Tag Archives: Rex Harrison
3) My Fair Lady (1964)
It doesn’t get much better than Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn and few films better than My Fair Lady. It’s probably the greatest stage play turned musical…ever. Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, is a brilliant play and My Fair Lady is, possibly even better.
My Fair Lady is the story of a poor street urchin (Hepburn) turned flower girl who learns to speak like an Duchess. Rex Harrison is Henry Higgins the Professor that, through not so gentle ministrations, manages to accomplish the impossible. And Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) is the long suffering buffer between the two.
The Hepburn role, Eliza Doolittle, seems made for her. Had Julie Andrews, offered the role she played on Broadway, it may never have been the masterpiece it became. Mary Poppins too, the role Andrew chose may have been given to someone else changing everything. Only our favorite Hot Tub Time Machine or maybe Doc Brown’s Delorean could help us find out.
Hepburn as the dirty street urchin turned achingly beautiful, but delicate wonder, was amazing.