Andrews Takes to the Great Outdoors

“It makes me verrry nervous, performing in Los Angeles. You really kind of gear up sharper and tighter, and hope it’s good. Everybody will be there, and you want to shine,” said Julie Andrews about her concerts Friday and Saturday at the Greek Theatre, her first Los Angeles solo concert performances in a decade.

The semi-autobiographical program, which also covers her early days in vaudeville, is part of a six-week national tour that winds up July 29 at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa.

“Doing those songs . . . , I’m kind of ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t,’ ” said Andrews about the tunes from her early years. “I’ll get just as many people saying, ‘Why didn’t she?’ as ‘Why did she?,’ so it’s a question of choosing the ones I like to sing best and hoping that other people enjoy them. ‘The Sound of Music’ is obligatory, but it’s still such a pleasure.”

It has been a quarter-century since Julie Andrews became an instant movie star with “Mary Poppins.” And even longer since her Broadway triumphs in “My Fair Lady” (1957) and “Camelot” (1960). Now, 24 years after her role as Maria Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music,” 53-year-old Andrews is still enveloped with the wholesome image created by her early roles.

Over the years, Andrews has played a few screen roles that dispelled the saccharine for a while, many with her film maker-husband Blake Edwards, but in person she is still as warm and engaging as her cinematic neophyte-turned-nanny Maria.

Andrews said the current tour came about largely because “I need to sing. I don’t mean necessarily the emotional desire, which is always there, but the actual physical need to keep my vocal cords really working. If I don’t air my voice enough, I’m quite frightened that I will lose it. It’s one thing to practice around the house, where dogs disappear and cats scream and children close their doors, but that’s never the amount you need to keep in good shape.”

It is hard to imagine Andrews evoking that kind of household reaction. It was, after all, her four-octave range that propelled her to London stage stardom at 12, having begun singing at 5 with her mother and stepfather, both music hall performers. “Now,” she said, “I can’t do the coloratura any more. But my voice was so quiet and thin then--now it’s mature, and I can do more varied things with it.”

Indeed, the one bonus of touring, Andrews said, is the opportunity to perform songs she usually doesn’t do, such as “Come Rain or Come Shine,” a selection from her most recent album, “Love, Julie,” a jazz-oriented collection of standards and contemporary ballads. (The show was taped for PBS’ “In Performance at Wolf Trap” series, which may air in March.)

“Hopefully, one never stops growing and learning. I’d like to lose certain restrictions I put on myself when I work, be able to loosen up a little bit more, be a little bit easier in my skin at times. My passion all my life has been to do as much that is varied as possible. So, inasmuch as there’s a lot out there that I haven’t tried, I guess you could say that’s my goal.”

This past month marked not only Andrews’ return to the concert stage but to television, as she recently taped her third special with Carol Burnett, “Julie and Carol, Together Again,” for airing this fall on ABC. “It’s been just out-and-out fun, as the other two were,” she said. “We poke a lot of fun at today (such as a “Mama’s Rap,” performed in fluorescent costumes). The friendship between us is so enduring--it’s very generous and giving.”

For her part, Burnett said later in a phone interview, “We got right back into the sandbox and giggled a lot. We’ve been through so much now, we’re more relaxed and there’s more understanding. She’ll always be the consummate professional, always keep her good humor. And she’s a ‘mom’ to everyone.”

Andrews is a real-life mum to two adopted Vietnamese orphans as well as to her own adult daughter and two stepchildren, maintaining homes in Malibu and Switzerland. She is a founding board member of the relief organization Operation California and also serves on the board of the Foundation for Hereditary Disease. She is working on her third children’s book, about the adventures of a ship’s cat, and would like to begin taking pottery- or porcelain-making classes to augment her love of sculpture.

Her upcoming projects include participating in an October Lincoln Center tribute to the late lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, performing with Andre Previn at London’s Festival Hall at Christmastime, and the release the following year of a Christmas album for Hallmark.

Does she feel she has anything left to prove--or improve?

“I’m very self-critical. There are still a lot of gaps. I had a very good foundation in vaudeville and musicals, but it doesn’t lend to feeling particularly legitimate--I didn’t do much Shakespeare or straight acting. So there is still an awful lot I have to learn to feel secure.”