Julie Andrews is honoured with the Life Achievement Award at the 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, airing tomorrow night at 8 on TNT and TBS.

Let's face it, it's Julie Andrews' world. The rest of us just live in it.

At 71, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Grammy-winning actress has moved from one personal accolade to another in recent years, including honours as a Dame of the British Empire in 1999 and being named a 2001 Kennedy Center honouree.

Nonetheless, Andrews insists she was stunned when the Screen Actors Guild announced it would present her with its Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment as part of the 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards airing jointly on TNT and TBS tomorrow.

Amazed

"I am unbelievably flattered and quite amazed," she says. "It's something that I truly never expected or ever thought about, as a matter of fact. The fact that they most kindly selected me, I am just quite staggered by that. The whole thing is just a little unreal to me."

Andrews says she isn't sure who will be participating in her part of the evening's programme. "I believe quite a lot of the details are being kept from my knowledge," she says. "They asked if there were anyone in particular I wanted, and I said, 'Really, no,' and they said, 'Then leave it to us.' "

Major success

A child-singing star in her native England, Andrews already had scored a major success in the Broadway productions of My Fair Lady and Camelot when she made her memorable 1964 screen debut in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins, playing the English nanny who is "practically perfect in every way." Audiences and critics felt the same way about her performance and Andrews won an Academy Award as best actress. That honor was so staggering, she admits, that she kept the Oscar in her attic at first.

"Here I was, a newcomer, and I felt it was the most wonderful welcome to Hollywood," she says. "Certainly it was the most generous gift I could have been given. What a phenomenal accolade, but since I was just learning my craft, it was like, 'Are you sure? Have you got the right lady?' "

- John Crook, Zap2it