Starlets Dressed as Men

Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is a struggling soprano in 1930s Paris at the start of another 1982 Oscar favorite, Victor Victoria. Things eventually turn around when Victoria auditions for a gig as a female impersonator, taking on the persona of a man named Count Victor Grazinski who pretends to be a woman. “When I did the film, I asked lots of questions of my leading men, James Garner and Robert Preston, and I watched them very closely, and they were very helpful,” Andrews later told Dance magazine. “I came to the conclusion that if I adopted a real stillness as a man, I would probably have a better chance of being believable.”