50 Fun Facts About My Fair Lady

Which ghost singer, also heard in West Side Story, sang most of Audrey Hepburn's My Fair Lady songs?

Marni Nixon sang nearly all of Eliza's songs, and Hepburn briefly walked off the set when told she would be dubbed. Nixon's name appeared nowhere in the credits.

Which stage Eliza lost the film of My Fair Lady because the studio wanted a bigger name?

Julie Andrews had never made a film, so the producer cast Audrey Hepburn instead. Andrews had the last laugh, winning an Oscar that season for her screen debut in a rival musical.

Rex Harrison refused to mime his My Fair Lady songs, so what did the sound crew hide in his necktie?

A wireless microphone sat in the knot of his tie, the first time one was used to shoot a feature film. Harrison said he never performed a number the same way twice, so lip-syncing was out.

The title My Fair Lady echoes the last line of every verse of which English nursery rhyme?

London Bridge Is Falling Down ends each verse with those three words, and the lyricist preferred them to the working title My Lady Liza. A Gershwin show had briefly used the same name on tryout.

Which of these Academy Awards did My Fair Lady take home on the night it collected eight Oscars?

Best Picture led a haul that also included the directing and lead actor prizes. Audrey Hepburn, though, was not even nominated for playing Eliza.

The plot of My Fair Lady reworks a Greek myth in which a Cypriot artist falls in love with what?

A statue he carved comes to life in the myth, much as the professor's creation turns into a woman with a will of her own. Ovid tells the story in his Metamorphoses.

After the ball in My Fair Lady, what does a furious Eliza hurl at Higgins before walking out?

His slippers fly at him after he and Pickering take all the credit for her triumph. The film's very last line has Higgins asking for them again, without a word of apology.

At which racecourse does Eliza's polished act slip in My Fair Lady when she yells at a horse?

Ascot is where Higgins tries her out among the upper crust, and she holds up until a race gets too exciting. The royal course was founded by Queen Anne in 1711.

Which My Fair Lady song breaks out the moment Eliza finally pronounces her vowel exercise correctly?

The Rain in Spain turns a pronunciation drill into a giddy celebration for Eliza, Higgins and Pickering. The drill is not in the original play: it first appeared in the 1938 film version.

Which fellow musical was the only 1964 film to out-earn My Fair Lady at the North American box office?

Mary Poppins finished first that year, and the rivalry carried on to the Oscars, where it led the field with 13 nominations to My Fair Lady's 12.

Which stage play, written with Mrs Patrick Campbell in mind as Eliza, became My Fair Lady?

Pygmalion opened in London in 1914 and ran for 118 performances. Its author refused to let anyone turn it into a musical, so the songwriters only got their chance after his death.

Which Irish playwright wrote the play behind My Fair Lady and won an Oscar for its 1938 film script?

George Bernard Shaw called the screenplay Oscar an insult, yet it made him the first person to hold both an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize.

In which London market district does Higgins first overhear Eliza's accent in My Fair Lady?

Covent Garden was London's fruit-and-vegetable market for some three centuries, until the traders moved out to Nine Elms in 1974.

Which accent does Eliza Doolittle speak when Higgins first hears her in My Fair Lady?

Cockney is the speech Higgins sets out to erase, and in the opening scene he pinpoints strangers' home districts from the way they talk.

In My Fair Lady, where does Eliza dream of working once Higgins has taught her to speak like a lady?

A flower shop is her goal, because no florist would hire a street seller who talks as she does. She turns up at his house the very next morning to ask for lessons.

In My Fair Lady, Higgins boasts he could pass Eliza off as what at an embassy ball?

A duchess is the boast, and Colonel Pickering offers to cover every expense if Higgins can pull it off. At the ball she outdoes the brief: an expert takes her for foreign royalty.

Which character does Eliza tell Higgins she will marry near the end of My Fair Lady, to his fury?

Freddy Eynsford-Hill is the suitor she names, though the film ends with her back at Higgins's door. The playwright insisted in a 1916 postscript that she could never marry her teacher.

What is Professor Higgins's field of study in My Fair Lady, which lets him place a stranger by ear?

Phonetics, the science of speech sounds, is his obsession, and he argues that an accent decides a person's whole place in society. He is jotting down Eliza's speech before the two have even met.

Which songwriting duo, also behind Camelot and Gigi, wrote the songs of My Fair Lady?

Lerner and Loewe succeeded where Rodgers and Hammerstein had given up, judging the play impossible to set to music. The fix was to stage the action the original left between its acts.

Which My Fair Lady song does Eliza sing when too excited to sleep?

I Could Have Danced All Night follows her first flawless vowels and an impromptu dance with Higgins. The film version later ranked 17th on the American Film Institute's list of great movie songs.

At the ball in My Fair Lady, a rival language expert declares Eliza a princess of which nationality?

Hungarian is the verdict of Zoltan Karpathy, a former pupil of Higgins who studies Eliza's speech at close quarters. He shares her supposed nationality, which makes the blunder all the sweeter.

Which My Fair Lady song does Eliza's smitten admirer sing after meeting her at the races?

On the Street Where You Live became a pop hit in its own right: Vic Damone's single reached number one in Britain in 1958. In the film the actor on screen is miming to another man's voice.

In My Fair Lady, which event the next morning sends Eliza's father on a last wild night out?

His own wedding is the reason for the spree, and the cue for Get Me to the Church on Time. A surprise inheritance has made him respectable, so he feels obliged to marry at last.

Which My Fair Lady song has Eliza and her market friends wondering about a life of comfort?

Wouldn't It Be Loverly also exists in Audrey Hepburn's own voice: a version rebuilt from outtakes was unveiled when the restored film premiered in 1994.

What is the trade of Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle, who is bought off by Higgins in My Fair Lady?

Dustman is the British word for a refuse collector, and Doolittle happily takes five pounds to leave Eliza with Higgins. Higgins, amused by his cheek, recommends him to a millionaire as a moralist.

From which country has Colonel Pickering travelled to meet Higgins at the start of My Fair Lady?

India is where the colonel studied local dialects, and he has come home purely to look Higgins up. The two hit it off at once, and Pickering moves into Higgins's house as his guest.

As My Fair Lady opens, what do bystanders suspect Higgins of being when he scribbles notes on Eliza?

A detective is the crowd's guess, and Eliza loudly protests that she has done nothing wrong. He is in fact taking down the exact sounds of her speech.

In My Fair Lady, where does Higgins finally track Eliza down the day after she walks out on him?

His mother's house is her refuge, and Mrs Higgins takes Eliza's side, appalled at how her son has behaved. Pickering, meanwhile, had gone as far as calling the police.

Which director, replaced on Gone with the Wind decades earlier, won an Oscar for My Fair Lady?

George Cukor fought for the script too: he threatened to walk out unless Rex Harrison sang a passage the star had cut on stage, and Harrison gave in.

Which British actor played Eliza's father in My Fair Lady on Broadway, in London and on film?

Stanley Holloway owned the role so completely that he named his autobiography after one of Doolittle's songs. Before that he was best known for comic monologues and Ealing comedies.

Which actor, later Granada TV's Sherlock Holmes, played Eliza's well-bred suitor in My Fair Lady?

Jeremy Brett could sing, as he later proved on BBC television in The Merry Widow, yet the studio dubbed his big number anyway. He went on to play Holmes in 41 Granada episodes.

Which royal photographer won two Oscars for designing the costumes and sets of My Fair Lady?

Cecil Beaton had already dressed the Broadway original, winning a Tony for its costumes, and the film's hats were made by a Paris milliner at his request.

Which studio boss personally produced My Fair Lady after paying a record sum for the film rights?

Jack L. Warner bought the rights in 1962 and oversaw the film himself, and one trade review called it the capstone of his career. He sold a large block of his studio shares two years after its release.

At the end of My Fair Lady, what is Higgins playing on his gramophone when Eliza walks in?

A recording of her voice from the day she first came for lessons is all he has left of her. Then Eliza herself appears in the doorway, and the film leaves their future open.

At which London address, also home to the poet Elizabeth Barrett, does Higgins live in My Fair Lady?

Wimpole Street houses Higgins at number 27A in both the play and the musical. The Marylebone street is better known for private doctors' consulting rooms.

At the embassy ball in My Fair Lady, Eliza is singled out by the visiting queen of which land?

Transylvania supplies the queen, who is so taken with Eliza that she pairs her with the prince. The ball itself was never in the original play: it was written for the 1938 film.

In which My Fair Lady song is Audrey Hepburn's own singing voice kept for the harsh-toned chorus?

Just You Wait keeps Hepburn's voice for Eliza's furious chorus, with her ghost singer taking only the gentler middle section. Hepburn also sang its brief, tearful reprise herself.

Which US institution added My Fair Lady to its National Film Registry of works worth preserving?

Library of Congress curators add up to 25 films a year judged culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. My Fair Lady joined the list in 2018, 54 years after its release.

In My Fair Lady, as in the play it adapts, which two safe topics is Eliza told to keep to?

The weather and health sound harmless until the talk turns to an aunt's death, which Eliza recounts in flawless vowels as a tale of drink and foul play.

What job does Mrs Pearce, who orders Eliza off to bed after her breakthrough, do in My Fair Lady?

Housekeeper Mrs Pearce is the conscience of the Higgins home: she worries about what will become of Eliza and ticks her employer off about his swearing and manners.

My Fair Lady is set in Edwardian London, but in which studio town was the whole film shot?

Burbank's soundstages held everything from the market to the racecourse: six stages in all, in use from August to December 1963. Not a frame was filmed in England.

Which playwright declined to play Higgins in the stage My Fair Lady and suggested Rex Harrison?

Noël Coward was the first actor offered Higgins. The man he recommended instead needed time to decide: Harrison accepted only after much deliberation.

Which retired Hollywood tough guy turned down the part of Eliza's father in the film My Fair Lady?

James Cagney had quit acting in 1961 and would not budge. Having said no to this, he found it easier to refuse later offers, including a part in The Godfather Part II.

Which later London Symphony Orchestra chief won an Oscar for adapting the score of My Fair Lady?

André Previn won four Oscars in all, and he conducted the studio orchestra on the film's soundtrack himself. He led the London Symphony Orchestra from 1968 to 1979.

Which actor, seen years earlier in The Third Man, plays Colonel Pickering in the film My Fair Lady?

Wilfrid Hyde-White replaced Robert Coote, who had created Pickering on Broadway and in the West End. Coote returned to the part in a Broadway revival twenty years after the first run began.

Which broadcaster financed My Fair Lady on Broadway and later took back ownership of the film?

CBS put up the money for the stage show in return for the cast album, then sold the film rights on condition that the negative came back to it seven years after release.

In which city was the play behind My Fair Lady first staged, in a German translation?

Vienna saw it first, at the Hofburg Theatre in October 1913, in a version by the author's Austrian translator. London had to wait until the following April.

Which voice of Sleeping Beauty's Prince Phillip sang for Eliza's suitor in the film My Fair Lady?

Bill Shirley had also been the Disney animators' live-action model for the prince, and My Fair Lady turned out to be his last film job.

Rex Harrison's half-spoken way with his My Fair Lady songs is an example of which vocal technique?

Sprechstimme, German for spoken voice, sits between speaking and singing. The songs were written for Harrison without sustained notes, because he was no singer.

Which cantankerous Oxford scholar was the chief real-life model for Higgins in My Fair Lady?

Henry Sweet was the scholar the playwright singled out above all others as his model. Sweet also devised his own system of shorthand.