TRANSCRIPT
♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ -In a far-off land, in a magical village, there is a most peculiar bird.
This whimsical fellow was created by my husband, Blake Edwards.
Blake was best known for being a writer and a film director, but he was also a gifted sculptor.
So, if you really want to learn about my husband and the life we built together, allow me to suggest that you begin with this silly, but somehow elegant waterfowl.
♪♪♪ Look closely.
Everything you could ever want to know is right here.
♪♪♪ [ Jazzy, "Peter Gunn"-style tune plays ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ [ Thunder crashes ] ♪♪♪ [ Tires screech ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ -[ Vocalizing ] [ Glass shatters ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ -I didn't know a lot of couples like Blake and Julie that were so equal.
-It was kind of like royalty.
[ Laughs ] I mean, that's how I felt.
-It's a fascinating pairing.
I remember as a kid finding out they were married.
It's like, "What?
How's that possible?"
She's from "Sound of Music," and he's this comedy guy.
-They seem to work so well together on and off screen.
-Blake was working to take Julie out of that mold that everybody had put her in -- sort of this idea that she's the nanny, she's Mary Poppins.
-Dad knew who she was as a person and that she's very funny.
She swears like a truck driver.
-She clearly was a muse and she clearly was an example of how to live in a very cynical business with a sense of gratitude and optimism.
-She brought class to everything she did.
So, then, you put her in a crazy comedy, and she is the grounding force that lets all this other madness go on around her.
-Blake Edwards must have understood that "If I hire somebody great, they're going to reflect back on me."
And she's super funny.
-And that works so well in the context of the anarchy and the rawness of the things that they built.
-You could see they were learning from each other.
Julie would bring out the softness in Blake.
And then Blake wanted to show her off.
-There was a great trust and admiration for one another.
-A true love affair.
-My first awareness of Blake was when I went to see "Breakfast at Tiffany's" at Radio City Music Hall.
And I just was in awe of the lovely movie and the talent of the gentleman.
Never really put any thought behind the fact that I might meet him.
♪♪♪ But then many, many years later, I was driving in my car.
I'd begun some therapy, some analysis, which I really needed at the time since Hollywood was just coming at me from all sides and I didn't know who I was or what I wanted or needed.
My therapist was down Roxbury.
And I got to the meridian on Sunset Boulevard and a very beautiful car -- I think it was a Rolls-Royce -- came into the meridian on the other side of me.
So I was heading that way and this car was heading that way.
But because of traffic, we landed side by side.
I looked across and it was a very handsome fellow.
And Blake rolled down his window and said, "You're Julie Andrews?"
And I said, "Yes, I am."
And then he said to me, "Are you going to where I just came from?"
And I said, "I think so," because his analyst was on Roxbury, my analyst in those days, everybody else's therapist was on Roxbury.
So we both understood each other very well.
And it wasn't too long after that that I got a phone call saying he would love to come and talk to me about a project.
And I said, "Well, for sure.
We could meet at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
I don't live too far away."
And all I got back was, "No, I'll come to you.
You just stay where you are."
And I thought, "That's a little cheeky, coming straight to my home."
But that night that he came to discuss that movie, we -- it was just such a lovely, riveting evening.
And then he said, "I just finished a movie called, 'What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?'
And I'm having a screening of it for some friends.
Would you like to come?"
And I said, "You know, I would really love that."
[ Whistle blows ] [ Crowd cheers ] [ Air hissing, laughter ] I heard that he loved the way I laughed so much that he kind of felt "that could be my kind of gal."
From then on, I think we were an item.
That's just all I can say.
It was pretty instantaneous.
He was...dangerously attractive.
But hold on.
[ Needle scratches ] I think we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here.
Maybe we should go back a bit.
-Push the button, Max.
-No, a bit further.
[ Tape rewinding ] [ "The Pink Panther Theme" plays ] A little more.
-How do I look?
-More.
There.
♪♪♪ -Dad was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
-He didn't have an easy life at all.
His father left the family, and Blake didn't see him again for a very long time, which must have been very difficult.
He was a very sensitive, smart boy and quite a handful.
-He was very artistic.
He loved to paint and draw.
His mother, Lillian, brought him out to California.
She met Jack McEdward.
-Jack was a production manager and a producer.
-And so my dad spent a lot of time on movie lots.
-In Hollywood where 65% of all films are produced... -Occasionally, I used to climb the fence with other kids on the block.
We'd play in the various sets.
It was great for kids.
-So it just seemed like a natural thing for him to go into the business.
-He came up through the old studio system, first as an actor in the '40s.
-You better sit down, sonny.
-I wasn't an actor for very long.
-This is enough.
-I wasn't very good.
Even while I was acting, I was beginning to write and that's what I wanted to do.
-His first real taste of success came in a medium that people don't talk about much anymore, which is network radio.
-My name is Diamond and I'm in business for a very simple reason: I like money.
-He created, wrote and sometimes directed a popular radio show called "Richard Diamond."
It was the foundation of his success.
-Blake had a friend and they decided they could write as good a Western as the one they just saw.
-We saw some Western.
I criticized the hell out of it.
And then we decided we would just write our own screenplay.
-This is the thrill-swept story of John Sands.
-I think that first piece was called "Panhandle."
It turned out to be not too bad.
[ Gunshots ] -I got to learn a little bit about the business.
One thing I got to learn is that it was a director's medium.
I watched him work and I thought, "Boy, he's having a good time."
And it's very creative, and, most importantly, nobody fools around with the script.
So I thought, "Well, I'll be a director and then I'll control whatever it is I write."
"Operation Petticoat" with Cary Grant was a big step in my career.
-Have you ever been in a submarine before, Mr. Holden?
-No, sir.
-We could use a good torpedo and gunnery officer.
Any experience along those lines?
-Guns?
I'm afraid not, sir.
No.
-"Operation Petticoat" is light.
It's bright.
There's very little serious about that movie.
-Stand by two, three.
-Stand by two, three.
-It's sexist by today's standards.
-Oh, Captain, it's time for your vitamin pill.
-Lieutenant, get below.
Damn it, get below!
-But I think it still plays.
[ Explosion ] -What happened, sir?
-We sunk a truck!
-Blake created a private-eye series for television and called it "Peter Gunn."
And he set it in a jazz club, which required more than incidental music.
[ Jazz music playing ] And Henry Mancini suggested to him.
-Blake had seen Dad's work in "Touch of Evil" and he thought that would be the right vibe.
And he said, "Would you like to score a TV show?"
-Hank said, "Would it be okay if I wrote a jazz score?"
Blake said, "By all means."
And the first day that he heard that famous Peter Gunn theme, he said he just about fell down with delight.
[ "Peter Gunn Theme" playing ] -"Peter Gunn" became a hit in large part because of its theme song, and thus began a long, almost record-breaking collaboration.
-They rarely did any projects that weren't with each other.
It speaks to their relationship and how much they adored each other and how much they understood each other.
-You can feel when a great director finds a great composer that they click with.
It's like two hands clasping together and they complement each other so well.
-Hank was so happy at being creative in a free space and knowing that we adored him and he could do no wrong.
[ "Moon River" plays ] -"Breakfast at Tiffany's" was probably them at their best.
Audrey, for one thing, has become just this icon.
-How do I look?
-People still talk about that movie to me and "Oh, my God, that's my favorite movie.
I named my daughter Holly because of that movie."
-The thing is, I have the most terrifying man downstairs.
I mean, he's sweet when he isn't drunk, but let him start lapping up the vino, and oh, golly, quel beast.
-Audrey Hepburn is so perfect as Holly Golightly because she's this artificial person that she's created and underneath there's such sadness.
A lot of his films are about sort of taking that mask away and revealing the real person underneath.
-So, my darling Fred, I have tonight made a very serious decision.
-And what is that?
-No longer will I play the field.
-Audrey and I just got along.
Super lady.
Just the best.
[ Indistinct conversations ] -Blake had just an idea about this.
He felt that it needed to be the best party ever.
[ Party music playing ] -And it would be a shame not to make the party a character.
And I said, "There must be a whole lot of actors out there that aren't working that could have a good time."
So, we brought champagne, people drank, and we had a party.
And I just turned them loose.
And they led me into inspirational kind of moments.
-Who are all these people anyhow?
-Who knows?
The word gets out.
-Oh, she looks so gorgeous.
He wasn't a bad hunk, either, was he?
-♪ Moon river, wider than a mile ♪ -This song, I mean, it's the most beautiful song I think ever in film.
-♪ Oh, dream maker ♪ -God Almighty, is that a beautiful song or what?
Lyrics by Johnny Mercer.
-♪ You heartbreaker ♪ ♪ Wherever...♪ -He understood the power of music.
People are so afraid of it, I think, now.
-♪ Two drifters ♪ ♪ Off to see the world ♪ ♪ There is such a lot of world to see ♪ -And the degree to which falling in love with her is the key to this film.
And this song is the key to falling in love with her.
It's intangible, it's perfect, and it's just kind of one of those things like lightning striking.
-♪ Waitin' 'round the bend ♪ -Waitin 'round the bend, my huckleberry friend.
-♪ My huckleberry friend ♪ -Lovely lyrics.
-♪ Moon river ♪ -That's just movie magic right there.
-♪ And me ♪ -But there are problematic things that happen in comedy and Blake has his share of them.
-Mr. Golightly!
-A film that people just cherish is marred by the repeated appearances of Mickey Rooney as the worst kind of stereotype.
It was controversial even then because it was so extreme.
-Look, there's no doubt that the Mickey Rooney portrayal of the landlord is on its face racist.
-Every movie is a mirror of its time.
And you can debate whether it's an accurate reflection or not, but more often than not, it is.
And if you don't take that into account, you can't watch an old movie.
-Honestly, if you lifted all those scenes, the Mickey Rooney scenes, out of "Breakfast at Tiffany's," I don't think it would affect the movie one bit.
-Don't cut.
Don't censor.
Show them and discuss them.
-In later years, my dad expressed regret for the racist tone that was portrayed.
-Looking back, I wish I had never done it.
And I would give anything to be able to recast it.
But it's there, and onward and upward.
-As a kid [Chuckles] nothing better than these opening sequences.
[ "The Pink Panther Theme" playing ] -I remember watching for the first time Clouseau and as dad laughed, like he would fall off the couch laughing, literally.
♪♪♪ -Seeing "The Return of the Pink Panther" at the Cinerama Dome when I was 11 years old.
At that age, it was the best movie ever made.
I absolutely adored it, and those opening credits, Blake Edwards Production.
His name is really big.
And it really hit me that this guy knows how to make the funniest movies I've ever seen.
-But our security measures.
-I'm sure your security measures are very good, but [Laughs] obviously not good enough.
[ Alarm ringing ] Let me see.
[ Door slams ] Ah!
-The films that you see when you're young are the ones that stay with you, and those are the ones that leave such an impression and they make you who you are as an artist.
-Ah!
Help!
[ Grunting ] -And Blake's humor revolved a lot around slapstick.
-Laurel and Hardy were basically Dad's muse.
-Now, don't drop until I get the mattress underneath ya.
-Well, hurry up!
I can't hold on much longer!
-Stan and Ollie make me laugh to the point of not being able to recover.
♪♪♪ -[ Screaming ] -He loved the old Laurel and Hardy movies.
But he then seemed to expand on it to a great degree.
-Yes?
This is Chief Inspector Clouseau.
Who is speaking?
-"Pink Panther Strikes Again" was my favorite.
And it's got the goofiest stuff in it.
But, I mean, I guess now I can appreciate the tradition of physical comedy that's represented in them.
[ Dramatic music plays ] -Wh-Wh-Whoa, whoa, wah-wah!
♪♪♪ [ Explosion ] -He was not just emulating or imitating what had been done.
He was taking them to another level.
[ Vacuum whirring ] [ Thunk ] [ Bird squawking ] -He did what I strive to do in my career, which is high and low, which is you take very lowbrow humor, gags, physical comedy, and you put it in a higher context, highbrow setting.
-Here, my love.
-Blake was so inventive.
[ Telephone rings ] [ Crash ] He and Peter Sellers, when they started develop the character of Clouseau, it was improvisational, a lot of it.
-Hello?
Inspector Clouseau.
-[ Nasally ] Inspector Clouseau?
-It was so exciting to be around.
You could just tell it was going to be a hit.
-Wow-ow-ow!
-The Pink Panther movies, watching them as kids, they always felt slightly sexier than they should be.
-Oh, forgive me, darling.
I've just washed my hands.
-There was always an element of something very adult about them, even when they were at their most cartoony.
-Do you have a [Thick accent] room?
-I do not know what a [Thick accent] room is.
-[ Laughs ] Whenever you talk about Clouseau, this is always the gag everybody talks about.
Across the board.
People will go, [French accent] "Does your dog bite?"
-Does your dog bite?
-It's just so funny the way that he's trying to be sweet.
-Nice doggy.
-[ Laughs ] -I thought you said your dog did not bite.
-That is not my dog.
-[ Laughs ] It's just a big corny gag.
And then there's a cuckoo clock at the end, just to let you know that the gag is ridiculous.
-The entire family now speaks "Clouseau."
-This is a door.
-Uh, yes, sir, that is a door.
-Yes, I know that.
I know that.
-"Yes, yes, I know that.
I know that," you know.
And it was always Sellers' answers.
-This reminds me of my younger days at the Surete Police Academy.
-You see that and you see Peter Sellers, you know what's gonna happen.
-The thing that he had such a great intuitive sense for is building that beautiful anticipation.
-[ Laughs ] I can hear Blake, like, stifling a laugh off camera.
-Yes, it's all coming back now.
-Here it comes.
You know it's coming.
[ Laughs ] But see, it all comes from character.
-Well!
That felt good!
-And it's the comedy of trying to cover up, trying to be normal and things going terribly wrong that is very funny and very relatable to an audience.
-I expect you are all wondering why I asked you here.
[ Bones crunch ] -[ Screaming ] -I think about this scene every time I write the end sequence of one of the "Knives Out" or "Glass Onion" movies where he goes around to all the suspects and he gets the gauntlet stuck on his hand.
Oh, it's so good.
-There's a very good chance that someone in this room knows more about the murder than he is telling.
-What's so great about his physical comedy too is how tactile it is.
-You!
-Oh, dear!
-There is much more going on here than meets the ear.
[ Fly buzzing ] -[ Chuckles ] Literally all the keys come out of the keyboard.
Why would the keys come out of the keyboard?
Because it's hilarious.
-But that's a priceless Steinway!
-Not anymore.
-So there is this cause and effect that makes it funnier.
-One, that Professor Fassbender and his daughter... -I worked for a director, Leo McCarey, who talked about the golden rule is if you're going to do a joke, you do the joke... -That my hand is on fire.
[ Screaming ] -...and then you try to top that joke.
-Ow!
-Lieutenant, what's going on?
-Oh, good afternoon, sir.
-And then you try to top the topper, at least that.
-Ah, Inspector.
-Superintendent.
[ Bonk! ]
[ Gunshot ] -They had more fun on the sets of all the Panthers than you could possibly imagine.
-[ Screaming ] -The Cato scenes in "The Pink Panther" are incredible.
-[ Screaming ] [ Clouseau screaming slowly ] -Oh, the slow motion is so brilliant.
[ Clouseau screaming slowly ] It's not a natural thought as a comedy director to go, "Oh, it's gonna be really funny to just shoot somebody flying through a kitchen and falling in slow motion."
Because you kind of -- your instinct is like, "Oh, no, you want to just like bang, crash and everything falling down."
So that's a comedy director working at the absolute top of their game.
-The first thing people think about when they think of him, they think of the Pink Panther films.
But I actually think of the range.
-You see how he brought a level of craftsmanship to such a broad spectrum of genres.
So that's the thing that I connect with and admire the most -- the restlessness of his creative spirit.
[ Dog barking ] -Any filmmaker will tell you, getting a scream and getting a laugh are very, very similar.
So a master of comedic cutting, timing, staging is probably gonna be pretty good at getting a scream.
-[ Gasps ] -You got the little Henry Mancini glissando on the strings when he appears and it just -- it [bleep] works, man.
He knew.
The dude knew how to put on a show.
[ Thunder crashes, wind howling ] -There we go.
-"Days of Wine and Roses" is one of the most extreme examples in terms of the scope of what his ambitions were.
-Jack Lemmon was one of Blake's favorite people to work with.
Always got what Blake wanted.
And all Blake had to do was say, "Take it down" or "bring it up."
And Jack got it instantly.
-When the film was done, Lemmon and I went and had dinner and we were both obviously big drinkers, and I don't remember whether it was me or whether it was Jack who said, "Do you realize that we made this film about an alcoholic and we're sitting here and how many drinks have we had so far?"
And it began to bother me.
-My dad literally stopped drinking and smoking cigarettes after making "Days of Wine and Roses."
♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ -Aww.
-Aww.
The Rolls-Royce!
-Yes.
-Where were we going?
-I don't know.
But that's Mom.
♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ When would the first time you were aware of what Dad did?
-He was leaving in the morning or whatever.
And I would say, "Well, where are you going?"
And he'd say, "Well, I'm shooting today."
And I had visions of him on the golf course aiming guns at targets.
He was doing "Experiment in Terror" up in San Francisco.
And he called the house and I was put on the phone and I said, "Daddy, I miss your face."
-Mm.
-And he flew back that night.
-Oh.
-For like the weekend.
Yeah.
-That's Dad.
-He said it was really emotional for him.
I think I was probably five.
-He seemed to take us to work a lot, which I question whether we ever went to school.
-[ Laughs ] The first set that we were allowed on was "The Great Race."
-Is that true?
-Yeah.
-I guess I remember being on the snow set.
-Right.
That was the first time, I think.
-And that was wild.
-The iceberg.
-Right.
Exactly.
-And the polar bear.
-Right.
That's right.
-There was a fake iceberg.
There was fake snow.
And it was so bright and colorful and it was magical.
It was kind of Disneyland-like.
[ Gunshot ] The cars were amazing.
-While I was doing "The Sound of Music," my agent let me know that I'd been offered a role in "The Great Race," which was being directed by Blake Edwards.
And I thought, "Oh, I'd love to be able to do that."
-Push the button, Max.
[ Explosion, man screaming ] -But I couldn't get out of "The Sound of Music" of course.
But all I could think of was that just has to be fun and what a delicious thing to be doing.
[ Campy music playing ] ♪♪♪ [ Slow music plays ] -And Mom.
-She's beautiful.
-She was gorgeous.
Sad.
-Yeah.
-Even though we look so happy, there was a lot of sadness.
This was around the time that they were... -Getting divorced.
-...gonna split up.
-Yeah, they were probably split up for all intent and purpose.
-Yeah.
-Look, I just spoke with Clutterbuck on the phone.
He says if we don't wrap this location today, it's your neck.
-No problem.
All we have left is to blow up the fort.
-"The Party" was 90% improvisation.
We wrote down characters, what we wanted to start with, and what we wanted to end with.
And we improvised.
-Alright, stand by!
-I love "The Party."
One of my favorite movies.
There's so many funny gags in this movie.
[ Explosions ] Here's this guy who wants to be an extra.
He completely screws up an entire shoot, blows up a fort and everything.
He's gonna get drummed out of the business.
He doesn't even know it.
-You!
-And the director says, "You'll never work in show business again."
-I'll see to it you never make another movie again!
-[ Indian accent ] Does that include television, sir?
-[ Indian accent ] "Does that include television, sir?"
[ Normal voice ] And you're like, "God, is that -- that's so funny."
-And then, by an accident, he gets invited to this party.
He's not sure why he is there, but he's really excited to be there and trying to be on his best behavior.
Well, you can't not root for that character.
You like that character.
So now you're gonna follow them through every bit of turmoil they go through.
It's so humanizing in that way.
-I remember my first reaction to "The Party" was, "That's a pretty good Indian."
Like, there are uncles and aunts that remind me of the details of his performance.
-I missed the middle part but I can tell from the way that you're enjoying yourselves, it must have been a very humorous anecdote.
-You could definitely not get away with that today.
But, again, comedy is constantly changing and I look at some of my movies and go back and go, "Ooh, gosh, you know, we probably shouldn't have made that joke."
-Birdie, nom-nom.
-It's a form of dialect comedy, if you will, that we found acceptable in the late '60s that no longer is.
-You know, in Shakespeare, men were playing women, right?
That was okay then.
Then it became not okay.
Okay, fine.
Then we stop doing it.
But at the time, Peter Sellers' Indian was the hero of the movie.
I mean, he gets the girl in the end.
-And the gags are just superlative.
-There's a scene in "The Party" where Peter Sellers is flirting with a blonde woman and there's a drunk waiter.
-Steve Franken is one of the rare people in a Edwards/Sellers movie that actually gets almost equal comic time to Sellers.
It is very funny.
[ Dishes break ] -The drunk waiter's manager is angry at the drunk waiter and the manager gets him into the kitchen.
And the swinging door of the kitchen keeps swinging open.
And it's just these layers of comedy.
And that is what Blake Edwards teaches.
-The biggest laugh-getter in the whole film almost is this one thing right here with the chicken.
[ Indistinct conversations ] -Then they come up with the idea of Steve Franken removing the chicken and her hair from her head.
It's like that's funny.
But no.
Now we're going to keep going.
Now we're going to put it down on Peter Sellers' plate.
Now he's got a big hunk of hair in his plate, which is so funny.
Most directors would get out there, but then they've got this insane final gag where you go to the mannequin [bleep] over by the water, and now the mannequin [bleep] is wearing her hair, and Peter Sellers is a hundred miles away at the other end of the yard.
[ Toilet flushes ] -This kind of energy that you create when you have a director that so clearly trusts and is delighted by their actor, because Sellers is so comfortable and knows he has the time to build this and even build the awkwardness, creates instant interest from the viewer.
You feel the confidence, the actor and the director together.
You're like, "Well, this has gotta be good."
-This scene's amazing just 'cause it's literally one thing.
-This scene is so great 'cause everything is there for a reason.
There's a painting on the wall, there's toilet paper, there's a toilet lid.
And each one of those elements is going to build to construct this incredible joke.
[ Water running ] -You're on his side because clearly if you were at a fancy party in Hollywood and something was going wrong in the bathroom, which everybody's gonna blame you for, 'cause there's no one else to blame, It's all very understandable.
-First of all, we've all been there [Laughs] in someone's house and the toilet isn't working properly and you're like "Oh, Lord, do I go out and tell them?"
-He's such a great character 'cause he's so sweet and so well-intentioned and such a good soul, but he's an idiot.
-It's also -- go back to the silent-comedy thing you do creating with tableau for the comedian to work within.
And when you have Peter Sellers, my God, you can do it.
[ Laughs ] It keeps going.
-It just -- It feels very, very real, you know.
You instantly get pulled in as an audience member.
♪♪♪ -We dated for quite a while, but I wasn't in any hurry.
He scared me at times because I knew that underlying that incredible charisma and charm and talent, there was something kind of dark and mysterious.
We were both coming off a marriage.
Blake had two children, Jennifer and Geoffrey.
I had my own daughter, Emma.
And I was very nervous about meeting them because I wanted them to know that I wasn't going to try and take their dad away from them.
I decided that maybe they might like to see "The Sound of Music."
So I asked Robert Wise, our director, whether I might be able to show a screening in private.
-Dad came to pick my brother and I up and said, "We're gonna go to a screening," which wasn't unusual.
-We were going out to dinner and a movie to meet somebody he was dating.
We drove on the Fox lot.
-And we went into a screening room and there was nobody there except for, in my 8-year-old head, Mary Poppins.
-And we sat and watched "The Sound of Music."
♪♪♪ -♪ The hills are alive with the sound of music ♪ -And I remember sitting there watching this huge screen and thinking, "What is my dad doing in the back row with Mary Poppins?"
♪♪♪ -I had to go away on location to the south of France for a film that I was doing called "Star!"
And he continued to phone and so on and so forth.
And one morning he said, "Can I just play you something?"
And I said, "Sure."
He said, "Well, keep the phone very close to your ear."
And he played the song that Mancini wrote called "Nothing to Lose."
-♪ Nothing to lose ♪ -It has a beautiful lyric.
Nothing to lose if we are wise.
We're not expecting rainbow-colored skies.
It was "let's just take it easy" was really what it was about.
And when the song was over and I said, "Oh, Blake, that is a sweet song.
It's perfect."
And he said, "Yeah, it is, isn't it?
Now will you marry me?"
[Laughs] over the telephone.
And I was flabbergasted.
I had no idea that's what he was up to.
Uh, and at that point I said, "Will you give me time to think about it?
Because I -- I'm thrilled and flattered, but oh, my gosh, you took me by surprise."
[ Film reel clacking ] -Blake and Julie wedding, take one, marker!
[ Clapperboard claps ] [ Birds chirping ] -We did eventually get married.
We decided to do it very quietly in my garden.
And we just had about six people.
We had put a video camera to the left of us and a friend of ours was up in the hill above the minister filming us.
And just as the wedding ceremony was over, our friend on the hill said, "I'm not sure that I got anything off this camera because all I'm seeing is black."
And we said, "Well, at least we've got the video camera on the left."
[ Dog barking ] Somebody had kicked the plug out of the wall on the video camera and Blake said to the minister, "Would you mind marrying us again?"
At which point he didn't mind at all.
[ Clapperboard claps ] By this time, though, we were aware of what that sweet man was saying, which was like this spherical piece of magical gold.
And it went on and on and I could see Blake pursing his lips and I began to get the giggles.
So the camera never worked on the hill, but we do at least have a very pretty wedding book.
♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ -Towards the beginning of Blake Edwards' directing career, you go from "Operation Petticoat" to "Breakfast at Tiffany's" to "Experiment in Terror" to "Days of Wine and Roses" to "The Pink Panther."
It's like he can do no wrong.
-But in the early '70s, things weren't going so well for Dad.
[ Plane engines droning ] -There were two rather important films that were major train wrecks.
One was something that involved my wife, which was very near and dear to my heart at that time.
-♪ And not the girl...♪ -I felt relatively soon after meeting and getting to know her that there was a great untapped quality in her.
-♪ Oh, no ♪ ♪ There's somebody special...♪ -She'd been really pigeonholed.
She'd really been stuck in Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp.
And that's terrific for those films but I just knew there was more to it.
-"Darling Lili" was about World War I.
And I played a German spy.
I wasn't sure that it was the role I should be doing, but we had an absolute ball shooting it.
We moved to Ireland on a beautiful estate.
We lived on the estate, we shot on the estate, we took our children with us.
-This is "Darling Lili."
-Mm-hmm.
That was such a big movie.
You know, the airplanes and Rock Hudson and the castle.
-I can't say it was easy to be part of the movie while also trying to get the kids to tidy up a bit or making sure they were safe for a day.
But it was a magical time together.
It really was because we were making a family.
-She dove right into being a parent.
From the moment she took on Dad, she took on us.
-We really, really did sort of everything as a family.
So it was the three kids and a lot of motor biking and horse riding.
She read us, I think, like "The Velveteen Rabbit."
There were a few stories that she would read us at night.
-I fell asleep.
-Yeah, that was the point.
We had a bet with her, remember?
-Yeah.
-She was so upset, uh, with us for leaving clothes on the floor and all of that.
And I said, "Well, we'll do what you say, but you need to stop swearing."
And she said, "Well, what do you want --" -"If I lose."
-"If I lose, what is it that you --" and I said, "I want you to write a story."
-And she said [bleep] -Like immediately.
-And then she wrote -- That started her writing career.
-Exactly.
One swear word.
-One swear word.
This made me want to do this.
-I don't remember sitting on Dad's lap and looking through the camera lens or anything like that.
I always wanted to be in front of the camera.
-Yeah.
That he could actually take the time to do that.
I'm sure that the folks back home maybe didn't like it so much 'cause he was burning money.
-There were some tough times.
There were, I have to admit.
I found him pacing up and down and couldn't decide what angle, what shot.
And I suddenly thought, "I think he's a little bit nervous, too."
So many people came down to visit us from Hollywood.
But on the day that they came, of course it was raining and so on.
Everybody was just lounging around, hoping that the sun would come out because we needed to match the skies.
♪♪♪ The studio blamed Blake for the cost overruns, and he was very upset.
-I had challenged [Laughs] Bob Evans to step outside.
I said, "You have done everything possible that you can do to embarrass me and to insult me.
And you leave me no alternative but to act like a caveman.
It's just, if you're gonna hire me, then you hire me.
Not you telling me what to do."
-I think that particular group of people had dollar signs coming out of their eyes between Blake and me.
And it was Rock Hudson.
It was a lovely, funny, silly film to make.
But I don't think people wanted to see me as a World War I spy.
And it wasn't a successful movie.
Though I am happy to say that people today are rediscovering the film.
-The movie opens with that wonderful Henry Mancini, uh, song, "Whistling Away the Dark."
-♪ Often I think...♪ -Out of the blackness comes this beautiful Julie Andrews.
There she is.
And it's stunningly shot because it's just her.
-There aren't too many performers who could open a movie the way Julie Andrews does here.
-This opening sequence, when I first saw it, I think I texted like eight of my friends, like, "Just put on the first five minutes of 'Darling Lili' right now."
-♪ ...to keep...♪ -I'm a really big fan of this film, and I know it had a very tortured path and I know he had a miserable time with it, but I was just dazzled by it.
The way that you're just like thrown into this magical performance.
-At this time, steadicam wasn't really a big thing, where you're just sort of, you know, can move anywhere.
So I'm wondering if Blake did this on a track of some kind.
That beautiful classic Julie Andrews profile.
-♪ ...my poor old heart has given up for good ♪ -It's very brave to open a movie with something so somber and melancholy.
-It took a whole day to get it completely right.
I had to lip-synch absolutely clearly and not miss a beat and not look down at my feet as I was trying to hit my marks and walk where it was meant that I should walk.
The grips were pushing a trolley.
The cameraman had to pull focus and change things.
-♪ My darling ♪ ♪ Tell me dreams really come true ♪ -But mostly he's letting Julie just do what Julie does best.
-And also, what is the lens that's creating these universes within universes of these dazzling red flares?
-The camera's just spinning around her.
It's so beautiful.
And she's just luminous, of course.
And you just see the love.
I mean, this is obviously the blossoming of their relationship and you see how much he loves her.
-The visual invention that he brought -- you can feel him kind of chasing his muse.
I know what that feels like, trying to do that.
[ Cheers and applause ] -When we went home that night, we both were so proud.
Everybody did their best work that day.
♪♪♪ When you think about the fact that we were married 43 years altogether and our first film was a flop, it's mind-boggling to me that we stayed together that long and it didn't break us up.
Collaborating with your spouse is maybe, to begin with, extremely nerve-wracking 'cause how do you know he is gonna like what you do when you're married to the guy or certainly in love with him?
-I say so at the risk of really sounding like just another fan.
She is a remarkable human being.
She really, truly is.
-Collaborating eventually was speaking shorthand, putting it to bed at night when we came home.
If we wanted to talk about something, we did.
-Let's weigh the issue.
What appeals to you?
-If we didn't, we had to come home, take care of the kids, and be a husband and wife and things like that.
-[ Speaking indistinctly ] -Want to barbecue on the beach tonight?
-No.
-Yeah.
-I'd love it.
[ Laughter ] -Her failings are fun.
There's nothing really disastrous about them.
♪♪♪ -Whoa!
-Ah!
Ah!
-There are things that angered the hell out of me because they're so diametrically opposed to my M.O.
But always, uh, I find myself sort of inwardly smiling.
-So collaborating with your mate is a wonderful gift, really, if you're lucky enough to find a way to be able to do it.
♪♪♪ Blake's next film was called "Wild Rovers."
[ Western music playing ] We traveled with Blake to Arizona and we shot in the most beautiful surroundings.
I was just Mrs. Edwards, having a wonderful time.
"Wild Rovers" was about two cowboys who are adorable.
After the death of a friend of theirs, they decide they're never gonna get in life what they'd really love to have.
And they decide just once to rob a bank.
-Well, I'd rather be rich!
I'd rather have that ranch and all them pretty girls now than bust my butt, break my bones, punch in cows for the next 25 years.
-"Wild Rovers" was the first time I began to really notice that Blake really was writing in a biographical way.
When in the film one of the cowboys say, "I don't want to have to wait till I'm in my 80s.
I want it now while I'm able to enjoy it."
And that was typical Blake.
Blake called me one day and he said, "Honey, I'm at MGM.
I'm in the recording studio.
Could you get down here right away?"
I got in the car and rushed to, um, this sound stage at MGM, and Blake was running the horse-breaking sequence.
And Jerry Goldsmith was conducting to the screen.
♪♪♪ -Henry Mancini was actually not available, and Dad hired Jerry Goldsmith.
-I think it's an amazing piece of film.
I do.
♪♪♪ -Blake was particularly proud of "Wild Rovers."
He talked about it a lot.
I think he felt it deserved more.
-Famously the intensely disliked James Aubrey, who was then running the studio, recut.
-So Aubrey has a separate cutting room and cuts I think 20 to 40 minutes out of the movie and just keeps the bare bones necessary for the plot.
The thing about "Wild Rovers" is the things that give the movie soul are the stuff in between the plot.
-Aubrey butchered it.
-That was just too much.
I couldn't handle Hollywood, if you want to call it that, although I'm not sure what the hell Hollywood is.
-And it's the catalyst that made him want to leave Hollywood and never go back.
[ Film reel clacking ] -Close call, take six, mark.
[ Clapperboard claps ] -Aubrey got him where it really hurt and Blake couldn't get him off his mind.
And Blake was driving home fantasizing about what he'd like to do to him.
And he swerved around a corner and narrowly missed a pedestrian who was jogging.
And he thought, "Oh, my God, I got to pay attention."
And he looked up into the rearview mirror and it was Aubrey that had been jogging.
And he said he knew that no one in the world would've believed him when he said, "I just killed Aubrey but I didn't do it on purpose" because of course he was thinking about him.
He came home and told me and he was just shaking.
So we went off to work in Europe and ostensibly to live happily ever after, so to speak.
♪♪♪ -So Dad and Julie and the whole family moved to Switzerland.
-I was really licking my wounds at that point.
-Blake was a depressive.
He had a very dark side to him.
-Comedy people are an interesting breed.
There's very few comedy people you meet who are just happy-go-lucky and have the greatest lives.
They have problems with depression many times and all that.
It's one of the things that drives you to do comedy.
I think normal people, for lack of a better term, aren't driven to make people laugh.
-He was so unhappy about what had happened with "Wild Rovers."
♪♪♪ -And said, "That's it.
I'm just gonna write."
[ Typewriter clacking ] And nobody can do much about that.
They either like it or they don't.
They either buy it or they don't.
And I don't have any bosses but myself.
-He came up with a couple of ideas.
And these were the two of the most biographical films, "S.O.B."
and "10."
In a way he wrote out his demons, particularly in "S.O.B."
I thank God for his sense of humor because I think it got him out of his depression.
Blake and I hoped to have our own kids together, but we weren't successful.
And so we adopted two new children from the country of Vietnam: Amelia and Joanna.
And so we have two very beautiful Vietnamese daughters who have been with us now virtually 50 years.
We decided to move to London and make some movies there.
And we had a movie that we'd been offered by Sir Lew Grade, who was, you know, a big impresario in England.
-He does "The Tamarind Seed."
That doesn't really feel like a Blake Edwards movie, but it feels like Blake proving to the world "I can be a good boy."
-What do you do at the embassy?
-I am a military attaché.
-"See, I can make a movie like everyone else.
I can make a spy thriller."
[ Bottles shatter, explosion ] -Ah!
-"I'm not gonna go over budget.
It's going to look nice and it's gonna be a regular movie."
[ Screaming ] -We had a two-movie deal.
The second movie was supposed to be something that I was going to be in.
And finally I could see Blake getting more and more stressed.
And I said to Blake, "Blake, I don't want to do this second movie.
It's too much stress and ridiculous.
Uh, what if I bow out?"
And he looked at me and he said, "Don't say anything to anybody.
I'll be back in an hour."
And he went off to see Sir Lew Grade and convinced him to do another "Pink Panther" at that point.
And he came back and said, "It's okay.
You're out of the movie.
You don't have to do it.
We're going to do Pink Panther instead."
And I sort of thought, "Well, that's not exactly what I was hoping that we'd do.
I was hoping we'd go off and pitch a tent somewhere and, you know, do that."
And so it all started all over again.
[ "The Pink Panther Theme" playing ] -I think Blake winds up going back to Panther because he recognizes how important it is to have a box-office hit.
If he has a box-office hit, he can actually become viable again in the movie business, and maybe he can make, maybe, those personal films that he's talking about, things like "S.O.B."
and "10."
-I went to a party shortly after it'd come out and was a big hit.
And they were all saying "I knew.
I was the one.
Everybody else was saying, but I knew you'd come back."
Everybody did that.
It was just a joke.
I loved it.
[ Ravel's "Bolero" plays ] -"10" is about a guy who should have committed a long time ago and didn't really want to and has a very understanding lady, and he finally sees a woman of his dreams.
And she is, in fact, he says, "She's better than a 10.
She's 11."
And that was Bo Derek.
-I was married to my husband, John Derek, who was a filmmaker, and I got this call from a mutual friend.
She said, "Blake Edwards is looking for this, uh, perfect woman on a scale of 1 to 10."
They sent me the script and my husband said, "It's a great part.
If you were ready, you would get it, but you are not ready.
And it's about time someone else tell you you're not ready."
But I came home with the part.
Blake changed my life forever.
Blake told me that he got the idea for the script when he was driving in Beverly Hills and he saw a wedding car pull up at a stoplight next to him.
And the bride was turned away.
And he just went into this idea that what if she turns around and she's my dream girl.
So in the film, that's how I'm introduced, when I turn around, and something about her look just sends Dudley Moore off on this chase to find her, to fall in love with her.
-Consider these two rings.
Perfect circles without beginning, without end.
-Not only did "10" have the Blake Edwards slapstick signature... -In sickness and in health.
From this day forward, till death do you part.
-Ah!
Ow!
-"10" is about obsession and sex and yet there's slapstick all over.
-Oh, God.
You have all -- Oh!
Ah!
-...but it also is deeply personal.
-First, I'm getting a little fed up at sexually emancipated ladies being referred to as broads.
Second, I think a telescope aimed at anything other than the stars is an invasion of privacy and qualifies the voyeur as a peeping tom.
And there's a very good law against that.
-That feels so lived-in, it's like a conversation that she and Blake Edwards probably had.
-Third, the first two really wouldn't bother me a bit if you'd stop watching so [bleep] damn much television and pay a little more attention to your bedroom guests.
This guest in particular.
-You could put this in a movie today and people would be talking about it coming out of, you know, coming out there.
People would be tweeting a lot about it in this moment.
I mean, and also it's fashioned with a very fine scalpel.
-There's this wonderful shot of little Dudley naked, two beautiful ladies beside him, three backsides all in a row.
-The fact that he's using the framing device of the keyhole that they're both looking through of the telescope and just the perfect pauses and that perfect little beat that he gives and then... Pew!
Runs.
-Whoa!
[ Laughs ] -Blake loved women.
He wrote great characters, strong women.
And I think that where you're going along with this story of this funny guy, Dudley, following this fantasy creature, and then she turns out to not be what he wants, but something very different and strong and modern.
And he can't handle it.
-I guess I just don't understand that kind of thinking.
-Well, evidently not.
-I love the entire movie, but I didn't love love the movie until this scene clicked the entire thing into place.
-I thought you were something different, something special.
-I am!
-He finally has her in the bedroom.
It's about to happen.
And we all know just instinctively through good storytelling instincts, we all know this is a sequence where the fantasy has to come crashing down.
-I thought maybe you thought I was something more than just a casual lay.
-Why did you think that?
-Oh, great, thank you.
-The fact that they have this incredible scene where these two actors absolutely kill it, and it feels honest and real, and she reveals herself to be guileless but not innocent and to just know who she is and what she wants.
-That scene is so brilliant because, um, one, Bo's really good in that.
Um, this is a guy who has finally met a truly liberated woman and he's terrified.
-And if I feel like sleeping with someone, I do it because I want to.
-Mm-hmm.
-I enjoy it.
It pleases me.
-Jolly good.
-He's showing him "I'm as complicated and deep a person as you are.
That's what true liberation is.
And that's the opposite of what you actually want."
It's such a great pulling the rug out from under Dudley's character.
-He's a middle-aged dude whose emotional innards are these thorny kind of thicket of hang-ups and fears and desires and unhealthy things that have grown up over all the years.
And the reality is he's in because of that, he's not compatible with this young woman who has this incredibly healthy kind of perspective on sex.
And to have that be the way the whole thing kind of falls apart and that be what he kind of learns from, it's incredibly, painfully honest in a self-examining way.
-"10" was an enormous hit.
And it allowed him to continue making the films that he really wanted to make.
♪♪♪ -[ Whistles ] -"S.O.B."
is a very personal film, and you can tell.
It's about the trials and tribulations of a movie maker.
-Everything in "S.O.B."
had actually happened somewhere in Blake's life.
It's Hollywood at its most foolish, at its silliest, but also to some degree as it really, really was.
-So, if you're really gonna end it all, I can show you half dozen great ways to do it.
-"Standard operational bull [bleep]" is what the title meant.
And it is devastatingly funny and heartbreakingly sad.
-Knowing what you know about Blake Edwards and also knowing what we know now about depression and about anxiety and grief.
The Richard Mulligan character is so openly suicidal, and no one around him is helping him.
They're just shrugging it off and making jokes while he's spiraling into madness and despair.
-The dream sequence will become erotic orgies!
-Felix.
-It is perfect!
-Directors back then behaved in a way that would be more dangerous today.
-You're going to recut "Night Wind" and you're going to cut it exactly the way I tell you to cut it.
-Never!
-Then, by God, if it's the last thing I do, I'll fix it so you never do another picture in this town as long as you live!
Ow!
Oh, my God!
-Oh, my -- -There was an attitude back then that the director knew everything and the studio heads knew nothing.
-It's your film!
A Felix Farmer production.
-And who okayed the script and budget?
-That feels like a conversation that Blake Edwards had in his head at 2:55 a.m. on a lot of successive nights over a lot of successive movies.
You have those volcanic rages in your head when you realize what you're up against.
-Yeah, it'd be the equivalent of making a movie now and making it about, you know, X, Y, and Z, you know.
I don't even have the guts to say the names of X, Y, and Z now.
He made an entire movie flipping them off.
-There's so much vitriol against the studio system, not only what it does to directors but what it does to actors, actresses, how it pits the creatives against each other.
-You lunatic!
You maniac!
Sixteen million!?
Felix, half of that money is mine!
-That entitles you to 50% of the profits!
-That entitles me to have you arrested for grand theft, larceny, fraud, embezzlement, you thieving, filching, son of a bitch!
-Sally Miles swears!
-And you're going to give me my eight million or so help me I'll have you locked up for the rest of your unnatural life!
[ Vase shatters ] -He wanted me to spoof my own image.
-♪ Polly Wolly Doodle ♪ -♪ Polly Wolly Doodle ♪ -[ Laughs ] I said fine.
But then when he told me that I might and probably would have to go topless... -No, no, no!
There is no way in God's Earth that I'm going to bare my ha out there on that stage!
-It took 10 years to get that film made, and by the time it came around, I wasn't the least bit nervous.
-Can she work?
-Is Batman a transvestite?
Who knows?
I was specifically requested to alleviate her anxiety.
Work was never mentioned.
-Irving!
She's got a very big scene to do!
-[ Laughing ] I'm gonna show my boobies.
What do you think, Irving?
You've seen my boobies.
Mmm.
Are they worth showing?
-Well, since I can only render an evaluation based on a completely impersonal, purely professional examination of the subject -- uh, subjects -- I would have to say that in my humble opinion you've got a terrific pair of knockers.
-Yay!
-It is a very, very realistic satire about raging against the machine that the machine is totally cool to let you rage.
♪♪♪ -Blake came home one day and he said, "I spent the afternoon watching an old movie, and it would be such a role for you, honey bun."
That became "Victor/Victoria."
-"Victor/Victoria," which is based on a German film and the British remake of the German film, is a story of a destitute performer.
-Victoria can't make it as a singer in Paris.
And her wonderful friend that finds her, Toddy, you know, roaming the streets of Paris, takes her in and together they cook up this idea.
-A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman?
-Ridiculous.
-It-It's preposterous.
-In fact, it's so preposterous no one would ever believe it.
-So everybody assumes that she's actually a man.
And then goes on stage as a woman, where she actually can sing high notes and so forth and so on.
And she becomes the toast of Paris.
-♪ La, la-la-la, laaaaa ♪ ♪ La-la-laaaa ♪ -I loved making the movie, but I said to Blake, "Darling, no one is going to believe that I am able to do drag."
[ Fanfare plays ] -She, I don't think to this day, is completely convinced that she was that good in "Victor/Victoria."
And I would get into those thing and finally end up in an argument.
I said, "Trust me.
It works," you know.
-I trusted him so much because he'd proved it time and time and time again with the films that we did together.
There was one wonderful day when I walked onto the set in my tuxedo with my hands in my pockets, and for the first time, none of the guys turned around in deference to a lady.
And I suddenly thought, "I think they now accept me as a guy."
And I just stood and talked with them as if I was a guy.
And it was an amazing feeling.
[ Fingers snapping ] -♪ Oh, so, baby, Le Jazz Hot maybe ♪ ♪ What's holding my soul... ♪ -I have to say I was so thrilled that he finally did a musical.
It was inevitable.
He had musical in his blood.
Musicals were so few and far between, and it was so thrilling that a proper musical like this starring Julie Andrews and Robert Preston came out.
And then there's a love story with this man who falls in love with a woman playing a man playing a woman.
-Would you believe me if I told you we were in love?
-No.
-Because homosexuality is unnatural and a sin.
-According to who?
-Right from the beginning of the film, he's addressing gender identity and what does it mean how does it play out in our relationships and our sense of selves and all of that?
Absolutely, it was ahead of its time.
-Blake had a romanticism about his work, too.
You can fall in love with a man, a woman.
It doesn't matter.
It's like, who is the person?
-I don't care if you are a man.
♪♪♪ -I'm not a man.
-I still don't care.
-That scene, he made a really definitive sexual statement, but he hedged his bet in the film because he had seen that she was a woman.
I didn't want to do that exactly that way, and I didn't on the stage.
When I did "Victor/Victoria" for the film, I felt as I was writing it that this would make a terrific Broadway musical.
-It was 40 years since I'd been back to Broadway.
I couldn't believe that I was coming back again after all this time.
And I think Blake wanted it for my sake as much as anything.
-She needed a challenge.
She's one of those people that does best when she's got to climb the mountain.
-Rob Marshall was the wonderful choreographer.
The first day that I went into the studio and I was going to see something that he'd worked on, and I took one look at all those dancers, and I was getting very close to 60 by then, and these people were so hugely energetic and young, and I thought, "God, I'm gonna have to pull my socks up on this."
And Rob was fabulous and made it easy that I could blend in with them.
And I think Blake wanted to prove himself as a theater director.
-The bottom line is that I needed to do it for me.
♪♪♪ -He loved that it was a living, breathing thing that he could constantly work on and change.
For instance, after the show opened, he'd say, "There really should be some kind of dance number for Julie, something like a tango between Norma and Victoria or Victor.
I think there could be great humor in that."
He was so instinctively right.
It was one of the highlights of the whole piece because you get this character trying to be a man and every once in a while being a girl and then being a man again in dance.
Blake absolutely loved his experience on Broadway.
I think if it had come to him earlier, he would've done many more Broadway shows.
He was so excited.
He was like a kid in a candy store.
-Just a short time ago Julie Andrews, who earned a Tony nomination for Best Actress for her performance in "Victor/Victoria"... -When the Tony nominations came out, the only nomination that the show got was for Julie.
-I really got very hurt and upset by that, not at my nomination but that they didn't acknowledge what went into that show to make it as good as it was.
-She said, "I don't care what they think about my ability.
I don't think anybody can get up there without the proper material, without the proper support from their actors, and do something that they deserve a Tony nomination but nobody else does."
-At the end of a show she said she wanted to speak to the audience.
-Sadly I cannot accept this nomination.
[ Audience gasps ] And I prefer -- I prefer instead to stand with the egregiously overlooked.
[ Cheers, whistling ] -And so she wasn't thinking selfishly about "I never had a Tony.
This would be a sort of slam dunk for me this year."
She thought that it wasn't fair.
That's who she is.
And all of us loved her.
All of us on the team loved her before.
We loved her so much even more after that.
♪♪♪ -I'm Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan, and I'm the founding artistic director of the Sag Harbor Cinema.
A tradition in the Sag Harbor Cinema is the year-round retrospective, which is a tribute to an artist that runs through the year.
This year, the tribute is entirely dedicated to the collaboration between Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards.
The films they did together reflect a very interesting combination of Hollywood glamour and home movie because they're all very personal.
"That's Life!"
is the most personal movie.
So here is Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton.
[ Applause ] -Hello!
-I'm Julie.
That's Emma.
-Might not recognize us 40 years later.
-So how did this all begin?
-Blake had been in a very down period.
He was quite often quite depressive, and he'd been in a very bad state, and one day he was sitting in the Jacuzzi.
Um, suddenly out of the blue, Blake said, "You know what I'd really like to do?
I'd like to make a small independent film and I'd like to cast it with all the people that I love the most."
And he said, "I think I'm entitled to one film the way I'd like to try to make it."
-"And I'd like to shoot it here at the house."
-Here on the property, our property.
Six weeks later, we had trucks and porta-potties and God knows what all over the place, and a swarming crew.
And thus began one of the sweetest experiences.
-I don't know, a more autobiographical movie.
Jack Lemmon is the alter ego of Blake Edwards.
Julie Andrews is his wife.
That's really Jack Lemmon's son.
That's really Julie Andrews' daughter.
In their actual house.
I don't know how much more realistic you can be.
-In "That's Life!," I played Megan, the daughter of Jack and Julie.
Everything revolves around Jack's character, who's about to turn 60.
And he's questioning who he is and being a jerk the whole weekend about his birthday.
And she's living with this idea that maybe she has cancer.
-To Daddy on his 60th birthday and in two months to be a proud grandpa!
-Yeah!
Grandpa Harv!
-Grandpa Harv!
-Grandpa Harv!
-I hate that!
-There was a lot of Dad in Jack's performance.
He hated birthdays, especially the ones that made him older.
[ Laughs ] -That was definitely Blake because he was dealing with a lot in his life sort of personally.
He loved that honesty.
-He said to all of us on the first day, "I'm giving you a 16-page outline.
This is your -- what your character is."
-We didn't actually know what, uh, we were gonna do until we did it.
It was sort of improv.
-Blake wrote about his own breakdown.
And it was the weirdest thing for me who had seen Blake through his breakdown.
And then to see him acting it out for Jack Lemmon was slightly surreal or bizarre.
And I thought in a way, you know, he knew where he was and what he was doing all that time.
Somehow Blake was able to observe as well as go through a breakdown.
I think it was his way of looking at it all and putting it in perspective.
And he really was much better when the film had been done.
It kind of was a catharsis for him in a way.
-Honest to God, sweetie, I-I've got to get the hell outta here.
I've gotta go up to the house.
So please.
-[ Inhales deeply ] Harvey, you go up to the house right now and I'm going, too.
And I don't mean up to the house.
I mean forever.
-There's a scene at the end of "That's Life!"
We were allowed to say whatever we wanted.
And what I had been longing to say to Blake for so long was to get over himself and couldn't because he was so desperately sodden with grief.
And then there I am saying it in the movie.
I mean, how bizarre can it be?
-Now, it seems to me you have three choices: you can take your own life.
That's a stupid and vicious thing to do.
And what kind of a legacy is that to leave your kids, hmm?
Or you can look at what's right under your very nose, which is that you have three beautiful children who adore you.
You have a wife who happens to think you're the best thing since chopped liver.
-He wanted that verisimilitude.
He wanted that intimacy.
And he got it.
He achieved it.
-I know that I'm the luckiest man in the world tonight because I get to pay tribute to a man who, through his creative genius, has heaped joy upon the world.
-When Blake was told that the Academy would like to honor him, he was suddenly the most nervous man in the world.
And it had to be funny.
-Ladies and gentlemen, one of the true masters, Blake Edwards!
[ Applause ] [ Tires squeal ] [ "The Pink Panther Theme" playing ] Oh, my God, I can't believe this is happening!
[ Laughter, cheers, applause ] I can't believe this is happening on the biggest night of his life!
-That felt good.
[ Laughter ] -This fine fellow is called, obviously, Sitting Duck.
[ Jazz music playing ] When I first got to know Blake, I did understand that he had liked to paint and, uh, had done it ever since his teens, I think.
But he wasn't a sculptor at the time, and it wasn't till after we were married that he dabbled at it.
And for a while he tried all kinds of styles.
And then, toward the end of his life, found his own style.
This was true Blake.
What it shows is the man himself: sense of humor, sweetness.
These I feel, uh, are Blake's and Blake's alone.
He was very shy about showing his sculptures and the paintings.
It took the whole family to convince him that he should have an exhibit.
[ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ The family had been trying to get Blake to come out from hiding his wonderful talent of art and sculptures for about 8 to 10 years now.
♪♪♪ -Well, what strikes me is that he's as versatile in painting as he is in his making film.
-I'm so proud of my dad.
He's so talented in every area, painting, sculptures, jewelry.
-If you look at some of the more frenetic pieces and kind of understand what he was going through at that point.
All the sculptures, though, to me, all are very peaceful.
-I'm incredibly proud of him.
I-I'm overwhelmed.
This is really extraordinary and it's, um, it's very heartfelt.
-I used to paint with him.
That was like our -- like, one of our main things we had in common.
And he has just always been supportive of my art.
♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ -In all honesty, I don't think I ever met a man as charismatic, as wicked... as funny, as vulnerable, as angry at times, as adorable and sweet as Blake.
For one of our anniversaries, I wrote what he's really like in my eyes.
"In all my years, I've never met another man like you.
You drive me mad.
You make me laugh and cry and set me about my ears.
You do.
My mate, my dearest love, anniversary man.
Let me capture essence of Blake if I can.
Black prince.
Mercurial knight with a rugged face.
Too proud.
A broken body.
Martial arts grace.
A whirling dervish or desperado child.
Sudden and quick in quarrel.
Open-hearted.
Wild.
Tough, yet soppy soft.
You'd like to save us all.
Generous.
Extravagant.
20 feet tall.
You make bold.
You cut a dash.
Diamonds in your style.
Noble.
Even-handed.
Manipulative guile.
Calculating.
Fire eater.
When threatened, you attack and hammer at the truth until I cannot answer back.
You tear your hair and lecture on the follies of excess.
And tell me we'd do better if we could live on less.
I agree.
I really see and feel your anxious pain.
And then you blithely turn around and spend and spend again.
You twist and turn and tie your soul.
The knots are inches thick.
Guilt and fear.
Grief.
Remorse.
These toxins make you sick.
You flirt with death, yet you embrace life.
Shake it by the tail.
Doing first, thinking later, making loved ones pale.
You steal a bit and wheel and deal to gain the upper hand.
You heal and play the doctor.
Your bedside manner's grand.
Magic touch.
Gentle touch.
I melt within your arms.
You seem to know me inside out.
I cannot resist your charms.
So when all is said and done, this lady's by your side for the wild fun, the fierce pain, the laughter in the ride.
And, dearest, when I show you this, I know what you'll say.
'What else?'
you'll grin, 'What else will you write of me today?'"
♪♪♪ [ Julie laughing ] ♪♪♪ [ Laughing ] You idiot.
Come on!
[ Laughs ] Oh!
Oh.
-We better get back up.
-Yeah.
♪♪♪ -Can you describe Blake in two words?
-Comic genius.
-Impeccable craftsman.
-Individualist survivor.
-My director.
-Birdie nom-nom.
-Dark frantic.
-Deeply hilarious.
-Controlled insanity.
-A free genius.
-Brilliantly silly.
-Fast and thoughtful.
-Such joy.
-Great dad.
-Grand, just grand.
-♪ You say I'm a desperado child ♪ ♪ I'm open-hearted, wild ♪ ♪ Diamonds in my style ♪ ♪ You say I think I'm better than the rest ♪ ♪ I lecture on excess ♪ ♪ I like to flirt with death ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ It may be true, but I know ♪ ♪ It doesn't mean I ain't your kind of man ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Just blame it all on ego ♪ ♪ But there's one thing you've got to understand ♪ ♪ That's just the way ♪ ♪ That's just the way that you make me ♪ ♪ And that's the way ♪ ♪ That's just the way that you take me, baby ♪ ♪ Take me as I am ♪ ♪♪♪ ♪ Take me as I am ♪
