VIDEO FLASHBACK: MY FAIR LADY Opens On Broadway Sixty Years Ago Tonight

Sixty years ago tonight, an American classic adorned with English accents was unveiled to the world, and theatre journalists all over New York rushed to their dictionaries to find the appropriate superlatives befitting Broadway's newest smasheroo, MY FAIR LADY.

MY FAIR LADY didn't break any new ground for musical theatre. Even in 1956, its operetta-like score might be considered a bit old-fashioned. But it was so perfectly done; a model of musical theatre craft exhibiting wit and style with every moment serving its untraditional story.

Cole Porter was the first major Broadway composer who tried writing a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's PYGMALION. Then Rodgers and Hammerstein took a crack at it, but after a year concluded that it couldn't be done.

Yet the less-experienced team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe figured out how to turn Shaw's harsh social satire of the British class system into one of Broadway's most beloved musicals.

Lerner and Lowe may have been the perfect team for the project because of the unusual contrast between them. Bookwriter and lyricist Lerner was an acerbic Ivy League intellectual and the story of a warm-hearted, but uneducated, Cockney flower girl who tries to improve her station by taking lessons in proper English from a snide, self-centered linguist seemed an excellent fit.

But his composer partner, Lowe, was born of Viennese parents and schooled in operetta. While Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle never see each other as a romantic couple, Lowe's graceful score, filled with old world charm, allows the audience to feel the romance in their story.

Also, Lerner based his book and lyrics primarily on Shaw's screenplay for the 1938 film version starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, which opened up the story with scenes only described in the play. The film also includes an ending that was not scripted by Shaw, but was used by Lerner. Though intentionally ambiguous, Lowe's underscoring of that final scene suggested to some audience members that the romance they were waiting for might actually happen.

Sir Noel Coward was first offered the role of Henry Higgins, but he suggested Rex Harrison would be a better choice. Lerner and Lowe famously wrote songs that the non-singing actor could speak-sing, but when the show began out of town tryouts in New Haven the star's temper tantrums could be heard all the way to Times Square.

After Mary Martin passed on the project, Julie Andrews was cast as Eliza Doolittle on the strength of her Broadway debut in THE BOYFRIEND, but Harrison wasn't satisfied with how she was progressing in rehearsals and threatened to leave the show if they didn't replace her with an actress more to his liking. Director Moss Hart spent an entire weekend with the young star, carefully dictating the nuances of the role to her and Harrison no longer complained.

In a segment of the 1960 CBS television special, "The Fabulous Fifties," the two humorously re-created their rehearsal difficulties.

Despite her newfound stardom, film producer Jack L. Warner felt he needed a proven box-office draw for his screen version of MY FAIR LADY, so Audrey Hepburn got the assignment, although her singing chores were left for Marni Nixon. This freed up Andrews to take Disney's offer to star in MARY POPPINS, which granted her an Oscar. Still, when it came to television appearances, Julie Andrews was the Eliza Doolittle that was in demand.