My Fair Lady (film)

My Fair Lady
Theatrical release poster by Bill Gold;
original illustration by Bob Peak
Directed byGeorge Cukor
Screenplay byAlan Jay Lerner
Based on
Produced byJack L. Warner
Starring
CinematographyHarry Stradling
Edited byWilliam H. Ziegler
Music byFrederick Loewe
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • October 21, 1964 (1964-10-21)
Running time
173 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$17 million
Box office$72.7 million

My Fair Lady is a 1964 American musical comedy drama film adapted from the 1956 Lerner and Loewe 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 London or better yet, from Eliza's viewpoint, secure employment in a flower shop.

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 and won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. American Film Institute included the film as #91 in its 1998 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, as #12 in its 2002 AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions, and as #8 in its 2006 AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals.

In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."