*Actor Rex Harrison*

Born in England in 1908 and died in New York City in 1990.

After a 6 year absence from Hollywood he made Midnight Lace with Doris Day which turned out to be one of his biggest box office hits in years.

He was a nasty selfish rude man

Ask Carole Landis .

I can't fucking stand Rex Harrison. I have hated him in everything I have ever seen him in

In My Fair Lady when he mistreats Eliza, all I can think of is that is how he treats all people. He was acting in a role about his life.

If you were surprised that Rex Harrison was in Dr. Doolittle and My Fair Lady then you are one dumb motherfucker. Seriously.

Why are you even allowed to start threads?

Good actor with a real star presence. See "Unfaithfully Yours". He was at his most handsome in the 30s. Aged poorly.

I'll Throw a Custard in Her Face

His 4th (ex)wife (Rachel Roberts) died in an especially gruesome suicide.

[quote]Actual suicide was a result of swallowing lye, alkali, or another unidentified caustic substance on top of the barbiturates which were ingested as detailed in her posthumously published journals. The acidic effect of the poisonous agent was an immediate cause of death which propelled her body through a decorative glass screen. She was found by her gardener cut to ribbons in a negligee on her kitchen floor amongst the shards of glass on November 26, 1980.

[quote] I was surprised to see how many well known movies he made including Dr. Dolittle and My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn.

SO surprising!

And here I thought all this time they starred Rex Smith!

He had a huge ego and he liked to fart on stage

Rex Harrison with his 2 sons - Carey (now deceased) on the left, and the hunky one on the right is Noel, still alive.

Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar with La Liz in Cleopatra.

[quote] Carey (now deceased) on the left, and the hunky one on the right is Noel, still alive.

The one on the left is much better looking.

Rex Harrison replaced Peter Finch as Julius Caesar in the costly, trouble-laden Cleopatra.

Despite his controversial private life Rex Harrison did have genuine acting skills and was nominated for Best Actor Oscar twice - first for Cleopatra and then winning Golden Boy for his second attempt in My Fair Lady.

considering he drove two women to suicide, maybe not a mensch

As Prof. Henry Higgins with you-know-who in My Fair Lady.

Reportedly quite the prick in real life, but I enjoyed him as an actor nevertheless. I think this is one of the best Oscar moments as he holds Audrey right next to him. It looks like he adored her, but who wouldn’t. I don’t think an Oscar winner has ever held the presenter right next to him her.

Sexy Rexy

[quote]If you were surprised that Rex Harrison was in Dr. Doolittle

DOLITTLE, as in do-little -- get it?

His son Noel was also an actor. He was a regular on "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." (opposite DL fave Stefanie Powers.)

He was horrible to Julie Andrews during the rehearsals of My fair lady, and referred to her as 'tyhat stupid cunt" loudly so she could hear.

To be a little fair that's not as bad a word in the UK as it is in the US, and also everyone wasz extremely frustrated becausze 9in a bizarre reversal of the plot of the musical), Andrews simply could not learn how to speak with a Cockney accent, so drilled had she been in her youth in proper prounciation. Finally Moss Hart made her stay in the theater for him for two days on a weekend and told her he would either teach her how to do a proper Cockney accent, or she would have to be replaced--and she did it. So Harrison was really frustrated by her.

Even so, he treated her so badly she was probably glad when she didn't get the movie role not to have to work with him again.

Well if so R24 she never mentioned it. All I ever heard her say is that she was of course disappointed not to get the role but it was alleviated greatly by getting Mary Poppins.

Also, she and Audrey became good friends.

Why wasn't Rex ever in an '80s prime-time soap like Dynasty or Falcon Crest? What a twat.

R13 has it backwards. Carey is still alive. Noel died in 2013.

Was Dr. Dolittle related to Eliza Dolittle ?

R8 - Joe Mankiewicz zooms in on an extreme closeup of Rex' eye in Unfaithfully Yours. Not flattering.

He was the stepfather to Richard Harris' three sons.

Seth MacFarlane used his voice for Stewie Griffin.

His actor/singer son Noel Harrison. Some resemblance to his famous father but possibly more handsome. Love his big eyes and luscious lips.

So which son is dead and how/when did he die?

With wife #3, actress Kay Kendall. She had never married before and had no children. After being with Rex for only 2 years she died. He seemed to have a devastating and sometimes fatal way with women.

And she seemed to have leukemia.

One of this wives (actress Rachel Roberts) was obsessed with Rex Harrison. I get the impression that may have something to do with her suicide - on-going depression.

Anyway, Rex certainly did sound like a real prick but it can't be denied that he was a great actor.

[quote] With wife #3, actress Kay Kendall. She had never married before and had no children. After being with Rex for only 2 years she died. He seemed to have a devastating and sometimes fatal way with women.

She died of cancer. That's hardly his fault.

Carole Landis committed suicide after Harrison refused to lave his wife for her; he has long been suspected of hiding details from the police about her death (including destroying a suicide note she left him).

Rachel Roberts also killed herself after her attempts to win back Harrison proved fruitless. She died in the same bizarre way that her character in the film "Picnic at Hanging Rock" dies (a suicide attempt that succeeds because she's sliced to ribbons by falling through greenhouse glass).

Clearly Harrison had a predilection for troubled women, and his abusive behavior to other women (like Andrews) shows he probably had seriously damaged both women's self-esteem. But the death of Kay Kendall two years after they married was just bad luck--it had nothing to do with any sort of "fatal way he had with women."

R32 His second son, Carey Harrison is still alive at 76 years of age. He is a playwright and has written 40 stage plays and 16 novels.

R32 His first son, Noel Harrison, was an actor. He died at 79 years of age from a heart attack shortly after performing onstage at a local theater.

[Quote] He was a nasty selfish rude man

Perfectly cast as Higgins then.

The year he won Best Actor, his competition was Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole in Beckett, Anthony Quinn in Zorba, and Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove. Tough competition, all classics.

This is DL and nobody mentioned he starred in STAIRCASE ?

R42 The name of a film that nobody dare mention because it is so bad and not in a good way.

I’ve never was accustomed to his face.

I thought I heard or read that Rex Harrison was a very kind and gracious man or am I confusing him with David Niven?

He always seemed queeny to me. But I guess that's just British. I always called him Regina Harris.

[quote]I thought I heard or read that Rex Harrison was a very kind and gracious man

Not according to anyone who worked with him.

[quote] suicide attempt that succeeds because she's sliced to ribbons by falling through greenhouse glass

Actually, Roberts died because of the highly corrosive nature of what she swallowed, not because of the glass.

He was a dead end.

By all accounts, a great talent but a truly despicable human being :-(

Rex Harrison's last wife Elizabeth had also been married to Richard Harris. I can't find the quote but I recall reading years ago after Rex Harrison died, she said something like if she had searched the world she couldn't have found too bigger pricks to marry.

Rex Harrison always breezed thru a scene as if he were on his way to a better film.

He was a loud, overbearing, PIMPLE of a man!

Depending on your viewpoint Rex Harrison, along with Richard Burton, made a groundbreaking film in 1969 about an aging gay male couple called "Staircase." It got mixed reviews with some being able to see through the seeming campy stereotypes to see 2 real gay men living their lives together in that particular era. It wasn't meant to be homophobic but rather a comedy/drama that sometimes got derailed by the seeming camp content. Not really a bad movie if you remember that this was done in1969, years before a more enlightened time, and it's a miracle that the gay themed movie got made in the first place with 2 big stars. Worth watching for a gay blast from the past.

R45 You are indeed confusing him with David Niven. Never a bad word spoken or written about David Niven - a true gentleman.

I once saw a video on Youtube of the first orchestra rehearsal for MFL on Bway. When he first heard the xylophone/glock in ""...Let a Woman in Your Life" he exploded. He asked the conductor what the hell it was, he replied "it's called orchestrations Mr. Harrison". Rex then screamed, demanding that they be removed immediately. It was a telling glimpse of his personality. It must have been scrubbed as I haven't been able to find it since.

Late in life, Rex and fellow legend Claudette Colbert returned to Broadway in a drawing room comedy called "Aren't We All?" On the first day of rehearsals, Colbert overheard Harrison refer to her as "that French dwarf", so she never spoke directly to him again, and spoke only in French to the director when they all were together. Rex didn't know French.

A win for Team Claudette.

[quote]I once saw a video on Youtube of the first orchestra rehearsal for MFL on Bway. When he first heard the xylophone/glock in ""...Let a Woman in Your Life" he exploded. He asked the conductor what the hell it was, he replied "it's called orchestrations Mr. Harrison".

Harrison had already done MFL in London, so would be familiar with the orchestration.

I do remember a video of Julie Andrews being rather diplomatic about how often Harrison would blow a gasket. I think he tried to get her fired.

WHAT!! A CUNTAH!!

R58, MY FAIR LADY played on Broadway before it played in London.

Embarrassed for r58's huge mistake.

David Niven was much beloved, but some people called him a mediocre actor and a big snob.

I was wrong. I apologize.

^ Niven was a ninny.

He wasn't an 'actor'. He was an effete, epicene, brainless lounge lizard who made money with memoirs celebrating other people's drunkenness and misbehaviour.

How did Rex feel about Dr. Dolittle? That was an Oscar best picture nominee. LMAO.

R65 Rex wanted the money and he was on a Fox contract. He was hopelessly miscast as the affable nincompoop veterinarian.

It was inane to spend so much money on a kids movie. It was made in the crazy times when Fox (and everyone else) was trying to duplicate the AMAZING amount of money brought in by 'Sound of Music' when there were about 30 musical movies made. 26 of them failed.

[quote]I once saw a video on Youtube of the first orchestra rehearsal for MFL on Bway. When he first heard the xylophone/glock in ""...Let a Woman in Your Life" he exploded. He asked the conductor what the hell it was, he replied "it's called orchestrations Mr. Harrison". Rex then screamed, demanding that they be removed immediately. It was a telling glimpse of his personality. It must have been scrubbed as I haven't been able to find it since.

Oh fer pity's sake, that film is a TOTAL set-up , and it has not been "scrubbed" from YouTube. Here it is. One would think the fact that word "rehearsal" is in quotes in the title might have cued you in that it isn't real documentary footage, plus the fact that the video is from 1960, and is also clearly labeled as a "recreation" of the first rehearsal of MFL. Amazing that you and some others (as per the comments on YouTube) actually don't get it.

That said, from all accounts, Harrison was very badly behaved during MFL rehearsals, apparently referring to Julie Andrews as a "bitch" and to Moss Hart as "that Jewish cunt." Horrible man.

He couldn't sing.

When young, I mixed him up all the time with Noel Coward. They did both had that posh old queen way of speaking a little too loudly and and enunciating a little too obviously, and seemed always to be speaking to an audience, to the last row in the theatre, sharing their amusing anecdotes (which might have been more amusing if they hadn't warned us they would be so.)

Coward was the more interesting man, even if he turned out mediocre work, and Harrison made everything mediocre sound like it might be more important than it is. Harrison seemed like a dickhead and usually made whatever character he was playing into a dickhead, the same dickhead as the last one he played—and the next, too.

Rex Harrison was a BIG ham who truly believed he was the only attraction in any play or film he appeared in.....

Rachel Roberts timed her LA suicide to coincide with the opening of the MFL revival with Rex that was in LA.......unfortunately for her - her body wasn't discovered until the Monday after the opening.....

Timing is everything, Rachel.

I do like the story of the out of town tryout of MFL in Connecticut, I think. It was snowing and the audience was small in number but got there at risk of life and limb. Rex refused to go on - the theatre manager told him if he didn't go on that he would announce to the audience exactly WHO was causing the trouble.

Rex went on.....and when the chandeliers for the ballroom scene were lowered in place - they were dropped a bit too low. When they were adjusted - they took Rex's toupee with them......

Wooden tit be loverly, indeed.

Too bad Rachel didn't use her judo on sexy Rexy.

He was nice to me and I was rude to him. If I had known how miserable he could be I would never have done what I did. Excuse: I was very young. Waited at the stage door after The Kingfisher on Broadway(also with Colbert.) I had brought the film souvenir book of My Fair Lady for him to sign. He quickly came out of the stage door and went into his limousine without acknowledging me at all. So I did what I needed to do. His window was open and I shoved the program in front of his face in a here sign this motion. Instead of calling me a cunt(which I certainly was being) a broad smile came over his face as if he hadn't seen it in quite a while(didn't he have stacks of these all over his house?) and he started looking through it. He then signed it and handed it back to me.

I strongly recommend the 50th anniversary edition of the bluray(not the first one) done by film restorer Robert Harris. It is spectacular. Watch it on as large a screen as possible and revel in the textures of the fabrics of Beaton's beautiful costumes.

Sexy Rexy shared a role with Yul who made me drool.

Imagine if he did the musical!

I never thought he was sexy or attractive but he could nail any part he played. Amazing in The Ghost and Mrs Muir and, of course, MFL.

I guess Rex Harrison is the male Helen Lawson. On screen or on stage we love him, but off stage or screen, absolutely loathed.

Burgess Meredith’s stunt double at r71 had a fantastic ass.

R76 Tell me about it!

Yes R67 after I typed that reply I searched and found the "rehearsal" you refer to. It definitely was staged for the camera. I must have seen just the clip where he yells out of context. I'm surprised he would approve of it showing him to be an ass - and the diction coach being a dick to Julie. Wouldn't have made me want to buy a ticket.

Not to excuse Harrison, but Rachel Roberts was a bipolar mess who degraded herself trying to hang on to him which, of course, only made him more anxious to be rid of her. I read a bio of her some years ago and director Lindsay Anderson said Harrison was the worst possible person she could have married.

Speaking of Anderson, he could be quite the nasty prick too.

I tried to watch Staircase a few years ago on TCM and couldn't make it past 25 minutes. The whole thing was so patronizing. Harrison's performance was very campy and superficial - he was gliding through the part on style as if the role deserved nothing more.

Burton, however, was trying to give a genuine performance and his character at least came off like a human being.

Rex Harrison starred in the 1967 musical Doctor Dolittle and it turned out to be a disaster. Harrison's bad behavior became legendary on this movie, there was a lot of infighting going on, and the production went way over cost. Even at sneak previews the audience complained that the movie was way too long. When released it flopped badly and put another nail in the coffin of musical movies. If Rex and Company thought that they were going to have another Harrison musical hit on their hands like My Fair Lady they could not have been more mistaken.

I saw him in his last Broadway play.

After "Staircase" his feature film career was a parade of D-list stinkers. He did some decent made-for-TV movies, including "The Kingfisher" with his "Major Barbara" co-star Wendy Hiller.

'The Kingfisher' with Wendy Hiller is a much more realistic pairing than with poor No-neck Claudette Colbert.

Wendy Hiller was the STAR of 'Major Barbara' 43 years earlier while young Rex was the gormless, fresh-faced ingenue hoping for her attention.

I watched 'Kingfisher' again last night and it's quite racy. Though I felt the homosexual aspect of the character played by Rex needed to be fleshed out. He described his desire for his friend's buttocks as being similar to the statue of Achilles at the Wellington Monument at Hyde Park in London.

Dear OP, I can't help but notice you give 2 stars for *Actor Rex Harrison* but four for **Actress Diana Rigg**.

Now let's talk about John Gielgud.

John Gielgud deserves his own thread.

He was a serious actor who could be camp.

His arrest for opportuning was shocking at the rime.

R85 Op here. Hello - you're very observant. I often put stars around my caption of a thread, especially an actor's name, to make it stand out more and get more attention. I guess the reason I gave Diana Rigg more stars than Rex Harrison is because I'm more familiar with her and like her better. And lo and behold, here is a photo of them together in an acting engagement. I also did a recent thread on Michael York - I guess I love those English actors for some reason. Hope you enjoyed the threads!

Rex looks like an old sea hag in that photo!

Yes, R88, I have enjoyed those threads. I also love English actors even though I'm not English.

I feel I can generalise and say English actors are more likely to be trained professional theatre actors whereas as most Americans are just performers on screen with not much more ability than photographic models.

The photo of Harrison with Rigg is from the London production of Heartbreak House, which I saw and was marvelous.

Harrison later did the play on Broadway with a different director (Anthony Page; John Dexter had done the London production) and a different cast, with one exception: Rosemary Harris. However Harris played the older sister, Lady Utterword, in London but played the younger sister Hesione (Rigg's role in London) on Broadway.

I didn't see the Broadway production, but I doubt it was better. Dexter was a nasty piece of work sometimes but he was a fine director most of the time. Page was very uneven.

Charming; an old pro; an utter prick.

Just learned that actor Simon Harrison, who played the policeman Ronnie Box on "Endeavour," is Rex's grandson (and Joel's son).

Rex made a great villain in "Midnight Lace" (Doris Day, John Gavin).

Noel's son.

He was an excellent performer within a limited range.

James Mason was pushed into stardom with the slogan that he was 'The Man You Love To Hate' and Rex Harrison was the best performer playing the rogue-ish philanderer, the upper-class cad who skated on the thin ice of amorality, multiple sex-partners and adultery.

His quintessential roles are 1. The Rake's Progress (1945, retitled 'Notorious Gentleman' for the American market) 2. The Constant Husband (1955, not particularly successful at avoiding distastefulness) 3. The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955, Terence Rattigan wrote this for Rex Harrison but he demurred at its blatant amorality and allowed a feeble actor to take his role).

[quote]When young, I mixed him up all the time with Noel Coward. They did both had that posh old queen way of speaking a little too loudly and and enunciating a little too obviously, and seemed always to be speaking to an audience, to the last row in the theatre, sharing their amusing anecdotes (which might have been more amusing if they hadn't warned us they would be so.)

Noel Coward's way of speaking was very, very different from Rex Harrison's. The only thing their speech had in common was that both had what could be broadly classified as upper-class British accents.

[quote]He couldn't sing.

Harrison actually had a lovely, light tenor singing voice, and he had sung full-out in one or two movies long before MY FAIR LADY. You don't know what you're talking about.

I long for the days of Harrison and Coward ENUNCIATING English words and lyrics.

I abhor the mindless, mumbling gibberish we have to endure today!

R5 You have stated your boundaries!

I know others who don’t like Rex Harrison’s face; they say his mouth and jaw —such as in the picture in R8— is somehow simian and 'dog-like' when seen in profile, rather like that porn performer named Jesse Santana—

Harrison originally pulled out of Dr. D and so they signed Mr. Plummer. Harrison wanted back into the movie and they dumped Plummer but had to give him his full salary. I assume Plummer made a lot of money avoiding a bomb.

M Blakemore claimed Plummer had a percentage on SOM and made a fortune off of it but I'm surprised he got that. I thought that even Andrews got a flat fee of something of 200K. Anybody know what their original salaries were and if they got a percentage?

Doctor Dolittle was such a nightmare.

Jonh Dunne's book "The Studio" chronicles was a disaster it was.

Someone posted a clip on here last year and I couldn't make it past Anthony Newley's mugging.

R99 Is that 'M Blakemore' Michael Blakemore OBE, AO who directed Plummer at the National in the 60s (and Angela Lansbury in "Blithe Spirit" in 2014)?

I just watched Doctor Dolittle a few nights ago on a sparkling Blu-ray transfer. I had seen it as a child and barely remembered what it was about and now I know why. It's slow and Harrison has a hard time hiding the prick he was but some of the songs hold some charm for me, especially When I Look in Her Eyes. Samantha Eggar looks gorgeous even if she didn't have that "it" thing and Newley is at least better than he was playing Heironymus Merkin.

Didn’t Lilli Palmer divorce Rex at his request so he could marry and care for Kay?

Lilli Palmer (neé Peiser) was a tough cookie. She used Harrison as a stepping stone to Hollywood.

She got experience handling men when she worked as a professional taxi-dancer.

I always think her steely German off-screen persona seem to dominate over any empathic ability she tried to use when playing a fictional character on screen. Noel Coward, the director of her last stage production was exasperated that she spent more time polishing her appearance than learning the script.

Though you make me think I must re-view two of her more interesting films. 'Oedipus' (1966) where she’s obliged to fornicate with her son (Christopher Plummer) and that quite confusingly frigid film called ‘Beware of Pity’ (1946).

'Beware of Pity' was by the morbid Stefan Zweig.

He said 'there are two kinds of pity. One, the weak-minded, sentimental sort is really just the heart’s impatience to rid itself as quickly as possible of the painful experience of being moved by another person’s suffering. It is not a case of real sympathy, of feeling with the sufferer, but a way of defending yourself against the sufferer’s pain.

The other kind, the only one that counts, is unsentimental but creative. It knows its own mind, and is determined to stand by the sufferer, patiently suffering too to the last of its strength and even beyond. Only when you go all the way to the end, the bitter end, only when you have that patience, can you really help people.'

Stefan sounds like a pill.

I'm more fond of early Rex...Blithe Spirit, The Citadel, Unfaithfully Yours, The Long Dark Hall. He grew increasingly mannered and hammy after that.

Who next, OP? Charlotte Rampling? Terence Stamp? Julie Christie? Ian McKellen? Dirk Bogarde?

There's already a Charlotte Ramplilng thread.

[quote]M Blakemore claimed Plummer had a percentage on SOM and made a fortune off of it but I'm surprised he got that. I thought that even Andrews got a flat fee of something of 200K. Anybody know what their original salaries were and if they got a percentage?

I don't remember the details or numbers, but I know Andrews has said she made far more money off of the phenomenal sales of the soundtrack recording of THE SOUND OF MUSIC than she did from her salary for the film itself, because she had royalties for one but not points for the other. I wonder if Plummer got any royalties from the album, since his voice is not actually heard on it.

Thank you. I figured she got a flat fee for SOM. Also for Mary Poppins. Maybe she got royalties on that soundtrack album as well. I wonder how it works for video. God knows the films have sold a gazillion copies in all sorts of formats. Does home video change the game? Peggy Lee thought so, fought Disney and won when Lady and the Tramp became a bestseller on vhs.

The only film I ever liked Lilli Palmer in was BUT NOT FOR ME as Clark Gable's bitchy ex-wife. She played that very well......type casting, I guess.

Lilli Palmer was Rex Harrison's second wife and bore him his second and last son during World War II. She was of Jewish descent and left Germany when Hitler began to rise to power with his anti-Jewish political movement. She was a very ambitious person and more than happy to accompany Rex Harrison to Hollywood and stake her claim there. When Rex fell in love with Kay Kendall and wanted to marry and take care of her because she was ill he asked Lilli for a divorce - and she said yes. She had already fallen in love with someone else and taken a lover on the side. When Kay Kendall died Rex had planned to marry Lilli again but she had remarried and stayed with her second husband until her death, whereas Rex married 3 more times. It was like a Hollywood soap opera.

Lilli Palmer (neé Peiser) treated her life and her marriage as a business operation. They appeared together because it was good box-office even though they were sleeping apart.

They did, they did...

He was a tooter.

Lea, who are you?

Are you a servant talking about your betters?

You lot know he was called Sexy Rexy early in his career, yes?

I thought that he could be atrocious and then surprisingly good. I thought he walked off with "Cleopatra" from under the noses of no less than Taylor and Burton at the height of their scandalous romance.

Weren't he and Lili Palmer the original cast of "Bell Book and Candle" on stage, or am I misremembering? I'd have given a good deal for a ticket to that.

[quote]You lot know he was called Sexy Rexy early in his career, yes?

Not before we read it at R21, R71 and R73.

This thread should have read "Actor" Rex Harrison.

R72:(please insert spaces where they belong)(Thanks.)

Fun fact: After a bout of childhood measles, Harrison lost most of the sight in his left eye, which on one occasion caused some on-stage difficulty.

He was living in the same building as Greta Garbo when she died in 1990.

I remember him being approached for a comment by a CNN reporter as he was leaving the building for a walk.

He was unaware that she had died earlier that day.

R117, you are correct that Harrison and Palmer appeared in Bell, Book and Candle on Broadway. It was in the early 50s.

It's inexplicable how we wound up with James Stewart and Kim Novak in the movie version.

Why is Rachel Roberts costumed as if she were playing an attractive woman at r71?

R123 When Bell, Book And Candle was filmed as a movie, James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon were considered better box office than the actors who had been doing the play. It's the way of Hollywood!

^ I didn't realise Stewart was billed after Novak. Age after beauty.

R126 This was James Stewart's last film as a romantic lead.

Rex appeared in Noël Coward's gay-ish play 'Design for Living' alongside the lovely Diana and gay-ish Anton Walbrook.

Rex is down on Table 5 (looking rather canine) sitting opposite Larry and close to Miriam Hopkins who's down on Table 6

Rex is down on Table 5 (looking rather canine) sitting opposite Larry and close to Miriam Hopkins who's down on Table 6

Rex is down on Table 5 (looking rather canine) sitting opposite Larry and close to Miriam Hopkins who's down on Table 6

Rex and Oscar for My Fair Lady.

Where is Rex? How far from Miriam Hopkins?

R133 The image increases in size if you click on it.

Rex is on table 5 down at the bottom left. Miriam is right behind him. (These caricatures are rather cruel.)

Hopkins was over in England to star in "Men are not gods". I haven't seen it but it had a very interesting cast but it got poor reviews.

No. Wait a minute, R129, R130, and R131. I think I might understand. Are you trying to say that Rex is down on Table 5 (looking rather canine) sitting opposite Larry and close to Miriam Hopkins who's down on Table 6?????

Of the ones I've seen, my favorite Rex Harrison performance is in "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." It's such a wonderful film...very intimate.

I never enjoyed his singing, mostly because he's just taking between bits of song.

I haven't seen it in a while but I remember The Reluctant Debutante as very entertaining and just worth seeing for Kay. Mrs. Muir is wonderful and I was shocked to see Joe considered it journeyman work. It's a beloved film. I still want to know how they did that ending when there is no cut that I remember. One of the most beautiful endings in a movie.

"Unfaithfully Yours" with Rex is a very good comedy.

The remake with Dudley Moore is not.

Unfaithfully Yours is brilliant but the murder scene is too brutal for today's audience's coming in the middle of a comedy.

Rex was in The Honey Pot with Maggie Smith. LOVE!

R140, So was DL icon Susan Hayward.

Not 'audience's'.

Listen for the subtleties of intonation he gets in this small speech.

Burton's speech is bit too Kenneth Williams

The facial expressions more than the speech.

This place seems to be full of aficionados of 'Gone With The Wind'. So I'm surprised there aren't any here praising or condemning this 20th Century Fox version of It done in black an white.

It has so many common elements— marital rape, frosty wife and selfish husband, pampered child and it was written by a POC!

I prefer Burton @ r143. But they act well together.

That scene isn't bad. People say the movie is terrible. I also read that Donen, Harrison and Burton lost their nerve though I'm not sure what that means.

I thought the dialogue in 'Staircase' was tremendously witty when I saw it years ago as a gayling. Now the whole thing seems pathetic.

Pathetic in that the 2 characters were pathetic. Pathetic in that Gladys Cooper and Cathleen Nesbitt were shown in a horrible state of geriatric helplessness. Pathetic in that Burton's wig looks so fake when in fact it was Rex who had been wearing excellent wigs for the last decade. And pathetic that the Anglophile/Francophile Stanley Donen who showed so much promise in Hollywood musicals had abandoned the US for England during the Swinging Sixties but his career was grinding back downwards into a string of second-rate failures.

'Pathetic in that Gladys Cooper and Cathleen Nesbitt were shown in a horrible state of geriatric helplessness.'

Wow what a stupid mistake on everybody's part. Now I will definitely not see it.

R145 The Foxes Of Harrow was no Gone With The Wind at the box office but it managed to scrape through with some profit.

So why wasn't Rex on Dynasty? I heard he was offered the role of Blake's father.

Rex tries hard to be as butch as possible against the tediously frigid yet feisty Maureen O'Hara and her ridiculous pompadour.

The scenes from 3.00 to 4.50 must annoy feminists with Rex praising Maureen's father for his superior breeding genes.

R150 Maureen doesn't have her best assets poking through that window.

R95 Harrison used his reputation and 'a rake' and 'a cad' for decades but he chickened out from playing the one that Terence Rattigan wrote for him.

But he did appear in the one-act Terence Rattigan playlet where the role are reversed and he is the cuckold.

Great presence, but "mannered".

said to be a big shit ass and pain to work with....mean to wives

So eloquent.

The Honey Pot is mediocre and too long.

dint his wife rachel roberts kill herself with bleach and glass???

He was sexy in Blithe Spirit.

R158 I agree with you that 'The Honey Pot' was much too long. And I couldn't understand why Susan Hayward was dragged in to give some box office appeal.

But I see that it's now on Youtube so I must re-view to check if my opinions have changed now that I'm closer to Mr Harrison's age.

R151 He refused Dynasty because

1. he was conscious of his status as an Academy-Award Winner and TV was trash in those days 2. he insisted on top billing 3. he was vain and refused to play the father to a nobody who was merely ten years younger than him 4. filming in hot Atlanta would have been uncomfortable in his well-tailored clothes and wig 5. he would have had to endure all that time waiting around insufferable Americans.

R162, Numerous Academy Award winners had been doing television long before 1981.

Yes, R163, old movie stars like Loretta Young, Jane Wyman, Janet Gaynor and Rhonda Fleming might appear on TV.

But A-List movie Stars like Gregory Peck, the Hepburns, Paul Newman and Rex Harrison would not lower themselves to go on TV.

R164, Katharine Hepburn starred in made for television productions of The Glass Menagerie in 1973 and Love Among the Ruins in 1975.

Harrison made good money in the late 50s and in the the 60s. If he had invested it well there would have been no need to work again. He had a villa in Italy for many years.

He was living in the same NYC building as Greta Garbo when she died in 1990.

I read that he had gotten a divorce in order to marry Kay Kendall and this was after her cancer diagnosis. If you’ve seen any of her film performances, you’d understand why he wanted to be with her. He’s also the only good part of that Cleopatra nightmare.

R166

It seems Portofino was inhabited by fishermen when Harrison bought there.

This misspelled web page has an unflattering photo but informative text

R168, He got a Best Actor Oscar nomination for it.

r168, Yes, he divorced Lilli Palmer to marry Kay Kendall when he knew Kay was dying. He expected Lilli to take him back, what a wanker.

His ashes were scatterd in part in Portofino and the rest on Lilli's grave. It would seem that the years they were together were his happiest.

"and the rest on Lilli's grave."

I sold them on eBay.

r162 What makes you think "Dynasty" was filmed in Atlanta of all places?

[R104]: Say what you will about Ms. Palmer’s personality, but she’s magnificent in “The Counterfeit Traitor” (1962), playing a worldly, but conscience-stricken, German spy.

She even has a speech to cynical William Holden about empathy: “You see all this in terms of troop movements, but not people in a single truck, and where it’s taking them. Someday you might. You’ll see a stranger, an absolute stranger, beaten and bloodied, and all in an instant, he’ll become your brother.”

“Counterfeit Traitor” is a much underrated film, about a man finding a conscience within him to fight against evil. There are many lessons parallel to our times.

And, BTW, Harrison and Palmer are wonderful in the now barely seen film version of the Jan de Hartog’s play, “The Four Poster” (1952). Charming film.

There were six others, r165. Seven if you include voice-over narration.

Hepburn wasn't necessarily buying the hanging trick explanation. She said in one interview about her brother something to the effect of he had no reason to kill himself but who knows what goes on in anyone's mind.

R175, I first saw it as a 10-year-old one Saturday afternoon in 1962 at our local cinema and I was riveted.

R177 Are you saying Kate did 7 TV shows?

R180, Her 1973 interview with Dick Cavett was a television event.

Kate did a high class TV movie in London with George Cukor and Larry Olivier. And she did the Tennessee Williams TV movie as her continuing contribution to American culture.

But she didn't do a continuing series of 26 episodes of night-time soap which is what Rex Harrison turned down (R151).

R182, Thank you, Captain Obvious.

R158 Well, I have re-watched The Honey Pot to find out why it was such a mess.

First Problem. The producer Charles K Feldman was making big money with frothy, star-filled sex comedies such as ‘What's New Pussycat. He also owned that woman named Capucine; he pushed her into 12 projects wanting her to be Another-Audrey-Hepburn.

Second Problem. The script doesn’t know if it’s a frothy comedy or a murder drama. One of the four writers was an Englishman who wrote ‘Dial M for Murder’.

Third Problem. The director Joseph L. Mankiewicz couldn't stop himself from rewriting it so we have four different writers messing up the thing. Mankiewicz had already done one movie with Susan Hayward and three with Rex Harrison

Fourth Problem. Mankiewicz loves to talk and it's tedious listening to all this chatter claustrophobic studio set in a fake terraced garden.

Fifth Problem. The cast was supposed to include Anne Bancroft to play the third woman but for some reason she doesn't appear and she was replaced by a non-entity who I won't bother to mention.

Biggest Problem. Maggie Smith and Rex Harrison have some chance to shine with some accomplished, nuanced light comedy banter. But the biggest problem arises when Rex Harrison is killed off and the movie switches from comedy to drama. It’s dominated by the hopeless person called Cliff Robertson who speaks like a robot. Completely without expression or charm.

It is a mess!

He could almost pass for Ben Affleck in this picture—

[quote] Rex went on.....and when the chandeliers for the ballroom scene were lowered in place - they were dropped a bit too low. When they were adjusted - they took Rex's toupee with them......

This story was told by Alan Jay Lerner in his autobiography ON THE STREET WHERE I LIVE. I'm not sure it's true.

If a heavy piece of scenery landed on an actor's head it would probably send him crashing to the ground. Didn't that happen to Ann Miller, who later claimed her lacquered hairdo saved her life?

R186, It was her bouffant wig that saved her life.

Barbara Cook claimed she was nearly beheaded during a Carrie performance when a piece of the set came crashing down.

"But A-List movie Stars like Gregory Peck, the Hepburns, Paul Newman and Rex Harrison would not lower themselves to go on TV."

That's only because in those days actors were not making the fortunes actors make on TV these days. None of those died being worth hundreds of millions like Jen Aniston or Kelsey Grammer or Jerry Seinfeld.

What actors might have played Higgins on Broadway if Harrison declined the job?

R190, Alfred Drake

[quote]What actors might have played Higgins on Broadway if Harrison declined the job?

Lucille Ball.

Michael Redgrave was considered.

Hart threatened Harrison before the Drury Lane London MFL opening with being fired because Rex wouldn't come to all the rehearsals. I assume Hart would have too because Harrison fell in line and came to all required of him. I believe there was talk of Gielgud, Coward or Olivier replacing him. Pretty daring of Moss to risk losing him but I guess at that point MFL was practically a legend and he felt he didn't have to have him.

Harrison was 3rd choice for the movie. If Hepburn had refused the movie I wonder who would have gotten it. Warner was definitely not going to give it to Andrews.

R194, Jack Warner wanted Cary Grant or James Cagney for the movie.

No, Jack Warner's first choice was Peter O'Toole as Higgins (and you can see a resemblance between him and Leslie Howard in 'Pygmalion').

Second choice was Cary Grant who famously refused in favour of Harrison.

Third choice was Harrison.

James Cagney was proposed for Alfred P Doolittle.

I don't know if there were any alternatives for Hepburn. (Every producer wanted Hepburn for EVERY big role between the years 1954 until 1964. Her career dried up after Fair Lady)

Not exactly, she had a few good movies left in her and Wait Until Dark was a big hit. She should have come back in Forty Carats instead of Robin and Mariam.

I believe Cukor wanted O'Toole as well. He was incredibly hot after Lawrence and Harrison on screen was comparatively old and tired. They wanted Harrison to do a screen test and he told them to go fuck themselves.

I don't like O'Toole (for his ranting on screen and abusive behaviour off-screen) but he would have made a creditable Henry Higgins.

I like Harrison but unfortunately his age meant he had to have septuagenarian Gladys Cooper playing mother which gave the film an altogether antique air.

R196, In interviews, Audrey said that she initially turned down the role of Eliza, believing Julie should be cast.

Audrey added that it wasn't until another actress was offered the role that she felt comfortable enough to accept it.

She never named the other actress, but some have guessed it was Shirley MacLaine.

As long as we're telling MY FAIR LADY stories, Mary Martin was originally considered for Eliza Doolittle. Aside from her Texas twang, she was too old at 43, but she was a big name (and her being too old didn't seem to matter in THE SOUND OF MUSIC three years later).

Lerner and Loewe played some of their songs for Martin and her (gay) husband Richard Halliday in their home. The Hallidays politely thanked them and they left. As the story goes, Martin turned to her husband and said 'Those poor boys have lost their talent’ .

As for who could've played Higgins on Broadway, how about Alfred Lunt? He was certainly well known at the time, and had done a radio broadcast of PYGMALION with his wife Lynn Fontanne earlier in the decade. But maybe like Roz Russell, he wasn't interested in yesterday's stew.

Like so many British actors trained in Shakespearean technique, he though slow and ponderous meant great acting

Why don't I believe MacLaine was being considered for Lady? Especially that Walters was at the very same time trying to get her for Molly Brown which makes some sense. Sophia Loren would have been better casting.

My father went to see Peter O'Toole in 'Pygmalion' in NYC, in the 1980s. Amanda Plummer played Eliza. Dad said that O'Toole was so drunk that he could smell the alcohol wafting from the stage.

O'Toole was a hopeless drunk.

His stuff on film could be controlled by editing and re-shooting but almost all of O'Toole's theatre work was disastrous.

Larry Olivier foolishly allowed him to do Hamlet soon after the opening of The National Theatre. It was a mess and hastened Michael Redgrave's disintegration. (Redgrave played Claudius)

MacLaine would have been dreadful--probably would have been over the top. Hepburn was probably too old but she brought subtlety. MacLaine was entering her clunker period with films like "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home.

While Audrey was filming "My Fair Lady", Shirley was filming "What a Way to Go!".

R206 I agree MacLaine would have been dreadful. But I can't think of a big name star for Eliza.

Perhaps Sally Ann Howes or Petula Clark? Perhaps young Maggie Smith (with dubbing) but I doubt Jack L Warner would understand-- as I assume he was a vulgarian who cared only for money.

Interesting that Jack Warner gave us one of the last big old fashioned lavish successful movie musicals in My Fair Lady and then went immediately on to start the American new wave with films like Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Bonnie and Clyde.

Well, the way I heard it was that crusty old Jacob L Warner was sick of being chauffeured into the studio every day to do gangster movies and B movies. He said he wanted to go out with a prestige movie at age 72. And My Fair Lady was that.

He supervised the subsequent movies via telephone as he sat smoking cigars by the pool and lusting over the latest Warner Bros nymphet auditioning for him.

youtube has video of the London premiere of MFL. Warner looks very proud but also a bit silly with all his medals. Audrey resists laughing in his face and responds to him warmly.

Besides Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor (!) was considered for Eliza; also Deanna Durbin was possibly approached for a comeback (she was asked to be in the original on Broadway as well), plus musical ladies like Shirley Jones and Jane Powell could have done it. Warner didn't want Julie Andrews. Maybe that's why she didn't do "Camelot" (also a Warner picture) after she was a big movie star?

Rex did a lot of theater in the 1970s and 1980s in NY. I saw him in the "My Fair Lady" revival, "Aren't We All" with Claudette Colbert, but really the leads were the wonderful Lynn Redgrave and Jeremy Brett, plus saw Rex in "The Circle" with Glynis Johns and Stewart Granger, and in "Heartbreak House" with an excellent Amy Irving and Philip Bosco. Rex was a wonderful actor, but apparently not a nice man off-stage.

He indeed was displeased with Julie Andrews during rehearsals of "My Fair Lady", but then again, she was having a hard time, not just with the Cockney dialect, but with the acting in general. She hadn't done much beside music hall and "The Boy Friend", and though she was doing great with the songs in "My Fair Lady", she was on the verge of being fired. So Moss Hart shut down cast rehearsals for a weekend and basically deconstructed and reconstructed Andrews and drummed into her the role of Eliza. Apparently when she returned, she became "the Julie Andrews" much improved and even Harrison immediately saw the difference. Harrison was not nice to Tony Newley when they made "Dr. Dolittle"; he was jealous that Newley had a great singing voice and made some anti-Semitic comments about Newley apparently. That film did have a terrible time getting filmed, with really bad weather, lots of animals, Rachel Roberts acting crazy around the set, and other problems, and Harrison wasn't the nicest guy to begin with....

After Jack Warner left Warner Bros., he went on to produce "1776," which was released by Columbia.

Find the Deanna Durbin rumor hard to swallow. She would have been in her mid-40s at the time. And she wasn't much of an actress, even when young.

"Deanna Durbin was possibly approached for a comeback."

Eliza Doolittle with a unibrow?

Deanna Durbin was sufficiently matronly at that time to play the serving wench at Alfred P Doolittle's pub.

Rex Harrison is his last Broadway play, The Circle, with Stewart Granger and Glynis Johns.

People complain MFL is too stage bound and at moments it is but with such glorious performances, music and production design I can live with it. 1776 however with a novice movie director and a screen full of dozens of Broadway hams trapped for two and a half hours in the congressional chambers is an ordeal. I've tried watching it again on TCM after seeing it first as the coal in the Christmas stocking at Radio City but I just can't hold on.

Durbin was about 42 around the time of MFL film; she still looked good when she released a photo of her in 1981 or so to counter rumors that she had gotten fat. Judy, of course, made fun of Deanna when she was on Jack Paar's show, which was evidence that Frances Gumm was still jealous that Edna Mae had become a star first, who was more important to her studio (Universal) than Frances was to MGM.

Also Deanna was able to retain her good looks and was able to dump the shit business, saved her money and went to live happily in France. None of which Judy was capable of doing. Considering her animosity I wonder if she really made that phone call to Deanna. And if she did I doubt Deanna asked her to visit.

DD would still have been a shit Eliza.

I do think she would have been better than Mary Martin.

Interesting Debbie Reynolds got Audreys slot for best actress. There must’ve been some serious backlash against Audrey in the actors branch, since MFL cleaned up otherwise at the Oscars in wins and nominations.

R221, R222 Those suggestions are just silly.

Eliza had to have certain charm and physical allure to let the audiences hope that Higgins might just abandon his Pygmalion experiment and actually like the creature he transformed from a squashed cabbage leaf into a 'duchess'.

Dear R218, I don't understand your use of the words "the coal in the Christmas stocking".

Is that an idiom? Was this movie part of a double bill?

TV movies, r180, they're listed at r177. r176, see r114.

R212 I envy you seeing Rex Harrison and Stewart Granger on stage.

I would have loved to have seen them in their prime back in the '40s.

1776 was the Christmas movie at Radio City the year it came out. On the bill was the usual Christmas show on stage including the Nativity and the Rockettes.

Mary Martin was the FIRST choice to play Eliza. As has been noted she didn't like the score thinking Lerner and Loewe had lost their talent and turned it down. She was the first choice for everything but A Chorus Line.

[quote] Mary Martin was the FIRST choice to play Eliza. As has been noted she didn't like the score thinking Lerner and Loewe had lost their talent and turned it down. She was the first choice for everything but A Chorus Line.

Aw, go fuck yourself

"The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" starring Rex Harrison, lovely Gene Tierney and DL fave Natalie Wood as a child, is a great (not very scary) ghost story for Halloween. Rex is really very hot in the film.

And Gene is very beautiful. And unlike today's beauties she could act.

[quote]She was the first choice for everything but A Chorus Line.

She would've killed in "Oh! Calcutta!"

I'm all in for front row seats.

You're wrong, r229, she was offered Morales.

Pretty sure when Lerner and Loewe played MFL songs for Martin, none of them were the first tier, perhaps because those hadn't yet been written. Might be understandable why she said no. Nonetheless, I think was a positive turn of events. With her dominating the marquee, they might not have secured the talents of a first-rate actor for Higgins.

Could Mary Martin have sung "I Could Have Danced All Night" effectively?

What songs would you consider second tier and shouldn't they have played for her two or three of of Eliza's songs? Especially when making such an important presentation for Broadway's biggest star.

R29 Preston Sturges wrote and directed Unfaithfully Yours, not Joseph L. Mankiewicz. A hilarious movie, Rex is great in it. As a kid I was taken to see The Kingfisher and thought he was great, then I wore out my parents' copy of the original cast album of MFL. I loved it so much. He's still a favorite actor.

I don't know who said he didn't do TV, but look at IMDB, he did a lot of TV.

[quote]Could Mary Martin have sung "I Could Have Danced All Night" effectively?

Wasn't she a coloratura soprano?

Initially yes but by the late 50s she was being considered for Boris Godunov.

[quote]She would've killed in "Oh! Calcutta!"

Appetites, yes.

Ever notice Rex (unlike other English male stars of his time) didn't do Shakespeare? I saw him on a Dick Cavett rerun where Cavett asked him why he didn't. He said "I don't like Shakespeare" He was great in Shaw's Major Barbara (film), btw.

There's a lot of things he didn't do (see R95).

He couldn't do serious drama. The closest he came to drama was a Chekov play called 'Ivanov' (which is on Youtube).

"He said Shakespeare's plays required a degree of enunciation that made it difficult to play the relaxed, lounging sort of drawing-room scene that was his forte. "

He and Rachel Roberts did do an audio recording of "Much Ado about Nothing", released on LP in 1963.

^. That's an interesting quote. Someone back at R69 was complaining about his enunciation.

I think good enunciation is vital to communication (though of course it's utterly ignored now).

I thought he was called Sexy Rexy particularly because of his philandering and the scandal involving Carole Landis.

This illustrates the use of the phrase 'Sexy Rexy" though it probably more refers to the Sexy Rexy Rose.

R244, "Midnight Lace" was not serious drama?

R244 Anne Of The Thousand Days was serious drama, he won the first Best Actor Tony for it (beat Lee J. Cobb in Death Of A Salesman).

No, R249, I don’t consider "Midnight Lace" as a serious drama.

I’d call it a melodrama. A melodrama designed for women—with Doris getting the chance to display a different expensive gown in every scene and Rex and all the other characters reduced to one-dimensional cyphers.

The ‘Time’ critic said Doris is the “all-American missus…wearing a lot of expensive clothes, and … behaves like such a silly, spoiled, hysterical, middle-aged Lolita that many customers may find themselves less in sympathy with her plight than with the villain's murderous intentions.

[quote]with Doris getting the chance to display a different expensive gown in every scene

And that's exactly what the 1950s Frauen (like my mother) expected when they went to see a Doris Day movie.

It's melodrama that decompensated into camp. It's what happens when Ross Hunter produces a "thriller".

I never think of Doris Day as a fashionable clothes-horse but I guess she was when she was in Ross Hunter movies.

I find him a very entertaining, " actor, and believably emotional. Not a bore like many leading men today. He gave you a show, I think he was fascinating to watch and had an actual sense of humor, not the stupid irony they have now but actual, sophisticated humor.

Maybe Cleopatra wasn't "serious" drama, I don't know - but he wasn't just a comedian.

(R254 I think of Doris Day as a fashionable clothes-horse, and I think of her as a horsey woman. She loved animals just like Tab Hunter loved animals. I think of both him and her as Germanics Aryan, extremely healthy and 'Kraft durch Freude'. He was a Kelm and she was a Kappelhoff.)

R256 I thought Midnight Lace was supposed to be all about her wearing sophisticated fashions for a change. and being dressed by Irene. This wasn't her usual style. In movies like It Happened To Jane, or Please Don't Eat The Daisies, she wore fairly plain, functional clothes, or slacks, jeans, blouses around the house. I don't like to think of people as Aryan it's a little too Nazi for me.

R252, Lana Turner movies, as well.

Fashionable Lana . . .

^ Wow, Lana had about 20 costume changes.

(That's almost as extreme as the silly English film 'The Passionate Stranger' from 1957 where Margaret Leighton wears about 25 Norman Hartnell creations)

Doris had her fun wearing beautiful furs and then wanted to ruin it for everyone else. Selfish.

Midnight Lace was made by Marty Melcher, a tame director and the appalling Ross Hunter

The worst thing about ‘Midnight Lace’ is that it’s a lame rehash of ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ made four years prior. They both feature hysterical Doris going quite demented in London.

The first film has strong direction from Hitchcock while she wears a plain grey suit by Edith Head. The second film has her wearing a series of impractical lounge dresses under the brainless direction of Ross Hunter’s minion.

Hitchcock knew that one histrionic scream was enough.

Midnight Lace (unlike some of The Man Who Knew Too Much) wasn't shot on location. It has lots of well known English actors, but they seem fake-English. It's supposed to be London in 1959-60 but seems more like it's trying to recreate MGM England from the 40s. Very Ross Hunter. Most of the great Ross Hunter dramatic pictures always had something in common - directed by Douglas Sirk. This one isn't, and Sirk retired in 1959.

Harrison was mainly a great comedian, but he could do drama effectively. Cleopatra, and The Agony And The Ecstacy come to mind.

And he did both beautifully in Mrs. Muir.

Anna And The King Of Siam was also drama. I know today some object to the casting but he was really good (better than Yul Brynner, I think. Who was white, too).

Harrison's being such a monstrously selfish and loathsomely unethical person leaves him mostly unwatchable for me. One can see the stink rising off of him in the studio lights.

And Yul Brynner had enough Mongol ancestry to be visible in his face and to color his sensibilities, Miss Know Nothin at R267.

^ Was he Mongol? I wouldn't believe anything he said.

He called Ingrid Bergman a horse because she was more regal and statuesque than he.

Thank god he was nice to me or I couldn't watch him either knowing what I now know.

R270 Are you R72?

[quote]And Yul Brynner had enough Mongol ancestry to be visible in his face and to color his sensibilities, Miss Know Nothin at [R267].

"Color his sensibilities" lol What the fuck is that? He was a Russian with a fraction of vague Mongol ancestry, but I'm not sure why that qualifies him to play a Thai person. I'm talking about acting ability, jackass. Harrison gave a better performance. His personal life is (or should be) irrelevant to a discussion of his acting. There are a lot of film and music stars today whose antics would make Rex look like Shirley Temple, but go off.

"The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" was shown on TCM recently. They periodically show it. It's one of his best films. He and Gene Tierney were both wonderful in it. It's not really a ghost story; it's more of a love story with a ghost in it.

R271 Probably. Too lazy to go back.

I've got kind of the same story but the opposite with Mr. Sondheim. Fortunately he released his fury on the annoying Sondheimite in front of me and I got out of there fast. That was a close call. I would have never been able to listen to Opening Doors or Chrysanthemum Tea again.

At least "Midnight Lace" and "It Happened to Jane" had some good stuff, but did you ever watch "Tunnel of Love"? That must be the worst film Doris ever made. I mean "Julie" at least is a campfest.

Midnight Lace had nothing good in it. That's why it's camp.

[quote] Anna And The King Of Siam

I forced myself to watch this movie last night and I'm reminded of the statement at R95 that 'he was an excellent performer within a limited range'.

Playing Siamese is beyond his range. He had voice coaching but —as he said in his memoir— he’s two foot too tall for the role. I happen to have met a few people from that country and their overriding characteristic is their smallness.

It seems James Mason was the first choice for the role and I think he might have been able to get away with it. James Mason had a kind of feline beauty and he had that odd Oxford/Yorkshire odd speaking voice. He was also four inches shorter than Rex Harrison.

I can understand why 20th century Fox was embarrassed by this when they made their third version of this story in 1999.