has brought back to me? I've been so delighted to see what everybody has done with this lovely piece, and it's a little bit of the old and a lot of the new and I think it's great."
She reminisced about the day in 1961 when Walt Disney invited her to play the part.
She said: "Of course, little did I know that Disney would pull off this magic, and I certainly had no idea how it would change the fortune of this 26-year-old."
Miss Kelly, who won an Olivier Award for her part in the Cameron Mackintosh £9 million production, recently confessed she had been a little anxious about the prospect of performing in front of the original Mary Poppins.
Yesterday's charity performance at the Prince Edward Theatre was the first time for Dame Julie, who divides her time between her homes in the US and Switzerland, to see the timeless classic on stage.
Coincidentally, Dame Julie, now 69, had her first starring role in a performance of Humpty Dumpty in the same West End theatre in 1948.
Years later, despite having no experience on the big screen, she won the role of Mary Poppins when Walt Disney saw her in a Broadway production of Camelot.
Immediately afterwards, he dashed backstage to ask her to take the part that she would immortalise in the film.
The stage musical, which opened in December, is closer to the original 1934 book by Pamela Travers, who was not a fan of the classic 1964 film, believing it was too sweet.
Proceeds from last night's performance will go the UK-based children's charity Absolute Return for Kids (Ark), international relief agency, Operation USA, of which The Sound of Music star is a trustee, and to drama school Lamda.
