Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore ‘Really Bonded’ While Working on ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’
Julie Andrews is more than a national treasure; she was knighted by the queen in the UK in 2000. That makes her a national treasure in her homeland, but what about the rest of the world? As you may know, Andrews’ work has touched fans all over the globe.
This includes work in classics like Thoroughly Modern Millie. The 1967 musical masterpiece starred Andrews, James Fox, and Mary Tyler Moore, according to IMDb. It even won an Oscar. Andrews remembered the film fondly in a recent interview. One of her favorite memories from the set? Bonding with her co-star, Moore.
Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore worked together on ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’
Thoroughly Modern Millie takes place in the 1920s. In it, Millie Dillmount and Miss Dorothy Brown are trying to make their way in flapper-era New York City. They live together in a boarding house for women. Both girls want to make it in the big city.
Miss Dorothy aspires to act, while Millie wants to become a stenographer so she can land a rich husband. Although Millie has only been living in New York three months longer than Miss Dorothy, she’s already adopted a “modern” lifestyle, with a bob haircut and risque wardrobe. However, love eventually gets in the way of Millie’s well-laid plans.
Andrews played Millie, with Moore starring opposite as Miss Dorothy. According to Andrews in her Vanity Fair interview, she “had a ball” making Thoroughly Modern Millie. The material was top tier, and Andrews says the “costumes were delicious.”
Julie Andrews said she and Mary Tyler Moore “really bonded” on set
The costumes weren’t Andrews’ favorite part of Thoroughly Modern Millie. She and Moore got close over the course of filming the movie. They formed a relationship that would last a lifetime. According to Andrews, the two had a “very nice relationship. We really bonded.”
They had so much fun playing Millie and Miss Dorothy that they used those nicknames for one another for the rest of their lives. Andrews said, “My friendship with Mary was such that long after we’d finished the film, I was called Millie and she was called Miss Dorothy.”
Andrews says when the two would meet by chance, they’d often shout their nicknames across the grocery store, or wherever they happened to chance upon one another. The two would “rush to meet and catch up on news,” according to Andrews.
Did Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore work together after ‘Thoroughly Modern Millie’?
Andrews and Moore never got to work together after Thoroughly Modern Millie, although both became legends in their own right. According to IMDb, after Millie, Andrews went on to star in more musical movies. She made Star! right after Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Victor/Victoria later, in 1982. She also proved she can do drama and comedy just as easily. In 2001, Andrews won over new fans as the queen of Genovia in The Princess Diaries as well as Netflix’s Bridgerton.
As fans of Moore will know, she used her fame from movies to make her own sitcom, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. According to IMDb, the first episode aired in 1970, just a few years after Millie. The show lasted seven seasons, until 1977.
Moore continued to get steady work befitting a star of her caliber, although she stuck mostly to TV, while Andrews remained a movie star at heart. She was actually born a year after Andrews, in 1936. Sadly, Moore died in 2017, at 80 years of age. Her last TV role was as Diane in Hot in Cleveland. Moore’s last appearance on the show was in 2013, at the age of 77.
