Dame Julie Elizabeth Andrews, DBE (born Julia Elizabeth Wells on October 1, 1935) is an award-winning English actress, singer, author and icon. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honours. Andrews rose to prominence after starring in Broadway musicals such as My Fair Lady and Camelot, as well as musical films like Mary Poppins (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965).Andrews had a major revival of her film career in the 2000s, in family films such as The Princess Diaries (2001), its sequel The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), and the Shrek animated films (2004-2007). In 2005, Andrews made her debut as a stage director with a revival of The Boy Friend, in which she also made her Broadway acting debut in 1954.Andrews is also an accomplished writer of children's books, and in 2008 she published an autobiography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years.
The Princess Diaries is a series of novels by Meg Cabot in the chick-lit genre, and the title of the first volume, published in 2000. The Princess Diaries novels are divided into journal entries of varying lengths, not chapters as in most novels.
The series spent 38 weeks on the The New York Times Children's Series Best Sellers List and has been sold to publishers in 37 foreign countries. As of January 2008 nine books in the series have been published.
