All Else Confusion

Check out My Fair Lady. In a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, Hepburn plays Eliza Doolittle, a cockney girl who is taught to speak with impecable English by Henry Higgins, a phonetician with a decidedly callous outlook on people and life. In the role, Hepburn proves that she can play a variety of parts, playing at one and the same time a cockney girl with great comedy, and the elegant transformed Eliza. Hepburn even dances well, though her singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon. An interesting aside - Stanley Holloway, who played Eliza's father had played the role on Broadway and was making his Hollywood debut at the age of 74. The film was a huge success, winning a Best Actor Oscar for Rex Harrison who revived his Broadway role as Professor Higgins for the film. Ironically, the Best Actress Oscar went to Julie Andrews, who had played Eliza with Harrison on Broadway. After losing the part to Hepburn, Andrews signed on the the Disney production of Mary Poppins. Andrews famously thanked Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros., the studio that made My Fair Lady, "for making this happen" when she won. Tonight at 8.

Labels: movies