The only surviving audio element from the film is the production master, which is actually one generation down from the original recording.
The original Broadway production of "My Fair Lady" opened at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York on March 15, 1956, and ran for 2717 performances, which was, at the time, the longest run a Broadway show had ever had. To date (April 2009), the original production is still the eighteenth-longest-running production in Broadway history. Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway recreated their roles in the movie. Harrison won the 1957 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical and Hollaway was nominated for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. The show won the 1957 Tony Award (New York City) for the Best Musical.
The original Broadway production of "Pygmalion" on which "My Fair Lady" was based opened at the Park Theater opening October 12, 1914, ran for 72 performances and was revived in 1927, 1938, 1945, 1987 and 2007. The play premiered in a German translation at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on October 16, 1913 and in English at His Majesty's Theatre in London on April 11, 1914 and starred Mrs. Patrick Campbell.
The original choice to direct the film was Vincente Minnelli but when his salary demands were too high, the job went to George Cukor.
The play had first been staged on Broadway in March 1956, and opened in London in 1958. A clause in the contract stated that the film version could not be made until the play had finished in September 1962.
The role of Eliza Doolittle was originally played on Broadway by Julie Andrews. However, she was denied the role because the film's producers didn't think she was "known" enough as a film actress. Many felt that this snub as well as Audrey Hepburn's singing being dubbed led to Hepburn's not being nominated for the Best Actress Oscar nomination.
The story takes place in 1912.
The title is derived from saying "Mayfair Lady" in a cockney accent.
The title of the film appears nowhere in the dialogue nor any of the song lyrics.
U.S. television viewers had something of a Rex Harrison film-fest on Thanksgiving Week, 1973. Doctor Dolittle aired on Thanksgiving Eve on ABC-TV, followed by My Fair Lady on NBC-TV on Thanksgiving Day. This was the U.S. commercial TV premiere of both films, and was probably not a coincidence.
When Audrey Hepburn was first informed that her voice wasn't strong enough and that she would have to be dubbed, she walked out. She returned the next day and - in a typically graceful Hepburn gesture - apologized to everybody for her "wicked behavior".
When Rex Harrison accepted his Academy Award for My Fair Lady, he dedicated it to his "two fair ladies", Audrey Hepburn and Julie Andrews both who had played Eliza Doolittle with him.
When asked why he turned down the role of Henry Higgins, Cary Grant remarked that his original manner of speaking was much closer to Eliza Dolittle.
When Eliza Dolittle demands to see what Henry Higgins has been writing about her, in the beginning of the film, he shows her his notebook, which she cannot read. The notation in the notebook is "Visible Speech", a phonetic notation invented by Alexander Melville Bell (father of Alexander Graham Bell) and extended and used heavily by Henry Sweet, a real-life phonetician and apparently the basis of the Henry Higgins character.
While the movie received generally favorable reviews, critics were divided on Audrey Hepburn's performance as Eliza. While some were critical of the fact that she was dubbed, others such as esteemed British dramatist Sir 'John Gielgud' went on record as saying that Audrey Hepburn was "better than Julie Andrews!" in the role.