At a glance…
- Dame Julie Andrews has made history by being the oldest woman to win a Primetime Emmy Award at 90 years of age.
- It is her fourth Emmy win and comes just a month after the award-winning actress announced her retirement from acting.
While her countless accolades certainly boost her icon status, Julie Andrews will go down in history for how she made people feel.
Whether it was watching her spin in a meadow in Germany for The Sound of Music, declaring that a “Queen is never late, everyone else is simply early” in The Princess Diaries or taking care of mischievous children in Mary Poppins.
On 6 September 2026, Julie Andrews won Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for her performance in Bridgerton. She also won the same category in the year prior. It is her fourth Emmy. Her first was in 1973 for Outstanding Variety Musical Series for The Julie Andrews Hour. She won again in 2005 for Outstanding Nonfiction Series for Broadway: The American Musical.
Her win comes just weeks after she told The Hollywood Reporter that she was retiring from on-screen acting and wouldn’t appear in the upcoming Princess Diaries sequel.
“I think the absolute truth is that I think I’m really past all that now,” she said in the interview. “I’m not completely retired, but it’s a different kind of work that I do these days — [writing] books, and I do a lot of recording of podcasts and voiceovers.”
However, it’s not expected that Julie will return to Bridgerton for season five. SPOILER ALERT: In the finale of season four, the voice over changes to a new voice after a new writer takes up Lady Whistledown’s pen.
She wasn’t in attendance to receive the Emmy award; however, she hasn’t been making a lot of appearances in recent years. Disney gave the entire internet a jump scare when it announced that a documentary about her life and career was in the works; however, we all immediately assumed she had passed away.
Our admiration for Julie followed her away from the screen, because behind her prim and proper appearance was a woman who had a favourite curse word and overcame health scares. So, when she resurfaced after three years away from Hollywood for the seventh annual World Parkinson’s Congress conference in May 2026, she sent fans into a tizzy.
The 90-year-old appeared in a video message welcoming attendees.
“Your participation is invaluable as we seek to find a cure to this terrible disease,” she said. “I know well how devastating it can be.”
“May we all become a beacon of light to stop it in its tracks. Count me in as a red thread. Thank you.”
Julie’s red thread was in reference to the World Parkinson Congress’ Red Thread Project initiative which helps connect those impacted by the disease. Fellow supporters of the initiative include Michael J. Fox, who was diagnosed in 1991, and Sir Paul McCartney, who sadly lost a friend to the disease.
While we haven’t seen Julie in many years, we have heard her as the narrating voice of Lady Whistledown in Netflix’s Bridgerton.
The Oscar-winner’s last in-person appearance was in March 2023 at the taping for Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love. The series celebrated Carol’s incredible career, including a bunch of special guests, including Katy Perry, Charlize Theron and Cher.
And although she is a frequent author of children’s books, she took a short break after 2023. But this year, she published a new novel, Shy: A Picture Book, in collaboration with her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton.
