The Hollywood star seemed to be the embodiment of the magical nanny when she featured in the 1964 Disney film. In a 1976 interview with the BBC, she talked about being defined by Poppins' sugar-sweet, wholesome persona. Actress Julie Andrews looks skyward as she ponders the best way to answer the question which BBC presenter Sue Lawley seems determined to press her on – if she feels typecast by the public image formed by her early success as Mary Poppins.
The 1964 Walt Disney musical, which was based on stories written by PL Travers, had brought Andrews overnight fame when it premiered in Los Angeles, 60 years ago this week. But Mary Poppins had also helped create the sweet, wholesome image that, even at the time of the BBC interview in 1976, still defined her for many people. The film told the story of an extraordinary nanny, who descends from the London skies, umbrella in hand, into the lives of the troubled Banks family in 1910, taking charge of their boisterous, if rather neglected, children.
Through a series of adventures, with a dose of magic and common sense, Mary Poppins helps repair the family's relationships, getting them to embrace the joy in their everyday lives. Mary Poppins had long been something of a passion project for Walt Disney. In the early 1940s, he had promised his daughters, who were fans of the first book, that he would adapt it into a movie.
But he had not counted upon its notoriously prickly author, Travers. He spent the next 20 years repeatedly t.