My Fair Lady (film)

My Fair Lady is a 1964 American musical comedy drama film adapted from Lerner and Loewe's 1956 stage musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 stage play Pygmalion. With a screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner and directed by George Cukor, the film depicts a poor Cockney flower-seller named Eliza Doolittle who overhears a phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, as he casually wagers that he could teach her to speak English so well she could pass for a duchess in Edwardian-era London, or (better yet, from Eliza's viewpoint) secure employment in a flower store. The film stars Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle—replacing Julie Andrews from the stage musical—and Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins—reprising his role from the stage musical—with Stanley Holloway, Gladys Cooper and Wilfrid Hyde-White in supporting roles. A critical and commercial success, it became the second-highest-grossing film of 1964 (after Mary Poppins) and won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.