"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. My Fair Lady was coincidentally released the same year as Mary Poppins.
His secretary suggested the Broadway star of My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews. Walt chose her after watching her performance in Camelot and being impressed by her loud clear whistle. She chose Walt after Jack Warner rejected her for the My Fair Lady movie, claiming the actress was unphotogenic.
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.
How old was Julie Andrews when she was in My Fair Lady?
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.
Julie Andrews On Why She Wasn't Cast In 'My Fair Lady' | The Dick Cavett Show
Why didn't Audrey Hepburn sing in My Fair Lady?
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."
How old was Audrey Hepburn during the filming of My Fair Lady?
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.
After performing in several other pantomimes, Andrews played the featured role in a pantomime of “Cinderella” in 1953, and in this capacity she caught the attention of director Vida Hope, who was working on the London production of Sandy Wilson's musical about the 1920s, “The Boy Friend.” Hope brought this discovery to ...
Eliza is insulted at receiving no credit for her success, packing up and leaving the Higgins house. As she leaves she finds Freddy, who begins to tell her how much he loves her, but she tells him that she has heard enough words; if he really loves her, he should show it ("Show Me").
Famously, Grant rejected the opportunity to star in Billy Wilder's Sabrina because he had heard that Wilder had a dislike for actors. That wasn't the only role he rejected, having passed on David Lean's 1957 epic The Bridge on the River Kwai.
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, "
Were Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews good friends?
Plummer famously played Andrews' love interest, Capt. von Trapp, in the 1965 musical. She said their bond lasted long after filming came to an end. "We became great friends, really until he passed away fairly recently," she said.
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.
Julie Andrews is the matriarch of a large blended family. The Sound of Music star has three daughters: Emma Walton Hamilton, 59, Amy Edwards, 48, and Joanna Edwards, 47.
But, she did retain her acting career—the movie The Princess Diaries was made after her surgery. She has done a lot of film work since the surgery, she just doesn't sing any longer. She had repeated surgeries to try to restore her voice, but they didn't take. Julie Andrews reportedly had nodes on her vocal cords.
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.
Marni Nixon was Hollywood's great unsung singer. She dubbed the voices of Audrey Hepburn in 'My Fair Lady', Deborah Kerr in 'The King and I' and Natalie Wood in 'West Side Story'.
