My Fair Lady (1964)
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When Audrey Hepburn (Eliza Doolittle.) was first informed that her voice wasn't strong enough and that she would have to be dubbed, she walked out. She returned the next day and, in a typically graceful Hepburn gesture, apologized to everybody for her "wicked behavior."
Audrey Hepburn later admitted she would never have accepted the role of Eliza Doolittle if she had known that producer Jack L. Warner intended to have nearly all of her singing dubbed. After making this movie, Hepburn resolved not to appear in another movie musical unless she could do the singing on her own.
According to one of Sir Rex Harrison's biographers, Alexander Walker, the song "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" held special memories for the actor, as during the original Broadway run he used to sing the song to his third wife Kay Kendall, who would stand in the wings watching his performance. Harrison later admitted that when he sang the song in this movie, he was thinking all the time about Kendall, who had died a few years before from leukemia.
When Sir Rex Harrison accepted his Academy Award for this movie, he dedicated it to his "two fair ladies," Audrey Hepburn and Dame Julie Andrews, both of whom had played Eliza Doolittle with him.
Costume designer Cecil Beaton reputedly created 1,500 costumes for this movie.
When Audrey Hepburn entered the set for the first time in Eliza's gown for the ball, she was so beautiful the crew and the rest of the cast stood silently gaping at her, then broke out with applause and cheers.
When asked why he turned down the role of Professor Henry Higgins, Cary Grant remarked that his original manner of speaking was much closer to Eliza Doolittle.
Sir Rex Harrison's microphone (hidden in his neckties) would occasionally pick up police broadcasts from passing police cars.
The "marbles" Professor Henry Higgins (Sir Rex Harrison) puts in Eliza Doolittle's (Audrey Hepburn's) mouth are actually grapes.
Audrey Hepburn's failure to win an Oscar nomination was considered a major upset, triggering protests from Warner Brothers and director George Cukor. She rose above the snub, however, when the Academy invited her to present the Best Actor award, which went to co-star Sir Rex Harrison. In accepting the award, he thanked "two fair ladies" - Audrey Hepburn and Dame Julie Andrews (who originated the role on Broadway).
Most of Audrey Hepburn's singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, despite Hepburn's lengthy vocal preparation for the role. A dubber was required because Eliza Doolittle's songs were not transposed down to accommodate Hepburn's "low-mezzo voice" (as Nixon referred to it), the way Guenevere's songs were transposed down to accommodate Vanessa Redgrave's limited vocal range in Camelot (1967). Hepburn sang most of "Just You Wait," as well as the reprise to the song, showcasing her ability to sing perfectly at ease when the songs were set in a reasonable tessitura. Hepburn also sang one or two lines, elsewhere in the score, such as 'Sleep, sleep, I couldn't sleep tonight!' in "I Could Have Danced All Night." Thus, the claim that Nixon dubbed all of Hepburn's singing (as asserted by such people as syndicated columnist Hedda Hopper) is false.
Audrey Hepburn apparently believed that Dame Julie Andrews should have played Eliza Doolittle in this movie but was told by producer Jack L. Warner that she wouldn't be cast even if Hepburn turned down the role. Andrews said that she "threw a few tantrums" when she learned that she wouldn't be playing Eliza in this movie, and yet she got along very well with Hepburn without holding a grudge against her - she knew was an innocent party in the whole thing. Andrews would instead appear in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964) for which she won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role as the titular character.
Dame Julie Andrews got her revenge on producer Jack L. Warner three years later when she wasn't cast as Guinevere in the movie version of Camelot (1967), a part which she had made her own on Broadway. Her Great White Way co-stars Richard Burton and Robert Goulet were also not cast in the movie, which went on to flop so badly for Warner Brothers that the company ousted Jack L. Warner as its President.
Because of the way Sir Rex Harrison talked his way through the musical numbers, they were unable to pre-record them and have him lip-sync, so a wireless microphone (one of the first ever developed) was rigged up and hidden under his tie. However, this meant that his mouth and words were completely in sync and everyone else's looked off, since they were lip-synching (when everyone is lip-synching, it's not that noticeable). The studio thought that this was too obvious so they altered Harrison's soundtrack, lengthening and shortening notes in various places so that his synchronicity is slightly off like all of the other actors and actresses.
For the 30th anniversary re-release in 1994, this movie was painstakingly restored by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz, the same team that restored Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Spartacus (1960), and Vertigo (1958). The restoration was called for because Warner Brothers only owned the rights to their movie for a certain period of time before the rights reverted to CBS, who discarded most of the basic materials. The digital restoration of the movie, saving it from extinction, took six months and cost $600,000.
Cary Grant told producer Jack L. Warner that not only would he not play Professor Henry Higgins, but if Sir Rex Harrison was not cast in the role, he wouldn't even go see the movie. The same Hollywood legend is told about The Music Man (1962), that Cary Grant was offered the role of Harold Hill and told the producer that if Robert Preston wasn't cast he wouldn't even go see the movie.
Sir Rex Harrison (Professor Henry Higgins) was very disappointed when Audrey Hepburn was cast as Eliza Doolittle, as he felt she was badly miscast, and he had hoped to work with Dame Julie Andrews. He told an interviewer, "Eliza Doolittle is supposed to be ill at ease in European ballrooms. Bloody Audrey has never spent a day in her life out of European ballrooms." Nevertheless, Harrison was once later asked to identify his favorite leading lady. Without hesitation, he replied, "Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964)." However, it was widely believed he made this remark because he knew her fans wanted him to say that.
Although playing a 21-year-old, Audrey Hepburn was actually 35 in real life. Jeremy Brett (who turned 30 during filming) was cast as 20-year-old Freddy Eynsford-Hill so Hepburn would not seem too old in comparison.
Despite extensive vocal training after landing the part of Professor Henry Higgins in this movie, Sir Rex Harrison was unable to sing a note. In the end, director George Cukor gave up and told him to quasi-speak the whole thing as he had done in the stage version.
When Eliza is practicing her "H's" she sits down in front of a spinning mirror attached to a flame. Every time she says her "H's" correctly, the flame jumps. Looking closely at the paper she is holding when it catches fire, the handwritten dialogue that she and Professor Higgins had been saying previous to this can be seen. "Of course, you can't expect her to get it right the first time" is the first line written on the paper.
Jeremy Brett, who celebrated his 30th birthday during filming, was very surprised to learn that all of his singing was to be dubbed by a 43-year-old American named Bill Shirley, especially since his own singing voice at that time was remarkably good.
Audrey Hepburn announced the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the devastated cast and crew on November 22, 1963, immediately after filming "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" on the Covent Garden set.
The story takes place in 1912, although other sources place it earlier. The King in the fantasy sequence is clearly supposed to be King Edward VII and not King George V.
Audrey Hepburn revealed many years later that had she turned down the role of Eliza, the next actress to be offered it would not have been Dame Julie Andrews, but Dame Elizabeth Taylor, who wanted it desperately.
Walt Disney offered to delay filming on Mary Poppins (1964) until the summer of 1964 if Dame Julie Andrews was cast as Eliza Doolittle. Andrews ended up winning Best Actress at the 37th Academy Awards for Mary Poppins, while Audrey Hepburn wasn't even nominated for this movie.
The shoot was unusually exhausting for Audrey Hepburn, who lost eight pounds during filming. Her work was intensified by domestic problems with husband Mel Ferrer, who was playing a supporting role in Sex and the Single Girl (1964) on the Warner Brothers' lot. Finally, director George Cukor had to shoot around her for a week so she could get her health back.
Sir Rex Harrison had given up smoking after suffering from pains in his legs. He did not like the fact that Audrey Hepburn smoked three packs of cigarettes a day.
The role of Eliza Doolittle was originally played on Broadway by Dame Julie Andrews. However, she was denied the role because producer Jack L. Warner didn't think she was "known" enough as a movie actress. Many felt that this snub, as well as Audrey Hepburn's singing being dubbed, led to Hepburn's not being nominated for the Best Actress Oscar nomination. Andrews, however, was nominated that year for her role as Mary Poppins in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964). She went on to win the Oscar for Best Actress and "thanked" Jack L. Warner in her acceptance speech.
After screening the rough cut, producer Jack L. Warner, who had not wanted to cast Sir Rex Harrison, rose in silence, turned to the actor, and bowed.
At Audrey Hepburn's insistence, director George Cukor shot all of her scenes in sequence so that she could grow into the role and hold her own against Sir Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway, who had both done the play for several years. It also allowed her to do the most difficult scenes first, those before Eliza's transformation, while she was still fresh.
At one stage, Warner Brothers was in negotiations with Peter O'Toole, extremely hot after his Lawrence of Arabia (1962) success, but his agents were looking for $400,000. Producer Jack L. Warner hadn't been keen on casting Sir Rex Harrison, but it was able to get him for just $200,000. This greatly annoyed Harrison, particularly since Audrey Hepburn was being paid $1 million, and especially since Harrison eventually won an Oscar for his efforts, and Hepburn most famously didn't.
The musical was to have been called "Lady Liza", but Sir Rex Harrison refused to countenance a title based on the name of the female lead.
At $17 million, this was the most expensive Warner Brothers movie produced at the time. Nevertheless, it went on to become one of the biggest grossing movies of 1964.
Production designer Gene Allen was never given a budget with which to work. He just designed and had built all of the sets without having to worry about how much they cost.
Alan Jay Lerner was very annoyed by producer Jack L. Warner's decision to have the entire movie filmed on soundstages in Hollywood, even for outdoor scenes.
Warner Brothers had tried to keep the dubbing of Audrey Hepburn's singing a secret, but when the movie opened, it was hard not to notice it. The publicity department then issued a statement that Marni Nixon had only done half the singing, which triggered an angry denial from the dubber's husband. The secrecy triggered a backlash against Hepburn's performance, with gossip columnist Hedda Hopper writing, "With Marni Nixon doing the singing, Audrey Hepburn gives only half a performance." Warner Brothers countered, "I don't know what all the fuss is about. We've been doing it for years. We even dubbed the barking of Rin Tin Tin."
The title is derived from a line in a traditional rhyme: 'London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.'
When Eliza Doolittle demands to see what Professor Henry Higgins has been writing about her, in the beginning of the movie, he shows her his notebook, which she cannot read. The notation in the notebook is "Visible Speech," a phonetic notation invented by Alexander Melville Bell (father of Alexander Graham Bell) and extended and used heavily by Henry Sweet, a real-life phonetician and apparently the basis of the Professor Henry Higgins character.
The controversy over Audrey Hepburn being cast as Eliza Doolittle over Dame Julie Andrews, who originated the role on Broadway, went as far as journalists claiming there was a feud between the two actresses. This, of course, was untrue, as Hepburn and Andrews were friends in real life and had great respect for one another. The feud was debunked at The 37th Annual Academy Awards (1965), where Andrews recalled Hepburn telling her, "Julie, you should have done it, but I didn't have the guts to turn it down."
Although her singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, Audrey Hepburn's singing does actually appear in the form of the first verse of "Just You Wait, Henry Higgins," However, when the song heads into the soprano range (one minute and sixteen seconds in), Nixon takes over vocals. Hepburn sings the last thirty seconds of the song, as well as the brief reprise. She also sings the sing-talking parts for "The Rain in Spain." Overall, as Hepburn reportedly said, about ninety percent of her singing was dubbed. That was far more than what she expected, as she was initially promised that most of her vocals would be used. According to Nixon, Hepburn was upset that she could not play the role vocally, and always blamed herself for that.
Although Sir Rex Harrison was desperate to be cast as Professor Henry Higgins, he refused to do a screentest since he felt this was beneath his dignity. He did, however, promise to producer Jack L. Warner that he would not simply repeat his stage performance, but would instead adapt his performance accordingly for the movie.
Family Guy (1999) creator Seth MacFarlane said on multiple occasions that the voice of Stewie was based on Sir Rex Harrison's performance as Professor Henry Higgins.
Musical theater writers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had attempted to adapt George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" as a musical long before Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe but had abandoned the project as unadaptable. Rodgers and Hammerstein felt that Shaw's style of writing intellectual dialogue and the emotionless character of Professor Henry Higgins did not lend themselves to a musical. Lerner and Lowe overcame these problems by leaving Shaw's dialogue largely intact and working under the notion that Higgins must be played by a great actor, not a great singer. Thus, they wrote the role especially for Sir Rex Harrison, and they adopted the idea that Higgins should not sing outright but talk on pitch, less an expression of emotions than ideas.
Many of the Ascot Gavotte fashionable ladies of the chorus also were barmaids and pub customers in the "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" number.
Rex Harrison nailed his vocal performance of each song on the first take.
Of the main cast, only Stanley Holloway (Alfred P. Doolittle) actually sang. The others were either dubbed or just talked their way through the songs.
When Sir Rex Harrison had problems performing his final song, "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face", out of sequence (claiming he needed the weight of the show behind him to do it justice), director George Cukor let him move anywhere he wanted on the large street set. Since it would be impossible to follow him with a microphone boom, he wore one of the first wireless microphones. He also shot with two cameras simultaneously, one for the long shot and one close up, so they would have fewer problems matching shots.
Dame Julie Andrews was the first choice for the role of Eliza Doolittle, but Warner Brothers, which had paid $5.5 million for the rights to the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, didn't want to risk a stage actress in the central role of a $17 million movie, despite lobbying from Lerner himself. However, this reason has been strongly doubted by those who believe audiences would have flocked to see the movie regardless of who played the leading role. It is also reported that producer Jack L. Warner didn't think Andrews would be photogenic enough. He invited her to do a screentest, but she refused, so he forgot about her altogether.
Amusement park trams were rented to carry ballroom scene extras across the studio lot, in order to prevent their makeup and costumes from getting dirty or damaged.
The entire Ascot Gavotte sequence was shot with all of the characters dressed in shades of black, white, and gray (with one light yellow hat and one small red flower). One of the reasons Audrey Hepburn's entrance to the scene is so striking is the total contrast of her dress, pure white with green stripes, lilac and red decorations, to the relatively bland coloration of the musical number preceding it.
Producer Jack L. Warner paid $5.5 million for the movie rights in February 1962. This set a record for the amount of money paid for the movie rights to any intellectual property, broken only in 1978 when Columbia Pictures paid $9.5 million for the movie rights to Annie (1982).
Alfred's acceptance of £5 from Henry would be the equivalent of approximately $700 in the modern era.
One of only four productions to win the Best Play Tony (1956) and the Best Picture Oscar (1964). The other three are The Sound of Music (1965) (won Tony in 1960), A Man for All Seasons (1966) (1962), and Amadeus (1984) (1981).
American Marni Nixon had to practice a Cockney accent before she could dub all of Audrey Hepburn's singing in the movie.
Henry Daniell shot his last scene as the Ambassador on October 31, 1963, at Warner Brothers, escorting the Queen of Transylvania. Director and friend George Cukor thought that Daniell, acting in his seventh Cukor movie, looked unwell, and the 69-year-old actor died from a heart attack a few hours later on Halloween night at his house in Santa Monica, California.
For the early part of Eliza's transformation, Cecil Beaton insisted that Audrey Hepburn wear weights around her lower legs so that she would keep some of the flower girl's early gawkiness.
In the scene where Professor Henry Higgins knocks a record player that is playing a recording of vowel sounds, the voice on the record is that of Dr. Peter Ladefoged, a linguist who worked as a consultant on this movie.
The 1994 restoration by Robert A. Harris used a variety of methods to return the film to its original condition. The opening credits were digitally re-created using pieces of surviving frames. A few shots were digitally restored by scanning the 65 mm negative or separation masters and output back to VistaVision (and enlarged back to 65 mm). Some shots were simply recomposited via separation masters. Despite this, most of the film was able to be restored directly from the camera negative. For the sound, only the six-track magnetic print master (used to add sound to 70 mm prints) survived. This was digitally restored and used to create a new six-track mix (faithful to the original version), as well as new Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 mixes for modern sound systems.
The original Broadway production of "My Fair Lady" opened at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York on March 15, 1956, and ran for 2,717 performances, which, at the time, was the longest run a Broadway show had ever had. In February 2013, the original production is still the 20th-longest-running production in Broadway history. Sir Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway re-created their roles in the movie. Harrison won the 1957 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical and Hollaway was nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. The show won the 1957 Tony Award (New York City) for Best Musical.
Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway) said he's been left £4,000 per year. Assuming that this movie is set in 1912, this is equivalent to about £470,000 in 2021, or approximately $600,000 in 2021.
During the parts of "Wouldn't It be Loverly" featuring Audrey Hepburn's own singing voice, her lip-synching does not match her own singing as well as it does Marni Nixon's singing, even though Hepburn filmed the scene with her own track. This shouldn't be surprising considering that Nixon "looped" her vocals to the song after the number was already filmed, and was given multiple attempts to match Hepburn's lip movements precisely (as was the case when she dubbed Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961)). Nixon discusses this in her autobiography, where she actually praises Hepburn for lip-synching very well to her own track. Also, according to the DVD commentary, instead of using the vocal track that was used during filming, a new vocal track had to be created for use on the "Audrey dub".
While the movie received generally favorable reviews, critics were divided on Audrey Hepburn's performance as Eliza. While some were critical of the fact that she was dubbed, others, such as esteemed British dramatist Sir John Gielgud, went on record as saying that Hepburn was "better than (Dame) Julie Andrews!" in the role.
The movie was advertised as the most eagerly anticipated production since Gone with the Wind (1939).
The play first had been staged on Broadway in March 1956 and opened in London in 1958. A clause in the contract stated that the movie version could not be made until the play had finished running, which finally took place in September 1962.
Cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr., who shot this movie, also shot Pygmalion (1938). Both films are based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play, "Pygmalion."
This was Warner Brothers' first Best Picture Oscar winner since Casablanca (1942). It would be another twenty-five years before it had another Best Picture statuette with Driving Miss Daisy (1989).
This movie is the only Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe stage musical to have been filmed totally complete, with no omission of any songs from the stage version (or dialogue, for that matter). There are even some added lyrics to the song "You Did It", in which Professor Henry Higgins goes more into detail about the speech "expert" Zoltan Karpathy's evaluation of Eliza Doolittle at the ball, that were not in the stage version. This movie, West Side Story (1961), and South Pacific (1958) may be the most complete movie adaptations of Broadway musicals ever made.
Most costumers and make-up artists had to camouflage Audrey Hepburn's square jaw, but for her early scenes, production designer Cecil Beaton actually emphasized it by putting her in a straw hat. That allowed for a more dramatic transformation, accentuated by the upswept hairdos he designed for her later in the movie to show off her bone structure.
Most roadshow movie presentations made at that time had an overture recorded especially for the movie, meant to be heard while the lights in the theater were still up and the movie screen curtains were still closed. Then, at the end of the overture, the lights would go down and the movie would start with what was known as its Main Title music. The overture to the stage version of "My Fair Lady" was longer than the movie's opening credits, but Lerner and Loewe apparently still wanted to use it. So, rather than using the typical roadshow format of Overture and Main Title music to get around this, the filmmakers shot the movie so that half of the Overture is heard against shots of flowers appearing on the screen; then halfway through the Overture, the lights go down and the opening credits begin.
Unlike many film productions which don't strive for structural integrity, everything about the set for Henry Higgins' house interiors and exteriors holds together as a complete building, as if it were a real house.
The suggestion that Nancy Olsen inspired Alan Jay Lerner to come up with "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" is unlikely, given that George Bernard Shaw's Higgins uses precisely that line when speaking of Eliza at precisely the same point, in the original "Pygmalion" of 1912, and that many of Shaw's lines made it into the musical's script. Regarding the assertion that "My Fair Lady" is derived from the children's nursery rhyme, "London Bridge Is Falling Down," a story circulated years ago, suggested it was, in fact, a clever in-joke: Higgins proposes to make Eliza into a "Mayfair lady" (no, he doesn't say this in the script, more's the pity), but Eliza's Cockney accent would contort that to sound like "Myfair Lydy." The story further claimed that Higgins did say as much in an early draft of the play's script, to which Eliza retorted, "I down wanna be no Myfair lydy!" For some reason the line was dropped, but the title stayed... or so the rumor goes.
Audrey Hepburn had signed for the movie with the understanding that she would do her own singing. She arrived in Hollywood six weeks before shooting began to work with a vocal coach and musical director André Previn and actually recorded her tracks for the musical numbers.
When director George Cukor asked to do expensive retakes of the Ascot sequence, Warner Brothers refused. When Cukor persisted, the company had the set torn down.
James Cagney was originally offered the role of Alfred P. Doolittle. When he pulled out at the last minute, it went to the man who played it on Broadway, Stanley Holloway. Peter O'Toole, Cary Grant, Noël Coward, Rock Hudson, Sir Michael Redgrave, and George Sanders were all considered for the role of Professor Henry Higgins before Sir Rex Harrison was finally chosen to reprise his Broadway role.
One of ten American musicals to win Best Picture: 1) The Broadway Melody (1929), 2) The Great Ziegfeld (1936), 3) Going My Way (1944), 4) An American in Paris (1951), 5) Gigi (1958), 6) West Side Story (1961), 7) this movie, 8) The Sound of Music (1965), 9) Oliver! (1968), and 10) Chicago (2002).
Was selected for preservation, in National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2018, for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.
Director George Cukor and production designer Cecil Beaton, who were good friends beforehand, had a big falling-out during the production. This is generally thought to be due to Beaton taking too much time photographing Audrey Hepburn when Cukor wanted her for rehearsals or filming. These were in fact the only times that Beaton ever showed up on-set.
Jeremy Brett (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), during his stint on this movie, was never able to visit the beach or stay out too long in the sun because producer Jack L. Warner wanted him to remain pale like his character in the movie.
When Professor Henry Higgins (Sir Rex Harrison) and Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) are working together for the first time, Higgins hits a tuning fork. It sounds, but it shouldn't; he's holding it by the tines.
George Cukor and Cecil Beaton did not get along during filming. Cukor complained that Beaton tried to take credit for other people's work. He also resented the fact that Beaton's presence prevented him from hiring his usual color consultant, photographer George Hoyningen-Huene. For his part, Beaton considered Cukor vulgar and resented his domineering character. Some observers suggested that the closeted Cukor was put off by Beaton's more flamboyant homosexuality. There were even rumors that Beaton had once stolen a man from Cukor. Their biggest on-set argument was over Beaton's assignment to photograph the cast. Cukor felt that his photography was slowing down production and told him to stop taking shots on the set. Then he complained that posing for the portraits was overworking the actors and actresses. Yet Beaton persisted in taking pictures. After some on-set blow-ups, Cukor complained to Warner Brothers, and Beaton stopped coming to the set.
The only surviving audio element from the movie is the production master, which is actually one generation down from the original recording.
Included among the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the Top 100 Greatest American Movies, at #91.
Thanks to director George Cukor's efficiency, shooting was completed in less than four months. Shooting started in August 1963 and ended in December.
In her 2004 autobiography "Tis Herself," Maureen O'Hara claimed that producer Jack L. Warner asked her to dub Audrey Hepburn's singing voice in this movie. The story is hard to believe, as O'Hara wasn't noted for her singing, and the decision would have been the musical director's in the first place.
Shirley Jones was one of the actresses to whom Jack L. Warner planned to offer the role of Eliza Doolittle if Audrey Hepburn turned it down.
The original choice to direct this movie was Vincente Minnelli, but when his salary demands were too high, the job went to George Cukor.
Ascot is traditionally held in the latter part of June and is at the height of the "Summer Season" of London and English society events. Afterwards, apart from the race meetings at Goodwood and the royal regatta at Cowes, most of society leaves the cities for the countryside. The next "Season" commences in the autumn to include opera, ballet, symphony and Parliament's opening. Therefore, the embassy ball, for which Eliza worked so hard to perfect her character and mannerisms, was likely held in the autumn months following Ascot, giving a good cushion of time for the process.
Robert Coote was nominated for the 1962 Tony Award (New York City) for Supporting or Features Actor in a Musical for "My Fair Lady" for his role as Colonel Hugh Pickering and re-created that role in the 1976 Broadway revival.
Cecil Beaton's inspiration for the library in Professor Henry Higgins' home, where much of the action takes place, was a room at the Château de Groussay, Montfort-l'Amaury, in France, which had been decorated opulently by its owner Carlos de Beistegui.
The picture on the wall of Professor Henry Higgins' library (profile, facing left) is of the famous 19th century explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, Freemason, and diplomat (not the actor) Richard Francis Burton.
Producer Jack L. Warner would not hire Dame Julie Andrews to play Eliza. He said she simply wasn't famous enough. Sir Rex Harrison, nearly refused to be in the movie as a result. Warner Brothers tried to replace him with Peter Sellers, but in the end it was Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.
Connie Stevens, then a Warner Brothers contract player, campaigned for the role of Eliza Doolittle.
George Cukor and Cecil Beaton took a lavish approach to this movie's set design. In a departure from standard Hollywood practice, rather than building cobblestones for the Covent Garden streets from a single mold, they had each stone made individually. Art director Gene Allen, a frequent Cukor collaborator, used several coats of paint on the buildings to create the illusion that they were hundreds of years old.
The instrumental "Busker Sequence," which opens the play immediately after the Overture, is the only musical number from the play omitted in the movie version. However, there are several measures from this piece that can be heard as we see Eliza in the rain, making her way through the cars and carriages in Covent Garden.
Theodore Bikel was a late replacement for Max Adrian in the role of Zoltan Karpathy.
Jeremy Brett (Freddy Eynsford-Hill) admitted in 1994 that his singing in this movie was dubbed by Bill Shirley, although it seems he sang the introduction to "On the Street Where You Live" himself.
This movie is included on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list.
Joshua Logan wrote in his autobiography that he was offered the chance to direct this movie, but the offer was withdrawn when he suggested that some scenes be shot on-location in London.
Although most of the art direction and costume designing credit went to Cecil Beaton, art director Gene Allen went on record to say that Beaton only designed the women's clothes and had no part in the actual designs of the sets, though he insisted on taking the credit for them. In fact, Beaton had it written into his contract that he receive sole credit for production designer.
In truth, ten percent of Eliza Doolittle's singing in this movie is Audrey Hepburn. She sings and talks the first verse of "Just You Wait," as well as the number's conclusion and a reprise. She also performs parts of "The Rain in Spain."
All of the songs in this movie were performed nearly complete. However, there were some verse omissions, as there sometimes are in movie adaptations of Broadway musicals. For example, in the song "With a Little Bit of Luck," the verse "He does not have a tuppence in his pocket," which was sung with a chorus, was omitted, due to space and its length. The original verse in "Show Me" was used instead.
Audrey Hepburn was generally felt to be too old for her character.
Stanley Holloway originated the role of Alfred P. Doolittle on Broadway, but it was thought that a better known actor would be more suited for the movie version.
The opera that was playing the night Professor Henry Higgins (Sir Rex Harrison) and Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) meet in Convent Gardens was "Faust," which in 1912 would have been 53 years old.
27A Wimpole Street in London (Professor Henry Higgins' address) does not exist. (There is a 27 Wimpole Street.)
During lunch breaks, Cecil Beaton would sneak onto the soundstage set being filmed, set up an easel and board, sketching the standing set (scenery), adding color with time permitting, or adding watercolor washes and painting details in his studio lot office. Producer Jack L. Warner and director George Cukor had Beaton banned from the daily filming stage, as well as from any Warner Brothers stage on which set construction, painting, set green, and set decorating was in progress. After the movie was finished, Beaton had an exhibition with his costume sketches, including these set illustrations, providing some evidence that he had designed the scenery as well. In fact, Jack L. Warner had originally signed a contract with Beaton granting him costume and art direction screen credits. The original New York City, London, Chicago, and roadshow tour-stage scenery had been designed by Oliver Smith. George Cukor and Gene Allen (as production designer and second unit director) had teamed on A Star Is Born (1954). Cukor insisted Allen would design all this movie's sets when he accepted the directorial assignment. In fact, Beaton was never allowed in nor near the movie's art department.
Stanley Holloway was nominated for the 1957 Tony Award (New York City) for Supporting or Features Actor in a Musical for "My Fair Lady" for the role of Alfred P. Doolittle and re-created the role in the movie version.
The scene where Eliza swallows a marble while practicing her elocution came from an unscripted moment in the filming of the movie "Pygmalion". There, Wendy Hiller, playing Eliza, accidentally swallowed a marble and Leslie Howard ad-libbed "We've got plenty more." The action and lines were kept in that movie and made it into the musical play and movie "My Fair Lady".
Producer Jack L. Warner considered this movie to be one of his finest achievements.
U.S. television viewers had something of a Sir Rex Harrison film-fest on Thanksgiving week in 1973. Doctor Dolittle (1967) aired on Thanksgiving Eve on ABC, followed by this movie on NBC on Thanksgiving Day. This was the U.S. commercial television premiere of both movies, and probably was not a coincidence.
Features Stanley Holloway's only Oscar-nominated performance.
This film is one of two based on Pygmalion that is currently owned by Paramount Pictures despite not having released either version originally. The other is 1999's "She's All That," which was released by Miramax while it was a Disney subsidiary. beIN Media Group currently owns a 51% stake in Miramax; the other 49% is owned by Paramount.
The original Broadway production of "Pygmalion," on which "My Fair Lady" was based, opened at the Park Theater on October 12, 1914, ran for seventy-two performances, and was revived in 1927, 1938, 1945, 1987, and 2007. The play premiered in a German translation at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna, Austria on October 16, 1913 and in English at His Majesty's Theatre in London, England on April 11, 1914 (which starred Mrs. Patrick Campbell).
The only movie to be nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscars that year.
After the "Just You Wait" song has ended and Professor Higgins has fallen on the carpet, a kissing Dutch couple can be seen on the rug.
Shirley MacLaine wanted the role of Eliza Doolittle.
Gladys Cooper reprised her role as Mrs. Higgins in Pygmalion (1963).
According to the "The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw" book, Rock Hudson was considered for the role of Professor Henry Higgins and James Cagney for Alfred P. Doolittle.
Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," edited by Steven Schneider.
George Cukor asked production designer Gene Allen to direct the second unit for the Ascot scene.
Julie Andrews and the Broadway ensemble performed the number "Wouldn't It Be Luverly" live before an audience on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1961. This performance can be watched on YouTube.
The order of the songs in the show was followed faithfully, except for "With a Little Bit of Luck." The song is listed as being the third musical number in the play; in the movie, it is the fourth. On the stage, the song is split into two parts sung in two different scenes. Part of the song is sung by Doolittle and his cronies just after Eliza gives him part of her earnings, immediately before she makes the decision to go to Professor Henry Higgins' house to ask for speech lessons. The second half of the song is sung by Doolittle just after he discovers that Eliza is now living with Professor Henry Higgins. In the movie, the entire song is sung in one scene that takes place just after Professor Henry Higgins has sung "I'm an Ordinary Man." However, the song does have a dialogue scene (Doolittle's conversation with Eliza's landlady) between verses.
Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner had originally wanted their musical to be titled "Fanfaroon".
Included amongst the American Film Institute's 2000 list of the five hundred movies nominated for the Top 100 Funniest American Movies.
The film, originally produced by Warner Bros., became owned by CBS in 1971 per an agreement between the two companies. Following the formation of ViacomCBS in 2019, the rights to the film were effectively transferred to Paramount, which had held the home video rights since 2009.
Julie Andrews, the originator of the role of Eliza on Broadway, was obviously passed over for the same role in this film, but appeared as Maria in The Sound of Music the following year. Likewise, Theodore Bikel, the originator of the role of Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music, was passed over for the same in the film version, but appears as Zolton Karpathy in this film.
Audrey Hepburn's character's name is Eliza Doolittle. Three years after this movie came out, Sir Rex Harrison played the title character in Doctor Dolittle (1967), whose last name is also Dolittle.
Included among the American Film Institute's 2002 list of the Top 100 America's Greatest Love Story Movies.
Warner Brothers paid $5.5 million for the film rights and didn't want to risk a stage actress in the main role of such an expensive project despite Julie Andrews having made the part her own on stage. Audrey Hepburn was no singer so Marni Nixon recorded the songs before hand in case Audrey couldn't sing. A decision wasn't going to be made until editing which made Audrey nervous during filming of the 18 week shoot. Rex Harrison, who'd been cast from the stage version demanded to sing live on set to improve his performance. Audrey agonised over the grubby costumes of the Cockney waif when told that her singing would be dubbed. Jack Warner is reported to have said for a million dollars (her fee) you've enough to sing about.
Included among the American Film Institute's 2004 list of the top 100 America's Greatest Music in the Movies for the song "I Could Have Danced All Night."
Included among the American Film Institute's 2004 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 America's Greatest Music in the Movies for the song "The Rain in Spain."
Even though the film is set in the year 1912, there is no mention of the sinking of the Titanic, which was one of the biggest world events of its age.
Professor Higgins has a box with four mirrors that spins on his desk. The same mirror type trick is used by the band Passion Pit in their 2009 music video "Sleepyhead."
Favorite movie of Rosalind Chao and Kim Basinger.
Included among the American Film Institute's 2004 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 America's Greatest Music in the Movies for the song "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face."
The film was screened as the 1964 Royal Film Performance,
No it wasn't. The1964 Royal Film performance was Move Over, Darling on February 24th 1964 at the Odeon Leicester Square. My Fair Lady had an "ordinary" Royal Premiere on January 21st 1965 at the Warner, Leicester Square in the presence of HRH Princess Alexandra.
No it wasn't. The1964 Royal Film performance was Move Over, Darling on February 24th 1964 at the Odeon Leicester Square. My Fair Lady had an "ordinary" Royal Premiere on January 21st 1965 at the Warner, Leicester Square in the presence of HRH Princess Alexandra.
Spoilers
Playwright George Bernard Shaw adamantly opposed any notion that Professor Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle had fallen in love and would marry at the end of the play, as he felt it would betray the character of Eliza who, as in the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, would "come to life" and emancipate herself from the male domination of Higgins and her father. He even went so far as to include a lengthy essay to be published with copies of the script explaining precisely why Higgins and Eliza would never marry, and what "actually happened" after the curtain fell: Eliza married Freddy Eynsford-Hill and opened a flower shop with funds from Colonel Hugh Pickering. Also, as Shaw biographers have noted, Higgins is meant to be an analogue of the playwright himself, thus suggesting Higgins was actually a homosexual. Under heavy pressure from producers, for Pygmalion (1938), Shaw wrote a compromise ending, in which Eliza and Henry reconcile, but Eliza still leaves to marry Freddy. This was later changed without Shaw's knowledge nor permission to a conclusion in which Eliza returns to Higgins and supposedly marries him. It is that ending that is used in this movie.
According to Nancy Olson, who was married to lyricist Alan Jay Lerner at the time he was writing the musical, Lerner and Frederick Loewe had the most trouble writing the final song for Professor Henry Higgins. The two writers had based the whole concept of the musical around the notion that Henry was far too intellectual a character to emotionally sing outright, but should speak his songs on pitch, more as an expression of ideas. However, both composer and lyricist knew that Henry would need a love song towards the end of the story when Eliza Doolittle has abandoned him. This presented an obvious problem: how to write an emotional song for an emotionless character. Lerner suffered bouts of insomnia trying to write the lyrics. One night, Olson claims, she brought him a cup of tea to soothe his nerves. As she entered his study, Lerner thanked her and said, "I guess I've grown accustomed to you . . . I've grown accustomed to your face." According to Olson, his eyes suddenly lit up, and she sat down and watched him write the entire song in one sitting, based on the idea that although Henry couldn't "love" Eliza in the traditional sense, he would surely notice the value she represented as part of his life.
Producer Jack L. Warner originally didn't want Sir Rex Harrison to reprise his stage role as Professor Higgins for the movie version, since he had seen Cleopatra (1963) and thought the actor looked too old to be believable as Audrey Hepburn's love interest. Peter O'Toole was considered for the role of Professor Higgins, but his salary demands were too high. Harrison responded in a letter to Warner Brothers that he had only looked old as Gaio Giulio Cesare because he had been playing an epileptic at the end of his life, and after sending some publicity photographs of himself, minus his toupee, he was eventually cast.
About twenty minutes before the end of the movie, Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) offers to go find the missing Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn). He exits the library set and is never seen in the movie again.
