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Trivia for
My Fair Lady (1964)
-
Rex Harrison wanted
Julie Andrews for the role of Eliza, since
they had played together in the Broadway
version.
-
Stanley Holloway originated the role of
Alfie Dolittle on Broadway, but it was thought
that a better known actor would be more suited
for the film version.
- Because of the way
Rex Harrison sang/talked his musical
numbers, they were unable to prerecord 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-syncing (when everyone is lip-syncing, 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 the other actors.
-
Gladys Cooper, who plays Mrs. Higgins (Henry
Higgins' mother) in this film, played the same
role in the 1963 Hallmark Hall of Fame
television production
Pygmalion (1963) (TV), the play on which
this film is based.
-
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 film, despite lobbying from Lerner
himself. It is also reported that
Jack L. Warner didn't think Andrews would be
photogenic enough. He invited her to do a screen
test, but she refused, so he forgot about her
altogether.
- 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 (76 seconds in),
Nixon takes over vocals. Hepburn sings the last
30 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 90% 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.
- According to actress
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 Henry Higgins. The two
writers had based the whole concept of the
musical around the notion that Higgins 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 Higgins would
need a love song towards the end of the story
when Eliza 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 Higgins couldn't
"love" Eliza in the traditional sense, he would
surely notice the value she represented as part
of his life.
- According to one of
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 the film
he was thinking all the time about Kendall, who
had died a few years before from leukemia.
- During the parts of "Wouldn't It be Loverly"
featuring
Audrey Hepburn's own singing voice, her
lip-syncing 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.
- Warner Bros. won the bidding war for the
film rights in 1962 with an offer of $5.5
million and nearly half the profits above $20
million.
- 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.
-
Audrey Hepburn announced the assassination
of Pres.
John F. Kennedy to the devastated cast and
crew immediately after filming the number
"Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" on the Covent Garden
set on 22 November 1963.
- 27A Wimpole Street in London (Higgins'
address) does not exist (there is a 27 Wimpole
Street).
- The role of Eliza Doolittle was originally
played on Broadway by
Julie Andrews. However, she was denied the
role because the film's producers didn't think
she was "known" enough as a film 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.
-
Cary Grant told
Jack L. Warner that not only would he not
play Henry Higgins, but if
Rex Harrison was not cast in the role, he
wouldn't even go see the picture.
- When Eliza Dolittle demands to see what
Henry Higgins has been writing about her, in the
beginning of the film, 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
Henry Higgins character.
-
Audrey Hepburn herself revealed years later
that had she turned down the role of Eliza, the
next actress to be offered it would not have
been
Julie Andrews but
Elizabeth Taylor, who wanted it desperately.
- Apparently,
Shirley Jones was one of the actresses to
whom
Jack L. Warner planned to offer the role of
Eliza Doolittle if
Audrey Hepburn (his first choice) turned it
down.
- Veteran actor
Henry Daniell, who is unbilled as The
Ambassador, died of a heart attack on 31 October
1963 just hours after completing the dress ball
sequences.
- About twenty minutes before the end of the
film, Colonel Pickering offers to go off and
find the missing Eliza. He exits the library set
- and is never seen in the movie again!
- 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 65mm
negative or separation masters and output back
to VistaVision (and enlarged back to 65mm). Some
shots were simply re-composited 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 70mm
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.
- Despite intensive vocal training during
pre-production, and constant practicing until
her final re-recording during the
post-production,
Audrey Hepburn was never able to sing
"Without You" properly. That song is far beyond
her vocal range. However, it is widely agreed
that her renditions of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?"
and "Show Me" were good enough to be left
undubbed.
- In the scene where 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. If you
look closely at the paper she is holding in her
hand when it catches fire, you will see
handwritten upon it the dialog that she and
Professor Higgins have been saying previous to
this. "Of course, you can't expect her to get it
right the first time," is the first line written
on the paper.
- Average Shot Length = 10 seconds
- The original choice to direct the film was
Vincente Minnelli but when his salary
demands were too high, the job went to
George Cukor.
-
Connie Stevens, then a Warners contract
player, campaigned for the role of Eliza
Doolittle.
- In the scene where 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 the film.
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