Lunch Break Video: Julie Andrews, passed over for movie version of “My Fair Lady,” sings “I Could Have Danced All Night”

Julie Andrews was one of the biggest movie stars of the 60s with such films as The Sound of Music, Thoroughly Modern Millie and her Oscar-winning performance in Mary Poppins.

So it seems stunning that when it was time to make the movie version of My Fair Lady, Miss Andrews was passed up for the role of Eliza Doolittle even though she had triumphed in it on Broadway and her leading man, Rex Harrison was going to recreate his part.

But Julie was not yet a movie stand the studio wanted a big box office name and chose Audrey Hepburn. Audrey later said in interviews that she felt that Andrews should have had the part but she accepted after the studio said if she didn’t do it, they were going to choose yet another actress. “I felt I had as much of a right to do it as the third girl,” Hepburn said.

So, I wanted to share video of Miss Andrews singing some of the songs from the movie. It makes you wonder about what could have been. Hepburn was wonderful in the part but had a limited singing range and was dubbed in the musical numbers by Marni Nixon.

While Harrison won the Oscar for his performance, Hepburn did not. The best actress Oscar that year went to … Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins!