Why Did Julie Andrews Lose This Iconic Role?
Before she was known to fans around the world as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music’s Maria, Julie Andrews first captured the public’s heart as Eliza Doolittle, the charming Cockney flower girl star of My Fair Lady. But while Andrews originated the role on Broadway and played Eliza for years in both U.S. and London productions, she was never truly considered for the 1964 film version, which starred Audrey Hepburn as Eliza.
It’s especially surprising when you consider that Andrews launched her cinematic career with a bang that same year, winning the Best Actress Oscar for Mary Poppins, and immediately following it with 1965’s The Sound of Music. So why was she passed over for the film version of My Fair Lady? And what does Andrews think about the situation today?
Eliza Doolittle jumpstarted her career
A child musical prodigy, Andrews sang before Queen Elizabeth, appeared on British television, and starred on Broadway, all before the age of 20. But she experienced her greatest professional breakthrough in 1955, when she was approached to audition for the role of Eliza Doolittle in the original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.
After nearly half a year of rehearsals, the play opened in March 1956 and was an instant hit; it won Tonys for Best Musical, Best Direction, and Best Actor for Rex Harrison, who played Henry Higgins opposite Andrews. The play became a pop cultural phenomenon and the era’s highest-grossing Broadway play of all time.
Though Andrews was nominated for (but did not win) the Best Actress Tony, her time as Eliza still changed her life; suddenly, she was appearing on late night talk shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and starring in the CBS presentation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella in 1957, in the title role. In 1960, Andrews followed up My Fair Lady up by starring in Camelot on Broadway, opposite Richard Burton. Andrews was again nominated for a Best Actress Tony, and again, the play was an unmitigated success; the cast album topped the Billboard Top 40 charts for over a month.
Andrews vs. Hepburn
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
When casting for the film version of My Fair Lady began in 1962, it seemed like a natural way for Andrews to make her major motion picture debut — especially since Harrison would be reprising his role in the film.
However, Jack Warner, head of Warner Bros. at the time, decided that Andrews was not well-known enough for such a high profile role. Instead, he wanted Audrey Hepburn.
Hepburn had a string of enormous hits under her belt, including Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Roman Holiday, for which she won the 1953 Best Actress Academy Award. But she wasn’t necessarily the obvious choice to play Eliza Doolittle. For one, she was 34 when the movie was shot — six years older than Andrews, who had barely been 20 when she originated the role.
She also wasn’t considered a strong enough singer for the role. Though her beautiful, delicate rendition of “Moon River” in Breakfast at Tiffany’s helped it win the Academy Award for Best Song, her voice was considered too thin for Eliza’s boisterous numbers. Though she took singing lessons throughout rehearsal and production of the film, her vocals ended up being dubbed in the finished movie by Marni Nixon, who had previously recorded vocals for Deborah Kerr in 1956’s The King & I and Marilyn Monroe in 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
However, none of that mattered to Warner. As he would later write of the casting choice, “There was nothing mysterious or complicated about that decision [to replace Andrews with Hepburn]. With all her charm and ability, Julie Andrews was just a Broadway name known primarily to those who saw the play. But in Clinton, Iowa and Anchorage, Alaska, and thousands of other cities and towns in our 50 states and abroad you can say Audrey Hepburn, and people instantly know you’re talking about a beautiful and talented star.”
(It was also rumored that Andrews angered Warner when she refused to audition for the role, though Andrews has never confirmed this.)
My Fair Lady co-writer Alan Jay Lerner broke the news to Andrews by telling her, “I so wanted you to do it, Julie, but they wanted a name.”
What does Andrews think today?
Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Andrews was cast in her first major film role soon after the snub, nabbing the title role in Mary Poppins. That film would be released just a few months before My Fair Lady; Mary Poppins became the number-one grossing film of 1964, while My Fair Lady would take the number two spot.
At that year’s Oscars, Andrews won Best Actress, while Hepburn’s turn as Eliza Doolittle wasn’t even nominated (an interesting parallel is that both women received a Best Actress Academy Award for their first major film role, and then never won again). Rex Harrison famously dedicated his Best Actor Oscar to his “two fair ladies,” Hepburn and Andrews.
Speaking about the situation over 50 years later, in a 2015 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Andrews seemed at peace, saying “I completely understood it. I really didn’t expect it. Like so many Broadway productions in those days, they used somebody else to do the movie.” Her main regret, she said, was that there was no recording of her Broadway performance as Eliza Doolittle that she could show her grandchildren.
In a 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, Andrews looked back on the situation with a peppy spirit worthy of Eliza Doolittle herself: “Of course, I didn’t get it, but then suddenly there was Disney in the wings. And that happened instead. I’ve been incredibly fortunate then — and really all my life — at miraculous turns of good fortune across my path.”
Remind 
1950s Musicals
November 2020
Bright and brassy, toe-tapping musicals from the 1950s
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