When My Fair Lady opened on Broadway 60 years ago—on Mar. 15, 1956—TIME's reviewer called it “a delight” and noted that “Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews play Higgins and Eliza to perfection.” As related by the article, the then-20-year-old Andrews had been singing since the age of 8.
Before the film made famous by Audrey Hepburn was released — Andrews played the Cockney girl turned high society member on both Broadway and the West End from 1956-1959.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, lyricist Alan Jay Lerner had his eye on Andrews for My Fair Lady's film adaptation. "I so wanted you to do it, Julie, but they wanted a name," Lerner shared. This was in reference to Hepburn's status in the film industry compared to Andrew's.
Julie Andrews On Why She Wasn't Cast In 'My Fair Lady' | The Dick Cavett Show
Did Elizabeth Taylor appear in My Fair Lady?
However, when studio executives informed her that Elizabeth Taylor would play Eliza Doolittle if she didn't accept it, Hepburn decided to take the job. Although the actress was admired for her girl next door beauty and classy composure, her singing voice proved subpar for the film.
Near the end of her one-year run with The Boy Friend, Andrews was approached to audition to Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe for the role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. She was offered the part during her third reading.
Although playing a 21-year-old flower girl, Hepburn was actually 34 in real life. The opera that was playing the night Professor Higgins and Eliza meet in Covent Gardens was Faust.
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."
Harris said that he had "rarely, if ever, experienced such hatred for a person" as he did for Andrews. The Gladiator actor continued, "She was condescending and mean.
However, he turned it down believing he couldn't play a dialectician. He jokingly said, “I sound the way Liza does at the beginning of the film.” Rex Harrison won an Oscar for his film performance.
As the voice of Maria in 'West Side Story' and Eliza Doolittle in 'My Fair Lady', Marni Nixon should have been one of Hollywood's biggest stars. Instead, other actors got the credit and she became American cinema's 'most unsung singer', writes Alexandra Pollard.
Julie Andrews has five children and has been married twice. She shares one biological daughter with her first husband Tony Walton, and has two step-children and two adoptive children from her marriage to Blake Edwards.
Does Audrey Hepburn actually sing in My Fair Lady?
Unlike the 1964 musical My Fair Lady in which her sings were dubbed by legendary ghost singer Marni Nixon, Audrey Hepburn sings the songs herself in the 1957 musical Funny Face, which was her first musical. Hepburn performs one solo, "
The entire movie was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, California, from August to December 1963. Principal filming took place on six stages of the studio, specifically 4, 7, 8, 11, 16, and 26.
Why didn't Audrey Hepburn win an Oscar for My Fair Lady?
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 for the Oscar nomination.
In December 1992, she received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. A month later, she died of appendiceal cancer at her home in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland, at the age of 63.
My Fair Lady, American musical film, released in 1964, that was adapted from the long-running Broadway musical of the same name and proved to be a great popular and critical success. The movie, which starred Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, won eight Academy Awards, including that for best picture.
Hepburn went on to marry Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969, moved to Rome and had a second son, Luca, after suffering a series of miscarriages in the 1960s.
GROSS: That's Marni Nixon on the soundtrack of the film "My Fair Lady." Audrey Hepburn played the role of Eliza Doolittle in the film, but Nixon did the singing for the role. In fact, she dubbed vocals for some 50 films.
Julie Andrews is the matriarch of a large blended family. The Sound of Music star has three daughters: Emma Walton Hamilton, 61, Amy Edwards, 49, and Joanna Edwards, 48.
