My fair lady
JaarLandKleurTijd
Release date: October 21, 1964
The movie was completely shot at the Warner Bros. Studios, California, USA.
Oscars:
Best Actor -> Rex Harrison
Best Director -> George Cukor
Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -> André Previn
Best Picture -> Jack L. Warner
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color
Best Cinematography, Color
Best Costume Design, Color
Oscar nominations:
Best Actor in a Supporting Role -> Stanley Holloway
Best Actress in a Supporting Role -> Gladys Cooper
Best Film Editing
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -> Alan Jay Lerner
Audrey Hepburn’s singing was partly dubbed by Marni Nixon “The Voice of Hollywood” (1930).Source / More (Web)
My fair lady ranks number 51 in the box-office rankings.
Grossing adjusted for inflation -> $384 mSource / More (Web)
Playwright Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986) was puzzled by the huge success of the albums with the songs: “The songs of My fair lady are good songs, I know they are, but the quality still falls short of explaining why its popularity ascended to such an unprecedented height”Source / More (Book)
Rex Harrison wanted Julie Andrews for the role of Eliza, since they had played together in the Broadway version.
The play has a different ending than both film versions (1938 / 1964). At the end of the play, Eliza leaves Higgins to marry the aristocrat Freddy Eynsford-Hill.
The original stage play Pygmalion (1913) shocked audiences by Eliza’s use of the swear word “bloody”.
Writer George Bernard Shaw based his book Pygmalion on the character Pygmalion from the Roman poet Ovid. This is the story of a sculptor who created such a beautiful statue (named Galatea) that he fell in love with it, and prayed to the gods to bring it to life. Shaw updated the story to late 19th-century London, and turned it into the saga of a linguist who attempts to turn a cockney flower seller into a lady by teaching her to use better diction.
My Fair Lady was the most popularly successful musical of its era. It ran 2,717 performances from 1956 to 1962.Source / More (Book)
Pygmalion has been filmed ten times:
In 1909 / 1935 / 1937 / 1938 / 1948 / 1963 / 1968 / 1973 / 1981 / 1983
July 7, 1899
George Dewey Cukor
January 24, 1983
George entered the theater professionally in 1919 as an assistant stage manager. The following year he became resident director of a stock company and by 1926 he was directing on Broadway.
In 1929 George went to Hollywood to become a dialogue director. Cukor became a solo director with Tarnished Lady (1931). Shortly thereafter, Cukor met legendary producer David O. Selznick, then working for RKO. Their professional association began with A Bill of Divorcement (1932) which introduced Katharine Hepburn to the white sceen.
At the end of the thirties Cukor had established a reputation as a director who could coax great performances from actresses and he began known as a “woman's director”, a title which he resented.
In 1939 he was assigned by Selznick to Gone With the Wind but was fired 10 days after the start of production. George was able to bounce back with two successive triumphs, The women (1939) and The Philadelphia story (1940).
The 1940s was a decade of hits and misses for Cukor but in the fifties he was back with Adam's rib (1949) and the musical A star is born (1954). Another musical was also his biggest hit of the '60s: My Fair Lady (1964).
George directed sporadicly during the seventies and eighties and made his last film in 1981.
1965 Won Oscar for: My Fair Lady (1964)
1951 Nominated for: Born Yesterday (1950)
1948 Nominated for: A Double Life (1947)
1941 Nominated for: The Philadelphia Story (1940)
1934 Nominated for: Little Women (1933)