My Fair Lady
1964 American film by George Cukor · Released October 21, 1964
My Fair Lady is a 1964 American musical comedy drama film adapted from Lerner and Loewe's 1956 stage musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 stage play Pygmalion. With a screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner and directed by George Cukor, the film depicts a poor Cockney flower-seller named Eliza Doolittle who overhears phonetics scholar Henry Higgins casually wager that he could teach her to speak English so well she could pass for a duchess in Edwardian-era London, or (better yet, from Eliza's viewpoint) secure employment in a flower store. It stars Audrey Hepburn as Doolittle, replacing Julie Andrews from the stage musical, and Rex Harrison as Higgins, reprising his role from the stage, with Stanley Holloway, Gladys Cooper and Wilfrid Hyde-White in supporting roles. A critical and commercial success, it became the second-highest-grossing film of 1964, after Mary Poppins, and won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.
Cast ages at release (October 21, 1964)
- Audrey Hepburn, as Eliza Doolittle: 35
- Rex Harrison, as Professor Henry Higgins: 56
- Stanley Holloway, as Alfred P. Doolittle: 74
- Wilfrid Hyde-White, as Colonel Hugh Pickering: 61
- Gladys Cooper, as Mrs: 75
- Jeremy Brett, as Freddy Eynsford-Hill: 30
- Marni Nixon: 34
- Bill Shirley: 43
- Theodore Bikel, as Zoltan Karpathy: 40
- Isobel Elsom, as Mrs: 71
- Mona Washbourne, as Mrs: 60
- Alan Napier, as Gentleman who escorts Eliza to the Queen of Transylvania: 61
- Henry Daniell, as the British ambassador: 70
- Ben Wright, as Footman at the ball: 49
- John McLiam, as Harry: 46
- Marjorie Bennett, as Cockney with pipe: 68
- Barbara Pepper, as Doolittle's dancing partner: 49
- John Alderson, as Jamie: 48
- Lillian Kemble-Cooper, as Female Ambassador: 72
- Moyna Macgill, as Lady Boxington: 68
- Grady Sutton, as Ball Guest: 58
- Charles Fredericks, as George V in Eliza's fantasy: 46
- Walter Burke, as Cockney bystander telling Eliza about Higgins taking notes a: 56
- John Holland, as the Butler: 56