February 27, 2008. Copyright 2008, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Debonair English actor Rex Harrison, forever remembered as Professor Henry Higgins
By Susan Shepherd

LONDON, February 27, Graphic News:  It is nearly 18 years since the curtain came down on Sir Rex HarrisonÕs long theatrical and film career. He died Òwith his boots onÓ, as the producer of his last play put it, his death, from pancreatic cancer at the age of 82, closing the Broadway revival of Somerset MaughamÕs The Circle, in which he had been appearing until only three weeks earlier. By then, more than six decades had passed since the tall, stage-struck teenager -- who was born plain Reginald, but took Rex while still a young boy -- had made his entrance with the Liverpool Repertory Theatre.

Born 100 years ago, on March 5, 1908, in Huyton, then part of Lancashire, Rex HarrisonÕs talent quickly took him to the London and New York stages. However, it was a two-year run in the West End, from 1936, in newcomer Terence RattiganÕs French Without Tears, that established him with British audiences. His early film apppearances, notably in David LeanÕs adaptation of Noel CowardÕs Blithe Spirit (1945), won him more fans and boosted his suave, urbane image. Coward himself regarded Harrison as a genius of light comedy, apparently calling him Òthe best light comedian in the world -- after meÓ.

His on-screen charm, combined with his eventual six marriages and numerous love affairs, earned him the nickname Òsexy RexyÓ -- a moniker he is reported to have hated. The elegant playboy he portrayed in The RakeÕs Progress (1945) is widely regarded as his definitive role. Among the murkier chapters of his private life is the part he may have played in the suicide, in 1948, of the American actress Carole Landis; the pair had dinner together the night before she killed herself.

His Hollywood peers included Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, whom he outshone when the trio appeared in Cleopatra (1963). Harrison, as Caesar, was the only one nominated for an Oscar. He co-starred with Charlton Heston in The Agony and the Ecstasy, playing Pope Julius to HestonÕs Michelangelo. But it was his reprisal of the role he had first made his own on Broadway -- the bachelor professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins, who transforms the life of cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle, for a bet -- which is still revered by film buffs the world over. The combination of Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, Stanley Holloway and the stunning costumes of Cecil Beaton, made the 1964 musical, My Fair Lady, a winner. It took eight Academy Awards, including, for Harrison, the Oscar for Best Actor. Ironically, Harrison barely sings a note, but famously delivers the lyrics in his speaking voice, in time to the music. His lack of singing ability did not prevent him making another musical, Dr Dolittle, three years later. A younger audience came to know him, particularly through the filmÕs hit song Talk to the Animals.

Harrison published his autobiography in 1975 and also edited a poetry anthology. His long-awaited knighthood came in 1989, the year before his death. At the investiture at Buckingham Palace, the orchestra played a selection from the score of My Fair Lady.
/ENDS