JULIE ANDREWS - SO LONG, FAREWELL

SO LONG, FAREWELL

JULIE ANDREWS

SONGWRITERS: RICHARD RODGERS & OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: THE SOUND OF MUSIC

LABEL: ARGYLE ENTERPRISES INC.

GENRE: SOUNDTRACK

YEAR: 1965

 

          Dame Julie Andrews DBE(born Julia Elizabeth Wells; 1 October 1935) is an English actress, singer, and author. She has garnered numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over seven decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Grammy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards. Andrews was made a Disney Legend in 1991, and has been honoured with an Honorary Golden Lion as well as the AFI Life Achievement Award. In 2000, Andrews was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts.

              Andrews, a child actress and singer, appeared in the West End in 1948 and made her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend(1954). Billed as "Britain's youngest prima donna", she rose to prominence starring in Broadway musicals such as My Fair Lady(1956) playing Eliza Doolittle and Camelot(1960) playing Queen Guinevere. On 31 March 1957, Andrews starred in the premiere of Rodgers and Hammerstein's written-for-television musical Cinderella, a live, colour CBS network broadcast seen by over 100 million viewers. Andrews made her feature film debut in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins(1964) and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the title role. The following year she starred in the musical film The Sound of Music(1965), playing Maria von Trapp and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

            The Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical drama film produced and directed by Robert Wise, and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, with Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr, and Eleanor Parker. The film is an adaptation of the 1959 stage musical of the same name, composed by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. The film's screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, adapted from the stage musical's book by Lindsay and Crouse. Based on the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp, the film is about a young Austrian postulant in Salzburg, Austria, in 1938 who is sent to the villa of a retired naval officer and widower to be governess to his seven children. After bringing love and music into the lives of the family, she marries the officer and, together with the children, finds a way to survive the loss of their homeland to the Nazis.

           Filming took place from March to September 1964 in Los Angeles and Salzburg. The Sound of Music was released on March 2, 1965, in the United States, initially as a limited roadshow theatrical release. Although initial critical response to the film was mixed, it was a major commercial success, becoming the number one box office film after four weeks, and the highest-grossing film of 1965. By November 1966, The Sound of Music had become the highest-grossing film of all-time—surpassing Gone with the Wind—and held that distinction for five years. The film was just as popular throughout the world, breaking previous box-office records in twenty-nine countries. Following an initial theatrical release that lasted four and a half years, and two successful re-releases, the film sold 283 million admissions worldwide and earned a total worldwide gross of $286 million.

        The Sound of Music received five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, Wise's second pair of both awards, the first being from the 1961 film West Side Story. The film also received two Golden Globe Awards, for Best Motion Picture and Best Actress, the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical. In 1998, the American Film Institute(AFI) listed The Sound of Music as the fifty-fifth greatest American film of all time, and the fourth greatest film musical. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

There's a sad sort of clanking

From the clock in the hall

And the bells in the steeple too.

And up in the nursery an absurd little bird

Is popping up to say cukoo!

Cukoo! Cukoo!

Regretfully they tell us

But firmly they compel us

To say goodbye to you.

So long

Farewell

Aufwiedersehn

Goodnight

I hate to go and leave this pretty sight

So long

Farewell

Aufwiedersehn

Adeiu

Adeiu Adeiu

To yieu and yieu and yieu

So long

Farewell

Au 'voire

Aufwiedersehn

I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne

So long

Farewell

Aufwiedersehn

Goodbye

I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye

Goodbye!

I'm glad to go I cannot tell a lie

I flit I float

I fleetly flee I fly

The sun has gone to bed and so must I

So long Farewell

Aufwiedersehn

Goodbye—

Goodbye...

Goodbye...

Goodbye...

Goodbye...