Advertisement

Lacking charisma

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0

Julie Andrews could, quite justifiably, have felt miffed that she didn't win the role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (Pearl, 9.30pm).

Though Andrews had become a star on Broadway playing the cockney flower girl opposite Rex Harrison, she was denied the part in the movie because at the time, 1964, she was not a film star.

Audrey Hepburn was and she got it.

Ironically, later that year, Andrews was cast in a movie that not only made her a world-class star but an Oscar-winner, too.

Indeed, when Andrews went to pick up her Best Actress statuette, she must have been feeling more than a little smug.

While My Fair Lady won eight awards, Hepburn wasn't even nominated for the top honour. And justifiably so; while the Lerner-Loewe musical based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion remains an all-time favourite, it's little more than an exquisitely wrapped empty box.

Advertisement