Such an apt anecdote. We're all simulacra, imitations of imitations of imitations. What a farce we've made of our world! Thanks, Ruth, for finding the joy in it.
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'My Fair Alexander', an amusing poser on your part, where for a moment this admirer of this play, based on Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, caused a memory glitch of confusion. It's the detached and caustic Professor Higgins, portrayed by Rex Harrison on Broadway with Julie Andrews. Later, Mr. Harrison retrieves this role on the screen with Audrey Hepburn where they give a stellar performance.
It happens off-stage on occasion when an older man of intellect tries to enlighten a young woman to be his role model. She usually bolts and elopes with 'Freddy' who is waiting for her on the street where she lives. His looks and sense of fun are more to her liking.
A basket of flowers from the market to you from Eliza Dolittle for being the cause of a regal smile.
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Short-hand speak? Whatever. (I did enjoy the repartee in the comments!)
Yu Brynner. "The King and I."
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Please...
The theater can use all the curious and sometime oblique paying customers it can find. So who was playing Rex Harrison?
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The Music Man will always only have one Prof. Harold Hill and that of course is Robert Preston. I know others have tried and they even made it a fun tv movie with Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Broderick. It was great production BUT he wasn't Robert Preston so it was a dud.
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@Matthew C
A fine example of the Rule that when somebody tells you "of course" something-or-other, they've got a bill of goods they want to sell you.
Your good fan-letter does point to an interesting phenomenon, though. I wonder whether the Indonesian shadow-theater has a piece in which one of the characters is a thrower of shadows?
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The Sunday Times used to list various stories like this and they always helped start the week on a positive note.
I prefer Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller though that isn't "My Fair Lady".
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The same actor who played Yul Brynner in The King and I.
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But OK, so she was confused and thinking that Rex Harrison
was the name of the main male character.
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@Jerrold - well, they do say in the submission guidelines that they really do want "odd fleeting moments." This was fleeting, but said a lot about how we conflate some actors with the parts they so convincingly play.
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@Freddie: Go ahead. Make my day.
Time marches on. Rex Harrison in the 1981 revival wasn't Rex Harrison either. But Cathleen Nesbitt as his mother was wonderful.
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Perfect! Absolutely perfect! (And who is playing Julie Andrews?)
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@Donna The same lady who's playing Audrey Hepburn.
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@Donna
Marni Nixon.
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For some of us, Rex Harrison is the only Henry Higgins we know. Besides, watching the move "My Fair Lady" was the closest we could've gotten to a Broadway show anyway.
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That’s a great overheard comment Ruth. It made me think that Hollywood executives did not yet trust the wonderful Julie Andrews enough to cast her as Eliza Doolittle in the film version of the Broadway hit “My Fair Lady.” So when it came time to make the movie Audrey Hepburn “starred” as “Julie Andrews,” with the always excellent Marni Nixon doing the singing for her. Thanks for the smile this Monday.
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@Allen J. Share
True enough that Julie Andrews was a splendid Eliza, but then so too was Audrey Hepburn. One doesn't think of Miss Hepburn playing Miss Andrews.
But Rex Harrison, he's another thing altogether.
While I liked this new "My Fair Lady" directed by the ever- wonderful Bartlett Sher, both Leslie Howard's "Pygmalion" starring Wendy Hiller and the Rex Harrison-Audrey Hepburn "My Lady Lady" are very tough acts to follow.
Wendy Hiller. Now there was a brilliant actress.
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@Allen J. Share - I guess the highest-grossing person to take on a Rex Harrison role is Eddie Murphy as “Dr. Dolittle.” (Actually, Eddie Murphy could take on Henry Higgins, couldn’t he?) But meanwhile -
tune of “If I Could Talk To The Animals”
If I had style like Rex Harrison
Oh how fine indeed
With no need to watch what I might say.
I could turn off my inner censor
And no one would mind me.
Nobody would find me déclassé.
I could opine on any blath’ring nonsense
Call rivals swine and scream their souls should burn.
If someone called me on insensitivity
I’d just get pivot-y, and I’d turn.
If I had style like Rex Harrison
Every barb I hurl
Wouldn’t make me need to make amends.
If I had style like Rex Harrison
Could smile like Rex Harrison
Rile but still beguile like Harrison
Then I could say what’s on my mind and not lose friends.
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Dear Freddie, it’s perfect that you wrote in to the Diary just now because I was thinking of you. You have done a number of delightful riffs on the song “On the Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady,” and I don’t know why it was not until Ruth’s Diary entry today that the thought struck me: how very appropriate, as the character in the play who sings that song is named Freddy (with, perhaps, the British spelling?). Your latest rhyme is also delightful Freddie, and like many other readers I’m sure, I always look forward to your takes on great tunes in both the Diary as well as New York Today. Thanks for adding additional good cheer to both day and evening. Allen
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Harrison
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