FAQ

Phonetics professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) bets his friend Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) that he can take Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) and transform her into a proper lady who could pass as a duchess at an embassy ball. He wins his bet, but what he doesn't count on is falling in love with his creation.

My Fair Lady was adapted from the Lerner and Loewe stage musical of the same name, which itself was based on Pygmalion (1938), a film adaptation of the original stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The film won the 1964 Academy Award for Best Picture. A remake, My Fair Lady, is in development with no set release date.

In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue that he carved. Thanks to the goddess Venus, the statue eventually came to life, married Pygmalion, and even bore him a son, Paphos.

No. Hepburn was dubbed by soprano Marni Nixon. Hepburn did sing the opening lines of "Just You Wait", but Nixon took over after Eliza went out into the hall. Jeremy Brett (Freddy) was dubbed by Bill Shirley, but Rex Harrison did his own vocals albeit he merely spoke them because Harrison couldn't carry a tune.

Eliza walks out on Henry, unhappy because he refuses to acknowledge the part she played in transforming her from a "guttersnipe" into a lady. In fact, now that he's won his bet, he displays no concern at all for Eliza's future and appears willing to toss her back into her life as a Cockney flower girl. Henry goes after her, but Eliza has come to realize that she can do without him. Henry, however, realizes that he's grown accustomed to her face and can't do without her. Lonely and dejected, Henry goes home and listens to Eliza's voice on his gramaphone. Without him noticing, Eliza enters the house and picks up talking where the gramaphone leaves off. In the final scene, Henry settles in his chair, tips his hat over his eyes, and asks Eliza, "Where the devil are my slippers?"