Why did Hollywood choose Audrey Hepburn instead of Shirley Jones for My Fair Lady?

No..

OP, what a question ! I don't even know where to begin...

If Shirley Jones couldn't even manage a halfway decent Mainer accent in "Carousel"--from a state in her own country--how the hell was she going to do a Cockney accent AND a posh British accent in MFL?

Are you HIGH, Clairee?

OP I think I love you.

Shirley Booth would’ve been memorable as well.

What about Shirley Hemphill?

Shirley MacLaine?

What am I, chopped liver?

Shirley Feeney!

Surely you can’t be serious.

Shirley, you can't be serious

Shelly (Shirley) Winters

Why did they choose Shirley Jones instead of Audrey Hepburn for The Partridge Family is the real question.

Audrey Hepburn was the second choice after Ethel Merman turned it down,.

Thank you, OP. I'd like to know why they didn't pick Lotte Lenya!

I think Lena Horne or Debbie Reynolds would have killed it.

What about Mitzi Gaynor, OP?

Or Jane Powell.

How about June Allyson?

Nancy Davis!

Was Betty Hutton considered?

Shirley Jone's pre- AND post-training Eliza made Dick Van Dyke's Cockney in "Mary Poppins" seem like Gielgud's Hamlet.

Doris Day would have been ideal, and she was as big at the box office as Audrey.

The producers knew they'd lose a fortune from her costumes because she was married to Jack at the time and he just couldn't resist going out in them.

Fuck all of you.

Forever.

Betty Grable turned the role down after arguing with Cecil Beaton over his insisting on long dresses.

Norma Zimmer was available.

Hear me out… Zasu Pitts!

Why wasn’t Marjorie Main considered?

Shirley Jones would have been so wrong.

Apparently they didn't think Julie Andrews was beautiful enough nor a big enough star.

But the role should have gone to Julie. IMHO the only other person right for the role was Petula Clark.

Judy Garland was seriously considered for the role before Warner's nixed the idea. She had strong support from George Cukor, whom Judy had trusted since the MGM days. Judy had completed "I Could Go on Singing" the year before, and the overwhelming reception for that picture encouraged the studios that big musicals were in! Luckily for Judy, her television show was taking off at the same time production was underway for "Lady" and the paycheck was bigger.

They need to revive it again on Broadway for Billy Porter.

Turn it in O.P.

R32 Get back to us when you know what you're talking about. I Could Go on Singing with Judy's last feature film and it wasn't a success either at the box office or with the critics

"The role of the mother is more than sticky. It is down-right disagreeable—arrogant, egotistic and selfish to an extreme. But Miss Garland tries to play it with that sort of intense solicitude that is not only patently synthetic but also betrays atrocious taste. Furthermore, she overacts badly when she sings out her heartbreak in the song,-"NYTimes

My favorite scene from ICGOS, Garland shows her skills and range as an actress, mostly in one take.

The producers got the wrong Hepburn.

They should have gone with Katharine Hepburn for the lead in My Fair Lady

Talulah Bankhead was robbed of this role.

R35 I'm pretty sure R32 was just kidding, going along with several of the previous silly casting suggestions in the post.

While younger than Audrey Hepburn, Shirley Jones had Patrick a couple of years before and had already begun to look matronly, aside from likely problems she'd have had doing the accent.

It should have been Julie Andrews. Then, now, and always.

Lucy had just perfected her cockney accent when Gary talked her out of it.

Shirley can sing, but she can't act for shit.

Ahem.

I loved the original cast recording with Julie Andrews and as much as I like the score, the pairing of Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn in the movie always leaves me cold. Old but gentlemanly and respectful Col. Pickering would have made a better love interest.

Leslie Caron would have nailed it.

Yeah, Leslie Caron would have been a good choice, never thought of that before. But again, Rex Harrison was just too creepy by then.

r28 wins the internet!

Thanks for making a Boomer spit out my drink.

Lucille Ball was asked to star, but Gary talked her out of it.

Leslie Caron is lovely, but she couldn’t play a Brit and had a smaller voice than even Audrey.

What about Lesley Ann Warren?

I think Audrey is fine. Julie would have been as antiseptic as she usually is.

Other than Julie Andrews, this is the only actress who would have been right for the part. Her voice would have worked, it wasn't as great as Julie Andrews, but she was a better actress.

Watch from 1:32 and imagine her as Eliza with Professor Higgins. Of course she never would have been considered, especially in 1964 before the success of "Downtown" but it would have been interesting to see her in that role, if not on film then on Broadway.

And I don’t think any of them would have had chemistry with crusty old Rex. If they wanted a romance (instead of just capturing Rex’s legendary performance), they could have cast someone younger.

We’re Sally Ann Howes and Samantha Eggar considered?

Warners needed a massive star to offset the huge budget. Audrey delivered

Diahann Carroll would've been perfect for the role!

R53 Audrey looked like a million bucks.

Petula Clark would have been great. r31. But in 1963, she was virtually unknown in the USA. She did Finian's Rainbow in '68 and Goodbye, Mr. Chips in '69 but by then she'd had 15 consecutive Top 4o Billboard singles, starting with 'Downtown' in early '65.

R56 That's why I wrote: "Of course she never would have been considered, especially in 1964 before the success of "Downtown"

The main problem with Audrey Hepburn in MFL is Marni Nixon’s dubbing. A terrible choice

Wasn't Lucy offered the role?

The main problem with Audrey in My Fair Lady is that she could not balance the broad Cockney comedy with character depth or coherence. Marni Nixon was the least of her troubles. Though perhaps if George Cukor had bothered to do more than point the camera vaguely in the direction of the actors while he had a little nap, her performance could have been properly modulated.

Cecil B. DeMille considered Audrey Hepburn for the role of Nefretiri in "The Ten Commandments" but he decided that DL fave Anne Baxter would wear the Egyptian costumes better.

Did he make the right decision by going with campy Ann's performance? Or would Audrey have brought more sophistication to the role?

I can't imagine Doris Day or Mitzi as a cockney.

Why was My Fair Lady so expensive, even the titles looked cheap.

They had to pay for the rights.

[quote] Shelly (Shirley) Winters

My Fat Lady

If they didn't cast Julie Andrews because they wanted a big box office star, why would they cast Petula Clark?

Even Julie was better known than Petula Clark.

I don't think Petula was the right type, and her attempt at a movie career fizzled a few years later.

I don't think Petula could convince Karpathy she was a princess.

[quote]But Shirley Jones was probably close to being on the same level as Audrey Hepburn at the time?

Are you daft? Not even close to Hepburn's level. She was never a major movie star.

[quote]Though perhaps if George Cukor had bothered to do more than point the camera ... her performance could have been properly modulated.

Proper modulation by the director is extremely important.

Why wasn't Shirley Jones cast in Sabrina, or Charade? Or The Nun's Story? Missed opportunities!

What I really don't understand is why Gordon MacRae wasn't cast instead of Rex Harrison.

CBS head William S. Paley made an arrangement where CBS would finance the original Broadway production in exchange for the rights to the cast album (through Columbia Records).

Warner Bros. then purchased the film rights from CBS in February 1962 for the then-unprecedented sum of $5.5 million (equivalent to $57 million in 2024) plus 47.25% of the gross over $20 million. Paley added a condition to the Warner contract that ownership of the film negative would revert to CBS seven years following release.

In spite of her success playing Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, when Jack L. Warner acquired the film rights he replaced a then-unknown-to-filmgoers Julie Andrews in the role with Audrey Hepburn. Alan Jay Lerner broke the news to Andrews when she had moved to his production of Camelot: "I so wanted you to do it, Julie, but they wanted a name."

With a production budget of $17 million, My Fair Lady was the most expensive film shot in the United States up to that time.

MGM underbid Warner for the film rights. It would have been Arthur Freed & Vincente Minnelli's Lerner & Loewe bookend to GIGI.

Who would MGM have cast?

I think by that time the studio had no more contract players and independent companies were hiring out the backlot and stages.

[quote]Who would MGM have cast?

Boring old Kathryn Grayson.

Word on the street is that it was to have been Sophie Tucker until Cecil Beaton expressed objections.

I would have sued when they skipped me but I had a fist up my cunt at the time.

R59 see R48.

What about Mary Tyler Moore ? She could sing (?), she could dance, she could do an accent...maybe.

[quote] ...controversy swarmed over Hepburn being cast as she too, apparently believed that Andrews, who originated the part on Broadway, should have respired the role of Eliza Doolittle in the film, but was told by Warner that had she turned down the part, the next actress to be offered it would not have been Andrews but Elizabeth Taylor, who wanted it desperately. In addition, Shirley Jones was also one of the actresses in line for the role as well had Hepburn turned it down.

[quote] Shirley can sing, but she can't act for shit.

She has a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, so they must have thought more highly of her acting back then.

In 'artford, 'ereford, and 'ampshire, 'urricanes 'ardly hever 'appen!

R73 Vincente Minnelli was still offered the film by Warner. It was really his, if he wanted it.

But he overplayed his hand, demanding more money than Warner was offering, and something like final cut. Negotiations bogged down, and Jack Warner decided to offer it to George Cukor (who hadn't had a real hit for about 10 years), much to the shock of everyone. Cukor agreed to the terms.

I remember something I read that Minnelli said years later. He was asked how his version would have been different. He said it would have had more color, for one thing. (I agree, many sets seem to be deliberately lit/painted in neutral tones.)

Streisand was offered the role, but she wanted to play Fanny Brice, instead.

R81 In that poster Rex Harrison looks like some evil sunburned devil preying on ivory-skinned innocent Audrey.

After many viewing over the decades it is time to admit that Audrey Hepburn was indeed the right choice.

[quote] He said it would have had more color, for one thing.

Vincente Minnelli was obsessed with bright colors, so that's pretty much to be expected. But I actually like Cukor's muted tones for MFL, and how the Ascot scene was famously done only in gorgeous black, white, and grey clothing. It evoked the Edwardian era beautifully.

Vincente would have wanted to cast his daughter!

[quote] After many viewing over the decades it is time to admit that Audrey Hepburn was indeed the right choice.

I don't see this as supportable since not only did she not sing the role but the voice they used to dub her voice (marni Nixon's) did not seem plausible as emanating from Hepburn. Even as a child I could tell she was dubbed in ehr singing.

What always strikes me as so poignant is that Hepburn loved to sing, and is enchanting in Funny Face when they used her actual little scratchy voice because she's so expressive. Marnie Nixon's voice is glorious, but it's not very expressive--the only time it really worked for me when dubbing someone else is Deborah Kerr in The King and I (since Kerr plays the character of Anna with so much reserve).

R82 — At a time when the Academy membership was made up almost enirely of straight men, the Supporting Actress category wasn’t taken all that seriously. It might feature a good character performance from a Jo Van Fleet or Claire Trevor or Thelma Ritter, but it was just as likely to find a pretty and promising new girl in town like Grace Kelly or Terry Moore in the lists merely for being competent but fuckable.

1960 was interesting because two actresses — Shirley Jones and Janet Leigh both had roles that completely fucked with their prevailing images as girls-next-door. Of the two, Leigh gave what was by far the better performance, and she was always a better actress that Jones. But “Psycho” was the kind of violent, overtly sexual and perverse phenomenon that Hollywood didn’t want to encourage, so honoring it with Oscars was beyond the pale. So Jones won for condescending to play a whore who walks around in a full slip in “Elmer Gantry,” a performance that looks absurd now in a movie that was overrated even then.

While Leigh’s way of connecting to lonely Norman Bates in “Psycho” — which dooms her to a horrible death — still has power and poignance today.

I wish it had been Hepburn (with a better vocal match)—and Peter O’Toole.

I agree with you about the 1960 race, R91, but I strongly disagree with the way you characterize the Supporting Actress category of the time. Jones is actually an outlier. Yes, Grace Kelly and Terry Moore got nominated in the early 1950s for minor work, but the vast majority of nominees are character actresses like Mildred Dunnock, Lee Grant, Marjorie Rambeau, and Maureen Stapleton. The post-war winners are mostly talented actresses doing character work or movie stars in the ascendant: Anne Revere, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, Claire Trevor, Mercedes McCambridge, Josephine "Bubbles" Hull, Kim Hunter, Gloria Grahame, Donna Reed, Eva Marie Saint, Jo Van Fleet, Dorothy Malone, Miyoshi Umeki, Wendy Hiller, Shelley Winters. The 60s are framed by bad 'new young thing' winners Shirley Jones and Goldie Hawn, but they weren't the norm.

[quote] At a time when the Academy membership was made up almost enirely of straight men

What does this mean? Women weren't academy members? There weren't any gay men in Hollywood?

Shirley Jones obviously got the Oscar for playing WAY against her usual type, which is often the stuff of Oscars.

[quote] So Jones won for condescending to play a whore who walks around in a full slip in “Elmer Gantry"

The movie takes place in the 1920s. What should she have worn? It seemed appropriate to the character and period, to me.

There's a new version in the works-

it's called

My Fair HOMOSEXUAL starring Timotee Chalamet.

[quote]But I actually like Cukor's muted tones for MFL, and how the Ascot scene was famously done only in gorgeous black, white, and grey clothing. It evoked the Edwardian era beautifully.

I always found the Ascot scene rather strange. It is so stylized and deliberately stagey looking. Almost cartoonish. Completely at odds with the film's general art direction.

Actually, I think I would have preferred if the whole film had been designed that way.

R46 Leslie Caron has a French accent! I suppose they could have said Eliza lived in Paris as a child.

Audrey was a 9+ our of 10 as far as I'm concerned. So the singing voice doesn't match her speaking voice, so what. When the movie was made, that was par for the course with most musicals. If they had found a better match for her voice she would have been a 10+. And she should have been nominated and won the Oscar over Julie's Poppins, which is not a acting feat.

^^^Yes—though it should be remembered, The Sound of Music opened during the voting period, and reverse Norbit, probably clinched it for Julie.

Shirley Jones had that smarmy, swinger thing going on, with the crazy eyes, looking at every man, woman, child, and aquarium fish as if she wanted desperately to fuck It. But you say she could act?

Watch the 1938 film, Pygmalion, with Wendy Hiller as Eliza. She *was* nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. She gets the lower-class flower girl part of the characted right, and the princess part right. Audrey Hepburn works hard, but as the slum girl, she seems a little too cute and soft. When you see Julie Andrews, she gets some of Hiller's weariness and cynicism into it. I don't think it's one of Audrey's best performances, but she's okay. Also, she's on the verge of looking a little too old for it.

I agree that Wendy Hiller is superb, as is Leslie Howard, but I don’t think anyone, not Hiller, not Shirley Jones (!!), maybe not even Julie herself, could have acted I Could Have Danced All Night as enchantingly as Hepburn does.

I'm sure Julie coiuld have, with Cukor directing her, and the enchantment would have included her own voice. And she was closer to the right age.

I saw “My Fair Lady” as a kid and even then Hepburn seemed like an odd choice, probably too old for the part. She’s too winsome for the flower girl. I can picture Andrews doing it on stage, but I’m less sure she could have done it in the film—also, too old for the flower girl by that point.

R91: Hooker or slatternly roles are Oscar gold, especially if they were “against type”. Donna Reed, Dorothy Malone (although she wound up in a bunch of whore roles), Shirley Jones. More mature character actresses like Jo Van Fleet also s did ok with these roles, too. These roles also worked for best actress: Liz Taylor, Jane Fonda.

Has any golden age actress played more hookers than Shirely MacLaine? Some Came Running (Oscar nomination), Irma La Douce, Sweet Charity.

Hepburn was only six years older than Andrews. Why is no one fussing that Rex Harrison is way too old for either of them?!

Has any golden age actress played more hookers

Garbo played three I can think of and maybe more - Camille, Mata Hari, and Anna Christie.

R107 Because Higgins doesn't have to be young. It's not a romantic comedy. I always thought Rex looked the same for years, anyway. But Eliza probably wouldn't have been a single girl at 35. It's not that bad that Audrey's a little bit old, but because I'm a big classic movie fan, I'm just aware of it, having seen all her movies of the '50s and knowing she's ten years older in the movie. Harrison would have been a better age if they'd filmed it in the '50s, too.

It’s not exactly a romantic comedy but I certainly think there is meant to be attraction between Higgins and Eliza. Otherwise, why is he so defensive about his bachelor status throughout? Why could she have danced all night?One of the reasons the film Pygmalion works so well is that Hiller and Howard are in the same age range.

Remember that Shaw himself insisted the Eliza ends up with Freddie -not Higgins. To Eliza, Higgins is more of a father figure -a grand, larger-than-life hero as she always wished her own father to be. She is emotionally immature (and lord knows he is) and really only sees relationships in a parental sense. In Shaw's afterward it's clear that Eliza tries to mother Freddie, and she drives him away. The musical adds the bit about the slippers at the end to suggest that Eliza comes back. The original play ends with her walking out after he tells her to run various shopping errands for him.

Elizabeth Taylor really wanted it. (big star, huge)

Wasn’t it the movie Pygmalion that changed the ending to what we now know—and wasn’t Shaw himself the lead adapter of that screenplay (with an Oscar displayed on his mantel to boot)? Does a young woman really want to dance all night—with her father??

Audrey was delightful in My Fair Lady.

By Jove, I think she's got it!

R111 The scene with the slippers was also the ending of the 1938 film.

I never thought Janet Leigh was particularly Oscar-worthy in Psycho. She steals some money, she drives a lot, there are a lot of reactions shots, a couple of short dialogue scenes, a longer scene with Perkins, then she gets stabbed to death.

[quote] Shirley Jones had that smarmy, swinger thing going on, with the crazy eyes, looking at every man, woman, child, and aquarium fish as if she wanted desperately to fuck It.

Oh, I'll never the way she eyefucks Pert Kelton and Little Ronnie Howard in "The Music Man," like she wants to do them both at once in the parlor, and then bring in Amaryllis.

How would Elizabeth Taylor been as Eliza? Could she have pulled it off in 1964?

And about Freddy: did they ever consider Robert Goulet?

Why did they go with someone who audiences had never heard of and had to be dubbed?

"On the Street Where You Live", no matter what you think of it, really was the most commercially popular song of the show, I'm surprised they didn't go with a star.

And although Stanley Holloway was perfection with a capital "P"....it would have been great to see James Cagney as Doolittle.

And: would Cary Grant have been a better choice as Higgins?

Liz was actually very good with accents and impressions. She would have had to be dubbed, like Audrey, but she would probably have done a great job with the role.

At least she was English.

Technically I guess ET she was English but she only lived in England until she was 7. Her parents were American and she grew up (after age 7) in LA. Her phony English accent wasn't very good, either.

Shirley Jones??? What are you on, OP?

Her phony English accent wasn't very good, either.

R122 = Joan Collins.

R124 Haha!

Why do people think Julie Andrews would have been so great as Eliza and better than Audrey Hepburn? Have they ever seen a Julie Andrews film?

Would Robert Goulet have fucked for roles? I’m sure George Cukor tested thoroughly for the part

R126 Maybe because she could do this...

(Show Me)

R126 And this:

(Wouldn't It Be Loverly)

Damn -Julie really was great in that role. It makes me nostalgic for the days when musicals had actual 32-bar songs with melodies and (gasp) harmonies!

I have an Aunt Shirley in Jersey City.

I think some of you will be shocked by how the play "Pygmalion" by GBS actually ends:

HIGGINS [rising in a fury] What! That impostor! that humbug! that toadying ignoramus! Teach him my methods! my discoveries! You take one step in his direction and I’ll wring your neck. [He lays hands on her]. Do you hear?

LIZA [defiantly non-resistant] Wring away. What do I care? I knew you’d strike me some day. [He lets her go, stamping with rage at having forgotten himself, and recoils so hastily that he stumbles back into his seat on the ottoman]. Aha! Now I know how to deal with you. What a fool I was not to think of it before! You can’t take away the knowledge you gave me. You said I had a finer ear than you. And I can be civil and kind to people, which is more than you can. Aha! That’s done you, Henry Higgins, it has. Now I don’t care that [snapping her fingers] for your bullying and your big talk. I’ll advertize it in the papers that your duchess is only a flower girl that you taught, and that she’ll teach anybody to be a duchess just the same in six months for a thousand guineas. Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet and being trampled on and called names, when all the time I had only to lift up my finger to be as good as you, I could just kick myself.

HIGGINS [wondering at her] You damned impudent slut, you! But it’s better than snivelling; better than fetching slippers and finding spectacles, isn’t it? [Rising] By George, Eliza, I said I’d make a woman of you; and I have. I like you like this.

LIZA. Yes: you turn round and make up to me now that I’m not afraid of you, and can do without you.

HIGGINS. Of course I do, you little fool. Five minutes ago you were like a millstone round my neck. Now you’re a tower of strength: a consort battleship. You and I and Pickering will be three old bachelors together instead of only two men and a silly girl.

Mrs. Higgins returns, dressed for the wedding. Eliza instantly becomes cool and elegant.

MRS. HIGGINS. The carriage is waiting, Eliza. Are you ready?

LIZA. Quite. Is the Professor coming?

MRS. HIGGINS. Certainly not. He can’t behave himself in church. He makes remarks out loud all the time on the clergyman’s pronunciation.

LIZA. Then I shall not see you again, Professor. Good bye. [She goes to the door].

MRS. HIGGINS [coming to Higgins] Good-bye, dear.

HIGGINS. Good-bye, mother. [He is about to kiss her, when he recollects something]. Oh, by the way, Eliza, order a ham and a Stilton cheese, will you? And buy me a pair of reindeer gloves, number eights, and a tie to match that new suit of mine, at Eale & Binman’s. You can choose the color. [His cheerful, careless, vigorous voice shows that he is incorrigible].

LIZA [disdainfully] Buy them yourself. [She sweeps out].

MRS. HIGGINS. I’m afraid you’ve spoiled that girl, Henry. But never mind, dear: I’ll buy you the tie and gloves.

HIGGINS [sunnily] Oh, don’t bother. She’ll buy em all right enough. Good-bye.

They kiss. Mrs. Higgins runs out. Higgins, left alone, rattles his cash in his pock

[quote] When you see Julie Andrews, she gets some of Hiller's weariness and cynicism into it.

When and where did you see Julie Andrews playing Eliza?

R129 So charming.