A priceless classic, 'My fair Lady' has become one of the most popular musicals of all time. Based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play 'Pygmalion', the film swept the Academy Awards. Cecil Beaton's lavish sets and costumes and Lerner and Loewe's winning score became the background for George Cukor's striking mix of styles that ranged from the fantastic to the abstract in his telling of the tale of a waif who's educated into being a lady. Egotistical linguist Professor Henry Higgins (Oscar-winning Rex Harrison) bets his friend, Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), that he can transform Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) in time for an important society ball. His gamble could pay off--but the spirited Eliza is more of a handful than the Professor could have predicted. As she slowly becomes more refined, and less reliant upon him, Higgins realizes, to his confusion, that he can't live without her.
Directed by
George Cukor
Written by
George Bernard Shaw (play "Pygmalion") (as Bernard Shaw) Alan Jay Lerner (musical play) Alan Jay Lerner (screenplay)
Starring
Audrey Hepburn (Eliza Doolittle); Rex Harrison (Professor Henry Higgins); Stanley Holloway (Alfred P. Doolittle); Wilfrid Hyde-White (Colonel Hugh Pickering); Gladys Cooper (Mrs. Higgins); Jeremy Brett (Freddy Eynsford-Hill); Theodore Bikel (Zoltan Karpathy); Mona Washbourne (Mrs. Pearce); Isobel Elsom (Mrs. Eynsford-Hill). Please contact SFC to add other cast members and characters.
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