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Abso-bloomin'-lutely!
“It’s ‘aoooow’ and ‘garn’ that keep her in her place,” declares Professor Higgins. “Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.” And so the phoneticist gives a young Cockney flower seller speech lessons in order to pass her off as a lady.
In 1913 George Bernard Shaw wrote a play called Pygmalion and in March 1956, a musical version of the story debuted on Broadway. Rex Harrison in the role of the professor was hit by terrible stage fright on opening night and only emerged from his dressing room an hour before curtain. This did not stop My Fair Lady from becoming a major hit winning many awards over the years and selling over 5 million copies of the album. The success on Broadway was followed by a hit London production and was later adapted into an Oscar winning film.
A 20 year old Julie Andrews took to the stage as Eliza Doolittle, a role which made her a star. Julie, Harrison, Stanley Holloway (Alfred Doolittle) and Robert Coote (Colonel Pickering) performed in the original Broadway production and then took their roles across the Atlantic and starred in the London production. Rex and Stanley reprised their roles in the movie. Walt Disney wanted Julie to play Mary Poppins and offered to delay filming if she was cast as Eliza.
But the role of Eliza was given to Audrey Hepburn. Jack Warner felt that Julie was only known to those who had seen her on the stage and Audrey, a well known star, would draw a bigger audience. However, Audrey’s voice was not deemed strong enough and all her songs were dubbed.
Julie Andrews has had a long and lustrous career with her latest project taking her Down-under. For the 60th anniversary of My Fair Lady, Julie directs the latest staging of the musical. She re-created the original production, down to costumes and stage design. The entire production pays homage to the original while using modern technology. Thirty-two musicians bring the score to life. On the stage at the Sydney Opera House, this production has sold more tickets than any other show in the Opera House’s iconic history.
My Fair Lady has been called “the perfect musical”. Tickets were incredibly hard to come by in 1956 --- one popular cartoon showed a respectable middle-class woman holding the box office assistant at gunpoint!
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