I just discovered that the singer who dubbed Natalie Wood’s singing voice in West Side Story is the same singer who dubbed Audrey Hepburn’s singing voice in My Fair Lady. A quick Wiki research will reveal that Marni Nixon is the singing voice behind many very well known Hollywood movies such as An Affair to Remember (for Deborah Kerr), Joan of Arc (for Ingrid Bergman), Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s The King & I (for Deborah Kerr), and others, in addition to the two movies mentioned earlier.
I love My Fair Lady – The story of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney (working class Londoner) flower girl who took speech lessons from one Professor Henry Higgins so that she can pass as a lady. I’m just rediscovering Audrey Hepburn (and Julie Andrews, for that matter). I found several treasures at YouTube showing the clips featuring the real singing voice of Hepburn and some other original renditions by Andrews (with rare theater production pictures) and they were all marvelous in their own individual way.
I have also recently watched the original TV production of Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Julie Andrews and was pleasantly surprised to realize that the recent Manila production (starring Lea Salonga) didn’t deviate much from the material. Lea’s Cinderella is just a little bit more spunky compared with Julie’s prim and proper lady but I love both versions.
I think I want to rewatch The Sound of Music next.