Julie Andrews happy with her new direction

LONDON — She turned up at the Academy Awards, as a cameo to Lady Gaga’s performance of songs from The Sound Of Music. Some fans of the musical may call that a travesty, but Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress Julie Andrews, whose singing voice has not recovered after a botched operation to remove non-cancerous throat nodules in 1997 said she rediscovered her voice in her books and in directing theatre.

Her latest children’s book, Little Bo In London: The Ultimate Adventure Of Bonnie Boadicea, has just been released by Harper Collins. It’s the fourth and final book in the series about a possibly magical ship’s cat that travels the world with the man who rescued her. It’s the 27th book Andrew has co-written with her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton.

The 77-year-old is also directing a musical theatre adaptation of another of her books, The Great American Mousical. The show, about a troop of acting mice living beneath the floors of a famous Broadway theatre, is currently on at Connecticut. Andrews thinks it “would do very well on Broadway”, where she said she would like to direct and produce.

Damage from her throat operation has permanently limited her range and her ability to hold notes. “The operation that I had left me without a voice and without a certain piece of my vocal chords,” said Andrews, who has starred in several quintessential stage and film musicals including Mary Poppins and The Sound Of Music. That’s not to say she can’t get through a tune. The actress said she can still speak “pretty well” and can still hit a few bass notes. “So if you wanted a rendition of Old Man River, you might get it, but I’m not singing as much these days.”

Andrews has sung publicly several times, including a performance in the 2004 film The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and in a 2010 London concert, but called those “speak-singing”.

Andrews said that in a strange way, she feels fortunate that she no longer can sing because it pushed her to find a “different way” of using her voice. Paraphrasing a line from her Sound Of Music character Maria von Trapp, Andrews noted: “When one door closes, another window opens.” THE DAILY TELEGRAPH