A full year before My Fair Lady was released in theaters in December 1964, Vogue teased its readers with a delicious portfolio featuring Audrey Hepburn in Cecil Beaton’s fantastical costumes for the film. Today, in honor of Hepburn’s birthday, we’re publishing rarely seen outtakes from that spread—which gave the world its first look at Ms. Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle—as well as photographs from the set of My Fair Lady. But as with all things in Hollywood, there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
Simply put, the character of Eliza is undeniable, quick-witted and outlandish. When we first meet her, she’s selling flowers and deadpanning in her cockney accent and only becomes even more cutting after she learns the Queen’s English. Technically speaking, Eliza’s character debuted in 1913, imagined by playwright George Bernard Shaw for his play Pygmalion, named for the figure from ancient Greek mythology. By 1956, the play had been adapted into My Fair Lady, a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, and the immensely talented Beaton—a photographer, interior decorator, and costume designer (among other things)—was tasked with outfitting it. Dressing Eliza for this version, however, meant costuming Julie Andrews.
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Andrews originated the role on Broadway, winning over hearts and critics in the process. So when Hepburn was cast in My Fair Lady’s feature-film adaptation, it was something of a Hollywood scandal. The press all too happily pitted the two thespians against each other; Hepburn, once perceived as the wide-eyed gamine with an elegance beyond her years, was now framed as wrestling the role out of Andrews’s untrained hands. (The latter hadn’t yet made her big-screen debut.) But what really sent reporters into a tizzy? The fact that while Andrews possessed an incredible voice, Hepburn’s heady talents stopped just short of singing.
As such, when Vogue asked Beaton to photograph Hepburn in a selection of looks that would inform his confections for the film, he had his work cut out for him…or did he? Seen here as a little head peeking out of a mille-feuille of organza or as a fashion plate in a Poiret-esque ensemble cinched below the hips, Hepburn steps into the role splendidly. (The artist and muse were already well acquainted: Beaton had been photographing Hepburn for more than a decade by the early 1960s.)
The film’s circa-1912 setting is one in which hats were an essential accessory; in each of the dozen photos snapped by Beaton, a hat of his own creation is on display. “He makes you look the way you have always wanted to look,” Hepburn told Vogue of Beaton. “I adore the hats; they seem to be always in motion…the dress becomes a stem to the hat. Cecil Beaton’s dresses are the sculpted statue—like Pygmalion’s.”
With a face and frame like Hepburn’s, plus Beaton’s knowing eye and talents with a needle and thread, the final product was nothing short of loverly. Here, we mix the Vogue outtakes with other rare scenes of Beaton dressing Hepburn for the role. “The costumes must step ahead of the past to have influence,” Beaton said of My Fair Lady’s wardrobe. Consider that another feat he accomplished with aplomb.
