MovieChat Forums > My Fair Lady (1964) Discussion > Did You See Julie Andrews on Stage?

Did You See Julie Andrews on Stage?


I'd love to know how you would compare her Eliza with Audrey's.

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Theatrical acting is quite different than camera acting. The gestures are simpler and broader and you have to make yourself heard in the balcony. Ethel Merman was 'too big' and bold for the screen and never could click except on stage. Judging from the film of Sound of Music, Julie Andrews could have adjusted perfectly well to the demands of film.

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Yeah, Audrey was good...but lip-synching??? No one will ever be able to ignore that...it is just so TACKY with this immense gorgeous production going on all around her.

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Yeah, Audrey was good...but lip-synching??? No one will ever be able to ignore that...it is just so TACKY with this immense gorgeous production going on all around her.
However if Julie had done it she would still have been lip-synching, but to a recording of her own voice.

Let Zygons Be Zygons.

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Yeah, Audrey was good...but lip-synching??? No one will ever be able to ignore that...it is just so TACKY with this immense gorgeous production going on all around her.

If you're going to call her out on this, you might as well dismiss most musical films from this era. Because lets face it, most musical films are old and most of them have one or more actors who are dubbed. Check it out on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q1W7x6UfeM

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If you're going to call her out on this, you might as well dismiss most musical films from this era. Because lets face it, most musical films are old and most of them have one or more actors who are dubbed. Check it out on youtube.
As I said earlier, it doesn't mater whether they are dubbed or not. 90% of them are still lip-synching (even if it is to their own voice). In point of fact Audrey was lip-synching to her own voice during filming. Marni Nixon's voice must have been post dubbed otherwise the versions in the DVD extra features would be impossible.

Let Zygons Be Zygons.

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Marni said she definitely had to post-dub "Wouldn't it Be Loverly" after Audrey filmed it to her own track. But she made it sound like Audrey probably lip-synched to Marni's voice for the other songs. On YouTube, you can find all of Audrey's recordings except "The Rain in Spain" (as of this posting). The film restorers probably found them rotting away in a safe somewhere and that's how they were able to synch Audrey's "Loverly" and "Show Me" to film and put them on the DVD.

By the way, I think these recordings show that Jack Warner, greedy and unscrupulous as he might have been, made the right choices in both choosing Audrey and then dubbing her. Julie was mainly well-known in New York and London, but not much in other places. Audrey was well-known not only throughout the U.S. and Europe but also in places as far off as Tokyo. According to an Audrey Hepburn biography, he calculated the difference between Audrey and Julie to be about $5 million at that time. Plus, he was vindicated when My Fair Lady made $75 million at the box office-a mega amount in 1964.

As for Audrey's singing, she was okay in "Wouldn't it Be Loverly" and "Just You Wait," but her rendition of "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Without You" would probably have drawn snickers, if not outright guffaws. The filmmakers considered letting her do the early songs, while letting Marni do the later ones, but there was still too much contrast between each other. Although Marni did try to imitate Audrey as much as possible. Audrey just didn't have the range and experience to carry it off (and her songs were put in a lower key than Julie Andrews' renditions). I think it would have been way more damaging to the film and her reputation to leave her voice in. Actually, I think it would have been better if they dubbed Just You Wait, too. It's too distracting when it suddenly switches from Audrey to Marni's voice. I think they should have just gone with the woman who could sing it all-Marni Nixon.

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Marni said she definitely had to post-dub "Wouldn't it Be Loverly" after Audrey filmed it to her own track. But she made it sound like Audrey probably lip-synched to Marni's voice for the other songs. On YouTube, you can find all of Audrey's recordings except "The Rain in Spain" (as of this posting). The film restorers probably found them rotting away in a safe somewhere and that's how they were able to synch Audrey's "Loverly" and "Show Me" to film and put them on the DVD.
I don't think I believe this because Audrey has also said that she didn't know that she was going to be dubbed until after filming. This would of course be impossible unless she filmed everything to her own tracks. On the subject of "Just You Wait" apart from the middle section it is Audrey singing in the final print.

Let Zygons Be Zygons.

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Well, that's what Marni said. She said that "Wouldn't it Be Loverly" and "Just You Wait" were the only songs that Audrey filmed to her own tracks. In the end, she had to go back and loop her voice to "Wouldn't it Be Loverly" after filming. She didn't mention looping any of the other songs after filming.

Actually, what she's saying kind of makes sense. On YouTube, Audrey's "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Without You" don't even have a full orchestra. They're only with piano tracks. Therefore, they probably weren't seriously meant to be used during filming-they were more like recording tests.

I got the impression that Audrey was told about the dubbing more towards the middle or near the end of filming. I think the filmmakers let her continue to re-record her songs while filming just to keep her spirits up. All the while she was lipsynching mostly to Marni's voice on the set, filled with false hope.

After all, why would Marni say that she only had to post-dub "Wouldn't it Be Loverly" if it isn't true? Why would she lie about it? She seems pretty honest in her recollections. When someone credited her with singing for Leslie Caron in Gigi, she admitted that it was Betty Wand. She also said that on West Side Story, the filmmakers DID let Natalie Wood film to virtually all her pre-recordings. However, this made Marni's job much harder. Natalie was often out-of-sync, and Marni had to re-record all of Natalie's songs after filming.

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Actually, what she's saying kind of makes sense. On YouTube, Audrey's "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Without You" don't even have a full orchestra. They're only with piano tracks. Therefore, they probably weren't seriously meant to be used during filming-they were more like recording tests.
Actually in most musicals the pre recorded vocals only have a small amount of instruments (in some cases only a piano). The full orchestra is normally post dubbed after filming (during the underscoring sessions). So even if she was lip-synching to Marni during filming it would still only be those few instruments that were playing. Even in Les Mis where all the singing was done live on set they were only singing to a piano.

Let Zygons Be Zygons.

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I think the 'Andrews vs. Hepburn' threads, like the 'Merman vs. Russell' threads (for GYPSY) are now being fueled by people who weren't even born when either substitution occurred.

"In my case, self-absorption is completely justified."

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Unfortunately I was twelve years old when the movie came outand 'very much around'.

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poetcomic1 - I was around as well, at 8 years old - perhaps what I mean is that most of the people arguing about these things were, if not born yet, then far too young to have paid attention at the time and given a darn!!!

"In my case, self-absorption is completely justified."

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As POPPINS and MUSIC have shown Andrews would have been wonderful.

















Dorothy stop that, Mr. Ha Ha`s lookin at you!!

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To me, it would be a mistake to compare, as one played Eliza on stage and the other on screen and there's huge differences between the two.

Here's a video of Andrews playing Eliza. I personally wasn't impressed by what I saw. Her voice is beautiful, but that's it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hVqUeGBPmo

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Ultimately Andrews created the part for the stage. It would be foolish to say she wouldn't have been outstanding in the role, because she went on to do Mary Poppins and the Sound of Music and became a musical legend. If I'm being honest, Julie Andrews would have been a brilliant Eliza Doolittle in the film, I know she's still upset to this day she didn't get to do it, but acknowledges she got Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music because she was available for Poppins and Disney cast her and the producers of the SOM happened to see the rushes of Mary Poppins (whilst it was filming) and thought she'd be ideal for Maria Von Trapp. So ending that point, Andrews would have just been amazing.

However, I just wouldn't want her in it (now) over Audrey Hepburn. Audrey Hepburn brought her unique 'Audrey Hepburn' quality to Eliza and she introduced a softness to the character Andrews wouldn't have done. Had Andrews played Eliza she would have been more hard edged. Hepburn not only becomes a lady (within the film), but you can absolutely see why Higgins would fall in love with her.

In many respects, Audrey Hepburn's performance makes the film. She also had a perfectly good singing voice that idiot Jack Warner (among his millions of idiotic decisions - including not casting Andrews), wanted dubbed. So you then have this shrill Marni Nixon vocal coming out of a cockney flower girls mouth! It just makes me wonder what the hell would have happened if Jack Warner had been alive to produce Les Miserables. You'd have had the same thing happen with Anne Hathaway singing 'I Dream A Dream'.

Audrey Hepburn was thoroughly humiliated when Jack Warner got all her vocals dubbed, as she recorded them all and did them all perfectly well. It was only after they wrapped she discovered Marni Nixon was going to over dub her.

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It just makes me wonder what the hell would have happened if Jack Warner had been alive to produce Les Miserables. You'd have had the same thing happen with Anne Hathaway singing 'I Dream A Dream'.


But that's different. Unlike Audrey, Anne Hathaway can be called a legitimate soprano singer. She can actually hit the high notes and has the range and experience to carry it off. Yes, Anne admitted that she broke her voice occasionally to go along with her character, but anyone can clearly see that Anne is a singer while Audrey was not. Plus, Audrey was being compared against the flawless soprano Julie Andrews, and anything less than that level of greatness could have caused an even bigger backlash. If you watch Audrey performing "I Could Have Danced All Night" on YouTube, you can just hear the people complaining that "it's not as good as Julie's".

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I agree, Hepburn and Andrews had/has her own weapons to any movie.

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I always thought My Fair Lady was a great film, but after finding these clips of Andrews playing Eliza on these variety shows, I understand so much more about what the character was supposed to be and why the play was such a phenomenon. Hepburn pulled the movie away from the comedy it was supposed to be and made it more dramatic. Andrews understood the tone of the movie perfectly and tailored her cockney version of Eliza to it. She brought the right sense of fun to the role. Andrews also has the perfect, round, plain-looking face that makes it possible for makeup to turn her into either an average girl on the street or a glamorous beauty. Andrews' transformation of Eliza in the play must have been breathtaking, as anecdotal accounts suggest it was. It's very clear from these clips of Andrews that the role was created for her and she made it what it was. Hepburn's performance didn't measure up.

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

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Julie Andrews proved she could handled movie musicals perfectly. In the 60's she was the Queen. "Mary Poppins", "The Sound of Music", "Thoroughly Modern Millie" showed she had the look, the voice, the acting chops and dancing skills to pull it off with ease.

I have no doubt she would have been great in the film version of "My Fair Lady" but it just wasn't meant to be. Having said that, she would get the greatest consolation prize EVER - the Oscar for her work in "Mary Poppins".

Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

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