My Fair Lady

Question

I just re-watched My Fair Lady (on DVD). In Prof Higgins's living room there a lot of photographs/portraits on the walls. Perhaps they were just randomly picked by whoever was the set designer. But I started wondering...

Perhaps those are in fact photographs of "famous" English phoneticians/linguists? Has anyone recognized any of the photos?

--- jouni maho

PS. Is that really Jeremy Brett singing? Or was he dubbed too?

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[nq:1]I just re-watched My Fair Lady (on DVD). In Prof Higgins's living room there a lot of photographs/portraits on the ... recognized any of the photos? --- jouni maho PS. Is that really Jeremy Brett singing? Or was he dubbed too?[/nq]
Jeremy Brett??

Pedersen's Discovery of Language has lots of portraits. -- Peter T. Daniels (Email Removed)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I just re-watched My Fair Lady (on DVD). In Prof Higgins's living room there a lot of photographs/portraits on the ... I started wondering... Perhaps those are in fact photographs of "famous" English phoneticians/linguists? Has anyone recognized any of the photos?[/nq]
Here are a few publicity stills of the set, courtesy IMDb:

The portraits look pretty random to me. One looks very much like Holbein's painting of Sir Thomas More, but on closer inspection is slightly different. No sign of the two most likely suspects, Henry Sweet and Daniel Jones (phoneticians who are said to have inspired the Higgins character).

http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/HSS/ http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/dept.htm

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I just re-watched My Fair Lady (on DVD). (...) PS. Is that really Jeremy Brett singing? Or was he dubbed too?[/nq]
This site seems to provide a comprehensive answer to the question: http://www.geocities.com/~smidden/soundsfairlady.htm

"There is a great deal of controversy over "Did Jeremy use his real singing voice in My Fair Lady (1964)?" For many years, Jeremy insisted that he, himself, sang his own songs in MFL, but the "top notes" were "sweetened" by another singer. Yet in a 1994 documentary "More Loverly Than Ever: The Making of My Fair Lady Than & Now", he confessed his voice had actually been "dubbed" by the vocals of a more professional singer named Bill Shirley (which is also noted in the MFL soundtracks. He also did the voice of Prince Phillip from Disney's 1959 animated feature-film, Sleeping Beauty, comparingly (sic), I admit, they are quite alike)."

Matti

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In article (Email Removed), Jouni Filip Maho (Email Removed) writes:
[nq:1]I just re-watched My Fair Lady (on DVD). In Prof Higgins's living room there a lot of photographs/portraits on the ... I started wondering... Perhaps those are in fact photographs of "famous" English phoneticians/linguists? Has anyone recognized any of the photos?[/nq]
Haven't seen MFL in awhile, but I'm pretty sure I recognized portraits of Dickens, Darwin, and Tennyson on HH's walls. As you suggest, "famous phonetician" may be an oxymoron.

BTW, "My Fair Lady" is the only musical I can stand. I prefer it to the "Pygmalion" movie starring Leslie Howard which Shaw himself adapted for the screen. I think Rex Harrison is a far superior Higgins. Though I can live without Audrey Hepburn, everyone else in the cast is great.

Your pal, Barney

Philosophy is concerned with two matters: soluble questions that are trivial, and crucial questions that are insoluble. --- Stefan Kanfer

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I just re-watched My Fair Lady (on DVD). (...) PS. Is that really Jeremy Brett singing? Or was he dubbed too?[/nq]
[nq:1]This site seems to provide a comprehensive answer to the question: http://www.geocities.com/~smidden/soundsfairlady.htm[/nq]
Thanks. That clears it.

--- jouni maho

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I just re-watched My Fair Lady (on DVD). In Prof ... "famous" English phoneticians/linguists? Has anyone recognized any of the photos?[/nq]
[nq:1]Here are a few publicity stills of the set, courtesy IMDb: The portraits look pretty random to ... most likely suspects, Henry Sweet and Daniel Jones (phoneticians who are said to have inspired the Higgins character). http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/HSS/ http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/dept.htm[/nq]
Then they wouldn't very likely have appeared in the study of someone living in an alternate universe -- just as President Bartlet never mentions the Clinton or Bush administrations (since he was elected in '98 and '02).

Would even someone as egocentric as Shaw have had a portrait of himself in his office? -- Peter T. Daniels (Email Removed)

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In article (Email Removed), "Peter T. Daniels" (Email Removed) writes:
[nq:1]Would even someone as egocentric as Shaw have had a portrait of himself in his office? --[/nq]
Yes. His office in Ayot St Lawrence was plastered with representations of himself. He made room for one picture of Gandhi and one picture of Stalin, his two modern heroes.

Your pal, Barney

Philosophy is concerned with two matters: soluble questions that are trivial, and crucial questions that are insoluble. --- Stefan Kanfer

My Fair Lady

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