Anders Says
- a testament of my life with Dame Julie Andrews
My Stories - 2
Royal Festival Hall, 1989
Maria and myself at the foyer of Festival Hall. This was exciting times as I had arranged a group booking with fans from all over Europe. We were sat on the first two rows in the auditorium - we had Julie's 'real' father sitting just in front of us. I'm sure he felt very pleased with Julies performance, as she was brilliant - Christmas songs really suits her pure voice.
After the concert we gathered outside the hall, hoping to get a chance to see Julie as she left. There are many exits, so we ran around the building several times, luckily we managed to be at the right place at the right time. As Julie came out , we started to clap our hands in appreciation and we also started to sing ABBA's 'Thank you for the music'. Unfortunately, I have no singing voice what so ever, so we stopped singing and tried to get her autograph instead.
This concert was not televised, though it was broadcast on BBC radio. You can listen to it here - The Magic of Christmas
Maria and Anders at Royal Festival Hall, awaiting a Christmas Concert with Julie Andrews.
Julie with Andre' Previn in the concert hall.
Anita and Marc tries to get Julie's attention.
Marie-Jeanne and Anita get Julie to sign an autograph.
The King and I, 1992 studio cast
Jose' was the instigator of this meeting. He represented a movie magazine and had given us passes to the launch party, which was a grand affair, held in a posh London hotel. Julie arrived with John Mauceri (Hollywood Bowl Orchestra) and soon after that Julie launched the CD and the party started.
Julie was to have her birthday after midnight, so when the time was right I gathered enough courage to tap Julie on the shoulder and wish her a 'Happy Birthday'. Jane Asher had baked an enormous birthday cake with a Thai inspired theme, that Julie seemed happy to cut. After that we left the party, as we had important business to attend to in the morning.
Launch of the CD and Interview with Julie
Only a few hours later we found ourselves in an expensive looking room at the Dorchester. Julie was due to join us at any minute for an interview. Jose' actually worked for the magazine but myself and Ernesto were there as professional photographers - if you'd seen the cameras you would have known we were anything but.. Don't remember much from the interview - it had standard questions and received standard answers.
At the end of the interview, all three of us, asked her to sign a photo. She obliged and even asked us for our names. Ernesto totally flipped out in excitement - as you can see. My choice of photograph was the promotional photo of her and Ben Kingsley. She looks absolutely stunning on it. As we were leaving, daughter Emma joined Julie for a final photograph. Such an exciting two days - 'why, it's almost like being in love'. Video from the Launch and Party
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Top: Jose', Julie and Isabella are posing for the camera.
Right: Julie is concentrating very hard to spell my name correctly.
Left: Ernesto finally snaps.
Bottom: Emma and Julie.
Right: Three happy bunnies skipping out of the Dorchester.
'A Touch of Adultery', 1992-93
For the long awaited opening of 'A Touch of Adultery' in Stockholm, Sweden we had prepared something really special. I had on an off chance contacted Sweden's biggest supplier of condoms, to ask them if we could have some freebees for the opening night. They gave us 200 condoms in various flavours - some with quite an unusual taste.
We met up in Stockholm on the day - myself, Maria and Bertie. We were wearing our A*I*B T-shirts and we were carrying an enlargement of the most beautiful picture of Julie - the one where she looks at the 'Julie rose'. We saw quite a few raised eyebrows that day but we had wanted to create attention - and that was what we achieved.
Mark joined us outside the cinema and told us he'd had an idea. Would we be on his live TV programme later that evening as 'The Voice of the People' - a one minute slot where you can talk about anything. We said yes, though we hadn't rehearsed anything but how difficult could it be to fill one minute of live TV? We were soon going to find out!
Mark was just finishing interviewing Dolph Lundgren and then we were on. We had chosen lines from 'The Sound of Music' and 'Mary Poppins' with words of how much we loved Julie Andrews. We only managed to fill 45 seconds as we found out there is a limit how many times you can say 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' without sounding repetitious!
Anders, Maria and Bertie outside the cinema. Below: Us with Mark.
'Putting It Together', NYC 1993
First I would like to thank Jean for getting me 'the hottest tickets in town'. This is my favourite Julie performance on stage - so intimate and exiting. (Manhattan Theatre Club, NYC)
In the number 'Pretty Women' (sung by the men) we saw Julie (and Rachel) 'silhouetted' on the left hand of the stage, really not center stage, yet the focus of my eyes were on Julie - so beautiful. Her rendition of 'Getting Married Today' was delivered with such speed and clarity - such a treat. This was also my introduction to Sondheim, which is now my favourite composer/writer.
Stephen Collins and Julie / Opening Night /
Getting Married Today (poor picture quality)
Getting Married Today (better quality but not from an actual performance)
We also made a short video from our New York adventure
Top: Anders, Jenny, Claude and Jean.
Jenny gets Julie to smile - now what did she say?
Jean is happy to get her Playbill signed.
As always, we waited for Julie at the stage door. She stopped to sign some 'Playbills' and I got to take some photographs. As her car drove away, she waved to us through the window - was she thinking 'thanks for coming tonight' or was it 'please, get a life' - I will never know.
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