Julie Andrews reveals she refused cocaine at a party

Los Angeles, Nov 17 (IANS) Actor Julie Andrews has revealed that she refused to snort cocaine at a film moguls party, saying that the hosts wanted to "see how Mary Poppins would react" after getting high.

In her new book "Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years", the veteran actress, 84, revealed that she and late husband Blake Edwards were offered the drug while at a house party of a very powerful Hollywood agent in 1971, reports dailymail.co.uk.

About the incident, she wrote: "When we arrived at the house, we were confronted by a classic 'scene' for those days, but one that I had yet to witness. A group of guests were doing lines of coke in the living room. During dinner, the coke was passed around as dessert."

"When it was offered to Blake and me, we both declined. The hosts began pushing me hard, curious to see how Mary Poppins would react," she said.

Calling the peer pressure to take the drug "intense", she said of her husband: "Blake came to my aid. 'She doesn't need any of that stuff', he said. 'She's high enough on life as it is'. Mercifully, they backed down. When we left, there were bodies on the floor, leaning against the wall, totally wasted."

The star admitted that she struggled to make sense of her friends' drug habits, and said: "Back at home, I stood at my open kitchen window and looked out across the golf course, trying to make some sense of the surreal experience."

She added that the sprinklers turning on in her garden brought her "back to reality and ­restored my equilibrium".