Why Julie Andrews wasn't used? - My Fair Lady (1964) Discussion

[–] mhansen2 15 years ago

I heard Jack Warner wanted real movie stars in the leads. He didn't want Rex Harrison and offered his role to leading men (I can't remember their names) who declined. Warner was "stuck" with Harrison.

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[–] gaelicguy 15 years ago

I am always amazed at this canard that Julie Andrews was an unknown. When she was on the TV version of R&H's Cinderella , 100 million people watched. This was in 1957, so you can imagine how huge that audience was. As well, she appeared with Carol Burnett in 1962 on the Emmy award winning, Julie and Carol at Carneige Hall , so the public certainly knew who she was. The scheduling was such that she could have filmed My Fair Lady , which was filmed in 1963 and commenced The Sound of Music in the spring of 1964. I don't know where Mary Poppins fits in here, but she may never have done Mary Poppins if she had been cast in My Fair Lady.

It's extraordinary that after 45 years, this debate rages on.

A tree is best measured when it's down.

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[–] roghache 15 years ago

I am always amazed at this canard that Julie Andrews was an unknown.

She was an unknown where it most counted, the producer's pocketbook!

Good point about about 100 million being a lot of viewers for that era. However, while some of the viewing public may have heard of Julie Andrews, she still wouldn't have been a household name until Mary Poppins. I'm confident that no one in my own (Canadian) family had heard of her before this and know that I certainly hadn't though was only in my early teens in 1964. I had never heard of this Cinderella TV production or her Emmy win with Carol Burnett until today. I did read just now that she made several TV guest appearances (Ed Sullivan Show and Dinah Shore, for instance) during the intervening years, but still I doubt that two major TV performances (though well regarded at the time) five years apart keep a performer's name that prominent in the general public's mind. The Emmys don't receive nearly the publicity, hype, and viewer attraction of the Oscars. She was a Broadway star but that wouldn't have resonated with the general public.

By contrast, everyone knew Audrey Hepburn! She was a well established "real movie star" who had starred in many successful films and acted with the prominent leading men of the day -- Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Fred Astair, Burt Lancaster, and William Holden. She had won a Best Actress Oscar for Roman Holiday and also been nominated three other times for Sabrina, The Nun's Story, and Breakfast at Tiffanys.

If they were looking for a movie star with instant name recognition among all the viewing public, their lady would definitely have been Audrey Hepburn rather Julie Andrews, especially for those not specifically attuned to musical productions. Compared to Hepburn, Andrews was a relative unknown. They would have wanted My Fair Lady to attract the general viewing public, not just those who typically gravitate toward musicals. Nothing to do with who deserved the role or would have made the better Eliza but they just weren't in the same category back then in terms of name recognition and 'star power'. The 100 million viewers notwithstanding, a lot of people simply wouldn't even have heard of Julie Andrews and, despite her magnificent voice and history as Broadway's Eliza, she may not have had the drawing power of the established star, Hepburn, for many of those who had heard of her. People will often flock to a movie they otherwise wouldn't bother with because they know and like its star.

It's all about making money and Audrey Hepburn was a "sure thing". Jack Warner is quoted as saying that the decision was easy. "In my business I have to know who brings people and their money to a movie theatre box office. Audrey Hepburn had never made a financial flop." While Julie Andrews may have had success on Broadway and a couple of prominent TV productions, she had never even acted in a movie at this point so would have been totally unknown to the producers as a box office draw.

It seems likely to me that this stated reason for not using Julie Andrews was in fact the real reason.

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[–] gaelicguy 15 years ago

Roghache, this is the precise reason Julie Andrews was passed over. Hepburn was at the top of her game in the early '60s and Jack Warner wanted an established star. But Andrews success in Mary Poppins is proof that audiences were a drawn to her and that, though Warner would have been taking a huge gamble, she could have been cast in My Fair Lady.

It's a shame that Andrews was not cast - even more poignant that, in recent years, Andrews has expressed her disappointment that she was overlooked. With Andrews as Eliza and a different director (Vincent Minnelli, perhaps), My Fair Lady would have been truly magnificent. It disappoints in so many ways, in my view, despite the hugely talented people involved.

A tree is best measured when it's down.

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[–] roghache 15 years ago

It's sad for Julie Andrews that she feels disappointed to this day for missing out on the My Fair Lady role though I can understand it. Of course she did go on to have a very successful film career of her own with other roles but I'm sure it's an ongoing regret.

I love Audrey Hepburn as Eliza but do find it quite 'unfair' to Julie Andrews that Hepburn needed to be dubbed for the musical numbers. Of course Andrews would have carried the songs magnificently herself.

I agree about Mary Poppins proving that movie viewers were drawn to Andrews and probably My Fair Lady would still have been successful if she'd been cast. However, the producers weren't willing to take the gamble, choosing the "sure thing" instead.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] shulma2002 15 years ago

Almost the same thing when Warners made the film of "Gypsy". Ethel Merman wanted the role but while she was a top Broadway star, her films were not big money makers so they cast Rosalind Russell to play Mama Rose. I thought that was a mistake too and Miss Merman held a grudge for a long time.

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[–] fast_fierce_and_funny 15 years ago

But Andrews success in Mary Poppins is proof that audiences were a drawn to her and that, though Warner would have been taking a huge gamble, she could have been cast in My Fair Lady.

The thing to bear in mind with Mary Poppins was that it was a Disney production. Disney, like them or loathe them, have been masters of marketing almost from the very beginning (with a theme park on the hitherto unknown size and scale of Disneyland, they've had to be). So while Julie Andrew's talent and ability certainly had a place in helping the film to go over, the Disney marketing machine also played a part in making that film a success.

My Fair Lady, on the other hand, was not a Disney production. As such, Warner Brothers had no guarantees that the film would go over with the moviegoing public. When you think about how much money went into this blockbuster, putting Audrey Hepburn in the lead role was simply their way of hedging their bets so that they would see their money back.

I agree that Julie Andrews may have been the better qualified actress of the two for the role of Eliza, but I've gotta tell you: I'm not convinced that half the crowd I saw the film with yesterday would have turned out for My Fair Lady had Julie Andrews been in the lead role. Audrey Hepburn simply has a certain ineffable je ne sais quoi about her that persists to this day. Not to mention the fact that she had a decade of hit films (and an Oscar) under her belt by the time My Fair Lady was filmed (Roman Holiday premiered in 1953).

I think that's what Jack Warner had in mind when he cast her: the sure thing versus the possible hit. Producers, after all, don't get paid to take gambles. Instead, they get paid to make decisions that will earn the studio its money back. Financial solvency and talent do not, alas, always go together and it's the former that allows a studio to continue to make films.

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[–] roghache 15 years ago

Good point by fast fierce and funny about the Disney marketing machine, something I had never thought of myself in relation to the success of Mary Poppins. I'd have to agree, there are people who were drawn to My Fair Lady because of Audrey Hepburn starring who wouldn't have gone if the lesser known Julie Andrews had been cast as Eliza. Just how many people and thus how financially successful the movie would have been with Julie Andrews, I guess we can only speculate.

The question of who was more qualified for the role and who would have made the most money for the studio don't necessarily give the same answer. We shouldn't fault the producers for going for Hepburn as a sure money making bet since it was studio money, not our own, being used to make the film. He who pays the piper calls the tune!

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[–] gaelicguy 15 years ago

This je ne sais crois of which you speak is how Hepburn looks and carries herself in the role. I don't know where you saw the film yesterday, but I've been hearing for years how audiences gasped when she emerges in the Embassy Ball dress. No stretch to think of Hepburn as a princess and bowling everyone over at the soiree. It's the rest of her performance that is seriously lacking.

Yes, we know about Jack Warner and the bottom line. But I take exception to your assertion that he worried whether the movie would go over with the moviegoing public. The original cast album out-grossed the mega-hit show for months, and it still holds the record for the most weeks as a Billboard Top 40 album: 292! That's very impressive. Folks certainly knew the show was a monster hit and I would suspect that people waited for the film version with great anticipation.

For better or for worse, Warner played it safe and cast Hepburn. It was, according to her, one of the most unhappiest experiences of her career. As she said about the experience, "I could do nothing right that year." She was referring not only to the filming, but to the Oscar ceremony, which was a fiasco for her.

File this under, "Be careful what you wish for."

A tree is best measured when it's down.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] gaelicguy 15 years ago

I've had four years of French in high school and two at University and lived in France for six months many moons ago. But since you insist on being a pedantic churl and it is Christmas time, I'll let it slide.

Besides, I suspect you're a Brit, and, as such, you were, more than likely, drunk when you posted this. You're the one who is lacking and so is your once great nation, with their aversion to wearing deodorant when riding the "Underground" and their disgusting dental habits. By the way, every 'offence' is intended.

I take no pleasure to resorting to your boorish behavior. I just don't understand your need to offend me, even if you disagree with my views. I don't know you from dust, thank goodness. But you do hang out at the Audrey Hepburn board and take mortal offense, I surmise, at anyone who advocates Julie Andrews in the role instead of La Hepburn, of whom I am a devoted fan.

Meh, who cares? You're just a creature with a modem.

Edit: Typo corrected. However, as Tiny Tim advises, "God Bless Us. Everyone!" Happy Christmas to you and yours.

A tree is best measured when it's down.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] Emmywins305 15 years ago

Before the MFL movie, Julie Andrews was known on Broadway and in London, but had never performed in places like Berlin or Tokyo. Audrey Hepburn's films, on the other hand, had been internationally released and mostly successful and she could therefore be counted on to attract an international audience.

Julie Andrews was reportedly offered a screen test by Warner, but she turned it down, saying that she had already proved herself worthy of the role on stage. I think that if she really wanted the role that badly, she should have just given it a shot without expecting anything. After all, most actors require screentests before landing big roles on film and stage acting and film acting are not always the same thing. Some actors who do well on stage don't create the same magic on film. I think if she had done the screentest, Warners might have given her the chance to do it.

I don't understand why some people think Audrey is terrible in the film. Okay, I'll accept that her Cockney accent is unconvincing in the first half. However, in the second half, I cannot think of a single actress now or then who could have done a better job playing the lady. I don't think she was just great at her Embassy Ball appearance, I think she was perfect from The Rain in Spain until the very end. Julie might have played the better flower girl, but Audrey Hepburn was THE lady.

As for the dubbing, Audrey was far from the first or the last film actor or actress to be dubbed in a musical. It had been going on for a long time before MFL and it continues occasionally to this day (Minnie Driver in The Phantom of the Opera). I believe an actor's first duty is to act, not to sing, and IMO, Audrey more than acquits herself in the second half of MFL.

Audrey was very unhappy making MFL, but it wasn't a totally unhappy experience. She had been quoted as calling it an "enchanting, once-in-a- lifetime experience". She believed she was right for the role, but she was stressed out from being constantly compared to Julie Andrews. At the time, she was also having trouble in her marriage to Mel Ferrer. Had she been the first to play Eliza and if she hadn't had her marriage troubles, she might have been even better. I think many people were so blinded by Julie's performance at the time to really give Audrey's performance a fair shot.

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[–] milliedil 13 years ago

Warner offered no screen test to Julie, therefore she never turned one down. Nor, I suspect, WOULD she have. Warner didn't want her for it, period. Which is why Audrey took the role, finally--she knew that if she turned it down, it still wouldn't go to Julie.

I think you have mixed up your screentest facts. The truth is, when Julie was around 12 years old, she did a screen test in London, which had fairly disastrous results. Footage of this test exists today and, while the result was not too flattering, it wasn't nearly as poor as thought at the time. It could have been reshot with a much better look, but that wasn't forthcoming. The upshot is that the response to the test ("That Andrews kid is hopelessly unphotogenic") followed her around even after she had established herself both as a headlining performer and as a draw. Robert Wise told of hearing this when casting for THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Walt Disney was delighted to show him unfinished footage from MARY POPPINS (Disney was already sure it was going to be smash) and, upon seeing hiw she came a cross onscreen, Wise and screenwriter Ernest Lehman fell over themselves trying to get to her agents to sign her for THE SOUND OF MUSIC before someone else snatched her up.

"Thank you, thank you--you're most kind. In fact you're every kind."

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[–] fast_fierce_and_funny 14 years ago

This je ne sais crois of which you speak is how Hepburn looks and carries herself in the role.

No, no it isn't.

There have been many, many actresses since the dawn of film. However, of those many actresses, there's only been a relative handful that the camera has truly loved; Hepburn is one of that handful.

If the Hepburn version of MFL isn't your cup of tea, watch Hepburn in Sabrina sometime (preferably on the Silver Screen) and you'll see what I mean: there's more going on there than merely how Hepburn looks and carries herself.

When I used the phrase je ne sais quoi in my previous post, I used it advisedly.

I don't know where you saw the film yesterday, but I've been hearing for years how audiences gasped when she emerges in the Embassy Ball dress. No stretch to think of Hepburn as a princess and bowling everyone over at the soiree. It's the rest of her performance that is seriously lacking.

I must say that, if their reactions were any indication, the audience at the Stanford

http://stanfordtheatre.org/stf/

didn't share your opinion that her performance was "seriously lacking." To each his own...

Yes, we know about Jack Warner and the bottom line. But I take exception to your assertion that he worried whether the movie would go over with the moviegoing public. The original cast album out-grossed the mega-hit show for months, and it still holds the record for the most weeks as a Billboard Top 40 album: 292! That's very impressive. Folks certainly knew the show was a monster hit and I would suspect that people waited for the film version with great anticipation.

It's wonderful that the cast album held a spot in the Billboard Top 40 for so long. Alas, selling record albums and selling theater tickets are two completely different things. Ever see Madonna in Shanghai Surprise? Or (God help you) Vanilla Ice in Cool as Ice? Those are just two examples of how selling a million records doesn't always translate into selling a million movie tickets, a fact of which Jack Warner was very likely all-too-aware.

If Jack Warner had thought that Julie Andrews would have allowed Warner to sell the most movie tickets, Andrews would have gotten the role. As I said in my previous post:

I agree that Julie Andrews may have been the better qualified actress of the two for the role of Eliza,

However, movie studios live or die according to how well the public likes their films and is willing to pay to see them, not according to how well the studio heads like (or dislike) a given actor or actress. The Number One qualification for any film star is how many tickets their appearance in any given film will help sell.

For better or for worse, Warner played it safe and cast Hepburn. It was, according to her, one of the most unhappiest experiences of her career. As she said about the experience, "I could do nothing right that year." She was referring not only to the filming, but to the Oscar ceremony, which was a fiasco for her.

Katherine Hepburn suffered a severe bout of dysentery during the filming of The African Queen. In fact, she was so sick during the shooting of the church scene that a bucket was placed off camera because she vomited constantly between takes. Most of the rest of the cast and crew were sick, too, when they were on location in Africa.

However, the success of a given film isn't measured by how good a time the cast and crew had whilst making it: success is measured by how good a time the audience has in watching it. After all, only happy audiences go around recommending films to their friends and family. Both DVD sales and my own experiences with MFL and live audiences (I've been fortunate enough to have seen it multiple times on the Silver Screen) seem to indicate that the film has done an excellent job of making audiences happy over the years.

File this under, "Be careful what you wish for."

Speaking for myself, my only real disappointment in all this is that you, yourself, are disappointed. I mean it: I'm genuinely sorry that you can't derive any pleasure from the film version of MFL when so many other people have (and will continue to do so).

Rouben Mamoulian once said, "The most important critic is time." I agree entirely and the audience at the Stanford seems to think that Audrey Hepburn was a good choice for the role, too. At least, they continue to spend their hard-earned money to see her there in MFL, despite the DVD having been out for more than a decade (1998).

Here's a list of the Stanford's all-time top ticket sellers over the twenty-odd years they've been screening vintage films for a fairly discerning* audience:

1 - Casablanca
2 - Roman Holiday
3 - Sabrina
4 - Notorious
5 - Gone With the Wind
6 - Vertigo
7 - My Fair Lady
8 - To Catch a Thief
9 - The Philadelphia Story
10 - The Maltese Falcon

The Stanford will be showing My Fair Lady again on June 11-13, 2011. I don't know if you'll see this post before then, but if you happen to be in the SF Bay Area at that time, you might want to drop in and see what all the fuss is about. While I'm sure you've seen the film on DVD, please believe me when I tell you that seeing a movie on the Silver Screen with a live audience lends the film an entirely different dimension.

(If nothing else you'll be able to see for firsthand for yourself whether the film version of MFL delights or dismays contemporary audiences.)

*Full disclosure: as a not-infrequent member of that audience, I could be hopelessly biased when I describe the audience at the Stanford as being a "discerning" one: you decide.

Edit: added the URL tag to make the link to the Stanford clickable (I always forget to do that).

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[–] movieghoul 13 years ago

It's wonderful that the cast album held a spot in the Billboard Top 40 for so long. Alas, selling record albums and selling theater tickets are two completely different things. Ever see Madonna in Shanghai Surprise? Or (God help you) Vanilla Ice in Cool as Ice? Those are just two examples of how selling a million records doesn't always translate into selling a million movie tickets, a fact of which Jack Warner was very likely all-too-aware.

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Not such a good analogy. In Andrews case, the questiion was whether she should appear i nthe exact role which salready sold millions of albums, mostly to the same demographics which would constitute the audience for the movie.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] DryToast 15 years ago

She was a Broadway star but that wouldn't have resonated with the general public.

Many people assume, because live theater is so marginalized in the current entertainment scene, that this was always the case and I can tell you this is not so. Also, the fractured and relentless stream of sound and images that emanate from our televisions, computers and other electronic devices today is also a relatively recent development that diminishes the importance of almost everything that appears on television aside from the single overexposed story of the week.

In the 1960s there were at most seven channels on your television set. A "major television event" at that time was not just hype on one of 1,000 cable channels, it truly was an event, and the Emmy Awards was not just one of a hundred seemingly identical awards shows that now clutter TV. This was a time when the Tonight Show was 90 minutes long and a Broadway star like Elaine Stritch with zero movie presence would sit and talk to Johnny Carson for half an hour. Audiences familiar only with the current balkanized and instantly disposable state of home entertainment may not be able to realize how much greater impact everything on television had back then when there was less of it and when the viewing audience was essentially a cohesive community.

Julie Andrews was not 1963's equivalent of Carolee Carmello, Judy Kaye, Laura Benanti or Sutton Foster. Fifty years ago, Broadway stars were featured in national magazines and on national television all the time. For most of the twentieth century, becoming a star on Broadway was possibly the quickest and most durable way of becoming a celebrity in the entertainment field. No one is saying that Andrews's fame in any way approached Hepburn's at that time, but to assume she was as unknown to American audiences as Alice Ripley is today is a mistake.

"I don't seem able to strike the congenial note."

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[–] roghache 15 years ago

I remember the era of only a few television channels and agree that a major TV event had an infinitely greater impact than today. I also see your point, Dry Toast, about the Emmys then versus now. However, I know that back in the 1960's I always watched the Oscars but never the Emmys and expect there were many others like me as even in those days, the Oscars were much more hyped.

I'm sure you're right about the Broadway stars. (I've noticed you on the boards of musicals and am confident you and Gaelicguy both know much more about that sort of thing than I do!) I'd simply say that, while Julie Andrews was undoubtedly somewhat known, she was not universally known or, as you suggest, anything like as famous as Audrey Hepburn.

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[–] laurence01 15 years ago

I personaly think it worked out well for her. If she had have done this, she would not have been in Mary Poppins.

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[–] bkamberger 13 years ago

Jack Warner seems to have conveniently forgotten about Green Mansions and The Unforgiven, both major flops. The Children's Hour didn't make its money back either. And Paris - When It Sizzles, released 6 months before Lady, was a huge dud, though Warner couldn't have known that at the time.

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[–] Emmywins305 11 years ago

Jack Warner seems to have conveniently forgotten about Green Mansions and The Unforgiven, both major flops. The Children's Hour didn't make its money back either. And Paris - When It Sizzles, released 6 months before Lady, was a huge dud, though Warner couldn't have known that at the time.

True. But Audrey had been in films for over a decade, and was a film star for about a decade when My Fair Lady was being made. Her number of hits as a star equalled if not surpasssed her number of flops.

What films did Julie Andrews have at the time MFL was being made? Nothing. Except for a televised play of R&H Cinderella back in 1957. Not the same thing as starring in a $17,000,000 feature film.

According to an Audrey Hepburn biography, Jack Warner did offer Julie the screentest at least once, but she refused. He also wanted Rex Harrison to do one because he looked ill in Cleopatra (playing an epileptic) and he was no longer bankable as a film actor. Harrison reportedly sent nude photos of himself.

I think that both Cary Grant as Higgins and Stanley Holloway as Dolittle could each have made the roles their own, but they would have been sharply compared with their predecessors as well. Yes, I know Grant had a slight tinge of cockney in his voice, but he was an actor. He could have taken voice lessons to cover it. Anyway, as neither of them did the roles, I don't think it's possible to really know how they would have turned out. But Broadway originators of musical roles are not necessarily the best choices acting-wise on film. I do agree that Minelli probably would have been better than Cukor as a director, though.

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[–] movieghoul 13 years ago

Additionally, the original cast album with that great, irreplaceable voice, was the bestselling LP for a couple of years. I guess TV and record exposure meant nothing to Warner.

Look at it this way: In heaven, you'd get Vincente Minelli directing Harrison/Andrews/Hollaway in MFL, in hell, you'd get CUkor directing Grant/Hepburn/Cagney. In reality, as so often is the case, we have a compromise.

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[–] Harold_Robbins 15 years ago

Audrey Hepburn's salary for MY FAIR LADY was five times that of Rex Harrison's.

Remember that Columbia Pictures wasn't eager to sign Barbra Streisand for FUNNY GIRL, despite her success in the show, and the fact that she was a huge recording star - they were very apprehensive of how she'd come across on film. If they'd watched her TV specials they probably wouldn't have had such fears.

Angela Lansbury certainly wasn't unknown to moviegoers, but she wasn't known to moviegoers as the star of a film - perhaps the execs at Warner Bros. should have remembered that not only had MAME been a big hit on Broadway and elsewhere, but it was also familiar to moviegoers and readers from its previous incarnations as AUNTIE MAME, which might have made casting Lansbury less of a risk.

"Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke."

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[–] bill3-1 15 years ago

I think the main reason why is/was Audrey Hepburn is 100 times more gorgeous then Julie Andrews.

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] laurence01 15 years ago

A very good post, with one minor error. When the Actor is singing for themselves, then the vocal is recorded first (often by months). They then Lip-Synch to the pre-recording during the filming. The only time the singing is done last is when someone else is dubbing something already pre-recorded by the Actor.

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[–] Threadkill 15 years ago

I read Julie Andrews' memoir. I thought her main disappointment in not playing Eliza in the movie was because no other recorded version of the show exists for reasons of posterity. There are recordings of the music, but nothing to highlight her physical perfomance (aside for some songs she sang on Ed Sullivan). Like somebody said earlier, she was well known prior to Mary poppins, and very successful. Not being cast in My Fair Lady (the movie) ,is really what pushed her completely over the edge. She was nothing but gracious about it. She and Hepburn had/have monster careers, so in the end this controversy means absolutely nothing.

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[–] laurence01 15 years ago

I read Julie Andrews' memoir. I thought her main disappointment in not playing Eliza in the movie was because no other recorded version of the show exists for reasons of posterity.

I don't know where you have got this from, but it is completely wrong. Both the Broadway,and London cast recordings exist, and both star Julie Andrews.

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[–] Threadkill 15 years ago

laurece01, I understand very well that she starred in two vocal recordings. I used to have one of them.

Did you see that I had written the following in my post as well?

"There are recordings of the music, but nothing to highlight her physical perfomance (aside for some songs she sang on Ed Sullivan)."

My impression from reading was that her greater disppoinment is not in being left out of the movie; it is that there is very little to no footage of her acting as Eliza. The experience was very important to her, and of course, her being a part of the movie would have provided that.

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[–] laurence01 15 years ago

Sorry I misunderstood what you were saying.

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[–] Emmywins305 11 years ago

Julie was disappointed about it, but she expected it. She was warned by Alan J. Lerner that she wasn't an established film star and that she probably wouldn't get the role. So she said that though it did hurt, it wasn't as horrible as people think it might have been.

She also said that she mainly wanted a copy of her performance to show to her grandchildren, at least. However, she also said that missing out on MFL may have been even better for her film career. Getting Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music was a huge compensation. Do people expect Julie to be in every single film musical, or what? Plus, as energetic as Julie is, does anyone think she really would have had the stamina to do Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music one after the other? Not to mention The Americanization of Emily. She probably would have been too tired (or busy) for at least ONE of those projects. You could demand that she do all three musicals at once, but I think even she had limits.

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[–] jedi-jones 8 years ago

Andrews did 8 performances a week of MFL on stage for 3 years. She had the energy.

What might've happened if she got the role is that Disney delayed Mary Poppins for her, but then she missed out on The Sound of Music. Of course, Andrews "took" that role from Mary Martin the same way Hepburn took Eliza.

"Pretentious" is a three-syllable word for any thought too big for little minds.

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[–] movieghoul 8 years ago

No, Andrews got TSOM because she was right for the role. Martin was in her 40s, would have looked ridiculous on screen as Maria.

And she wasn't a movie star when she was cast.

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[–] tnsprin-2 13 years ago

One thing different with this movie is that Rex Harrison insisted on doing live recordings of his songs. I believe some of the others may have been live as well. Not sure if Hepburn's recordings were live or not, but they of course decided to dub over most or all of her singing.

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[–] laurence01 13 years ago

yes but it wasn't entirely his insistence. It was felt that the style of "Talk Singing" would be to difficult to Lip-Synch.

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[–] ChristmasStan 14 years ago

She wasn't known. Sound Of Music was made a year later. The 2 films did not conflict with production schedules.

Walt Disney didknow who Julie was. He caught her in MFL and cast her in Mary Poppins. Now all these years later more people have seen Mary Poppins then MFL.

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[–] nycruise-1 13 years ago

No - Walt Disney saw Julie in "Camelot" (a later Lerner and Lowe musical) - and liked how she whistled in the song "What Do the Simple Folk Do?"

That was why he thought she was right for "Poppins": she communicated elegance yet with a spark of playfulness.

"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"

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[–] ChristinaAnnBarrett-2 14 years ago

She just wasn't. There is no reason. They probably wanted someone with brown hair rather than light gold. Each of them is thin. I always thought they wanted to see the English through the eyes of a non-English. Audrey Hepburn stands out for that and her light weight. She's half Irish-English and high class or whatever it is Dutch. She resembles her mother very much. There is a picture of her with her mom in one of the biographical YouTubes of her. There are ones of her looking older as pictures online. Julie Andrews also had a picture of her as a child in an interview on stage when they show a slideshow of her life to the audience.

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[–] jedi-jones 8 years ago

If Warner had produced Superman, we would've had Robert Redford in the role instead of Christopher Reeve.

He had the wrong, old-fashioned attitude. He didn't understand that when you adapt very popular pre-existing material, you sell it on the basis of the source material and your faithfulness to it, not on the stars.

"Pretentious" is a three-syllable word for any thought too big for little minds.

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[–] liscarkat (18888) 4 years ago

That's so f'ing pretentious.

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