Walt personally made all of the casting decision for Mary Poppins. His first choice for Mary was surprising - Bette Davis. One of the reigning queens of Moviedom, Ms. Davis was in her fifties at the time. In voice and appearance, she couldn't have been more different from the twenty-seven-year-old singer Walt ultimately chose. Yet P.L. Travers had given no hint of Mary's age in the books - most readers at the time assumed her to be a middle-aged woman. So the choice of Bette Davis seemed logical. But as the Sherman brothers developed the score of the film, there were several songs written for Mary Poppins to sing. Bette Davis was not a singer.
Bette Davis was up for the role of Mary Poppins
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| by Anonymous | reply 11 | December 1, 2018 4:21 PM |
Just saw this talked about on television.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | December 1, 2018 1:22 AM |
Huh... sounds like Hellraiser for kids. Yikes.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | December 1, 2018 1:24 AM |
Upon seeing the children's messy bedroom....
What a dump!
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | December 1, 2018 1:49 AM |
Mary Wickes is how P.L. Travers envisioned the character. She starred in a TV version of the story in 1949.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | December 1, 2018 2:15 AM |
I love Mary Wickes. One of those supporting cast members you can be sure will give an excellent performance-
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | December 1, 2018 2:41 AM |
I suspect she’s a treasure, R8.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | December 1, 2018 2:44 AM |
I kind of hate it when she played English people with that unvaried Yankee accent. Still it's less painful than when she actually tried to do Cockney or something in Of Human Bondage; that was worse than Dick Van Dyke's Bert. Has Julie Andrews ever played a Yankee with an English accent?
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | December 1, 2018 5:28 AM |