Venice Film Festival to honor Julie Andrews

March 8 (UPI) -- Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music icon Julie Andrews is scheduled to accept the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at this summer's 76th Venice International Film Festival.

The festival is to run Aug. 28 through Sept. 7.

The Oscar-winning, British actress said in a statement Friday that she is honored to receive the award.

"The Venice Film Festival has long been recognized as one of the world's most esteemed International Film Festivals. I thank La Biennale for this acknowledgement of my work and I look forward to being in that beautiful city in September for this very special occasion," she said.

Andrews, 83, is also known for her work in the Broadway musicals My Fair Lady and Camelot, as well as the films Aquaman, The Princess Diaries, Victor/Victoria and S.O.B..

"She accepted roles that were diverse, dramatic, provocative and imbued with scathing irony," said festival director Alberto Barbera. "For example, The Americanization of Emily by Arthur Hiller, and the many movies directed by her husband Blake Edwards, with whom she formed a very profound and long-lasting artistic partnership, a marvelous example of human and professional devotion to a captivating esthetic project that prevailed over the commercial success of the individual movies. This Golden Lion is the well-deserved recognition of an extraordinary career which has admirably parsed popular success with artistic ambition, without ever bowing to facile compromises."