Knightley Will Be 'Loverly' in Wright Helmed 'MY FAIR LADY' Film,
Craig Mentioned as 'Higgins'
Saturday, October 24, 2009; Posted: 03:10 PM - by BWW News Desk
The UK Telegraph's Mandrake reports that Keira Knightley been cast her
in the lead for the big screen remake of My Fair Lady. Mandrake
reveals that the actress beat out Scarlett Johansson for the part.
Director Joe Wright, who guided Knightley to much acclaim for her
performance in his Pride and Prejudice, has been chosen to helm the
film.
Last week, "Lady" Producer Duncan Kenworthy remarked "I think Keira
would be absolutely fabulous in it." The Telegraph reports that Emma
Thompson is writing the script for the film, for which A STEADY RAIN
star Daniel Craig has been mentioned as a possible Professor Henry
Higgins. To read the full article click here.
Rumors have been circulating since last summer suggesting Knightley
had secured the role made famous by Audrey Hepburn in the 1964
musical, based on George Bernard Shaw's comedy of manners, Pygmalion.
It was announced last summer that Columbia Pictures had entered into
an agreement with CBS Films to create a new motion picture of the
Lerner and Loewe classic musical My Fair Lady, to be produced by
Duncan Kenworthy and Cameron Mackintosh, the announcement came from
Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of Columbia Pictures.
The new film will use the original songs of the much-loved Broadway
show, and will not alter its 1912 setting, but Kenworthy and
Mackintosh intend where possible to shoot the film on location in the
original London settings of Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Tottenham Court
Road, Wimpole Street, and Ascot racecourse. The filmmaking team will
also look to adapt Alan Jay Lerner's book more fully for the screen by
drawing additional material from Pygmalion -- George Bernard Shaw's
play that served as the source material for the musical - in order to
dramatize as believably as possible for present-day audiences the
emotional highs and lows of Eliza Doolittle as she undergoes the
ultimate makeover, transforming under the tutelage of Professor Henry
Higgins from a Cockney flower girl to a lady.
Commenting on the announcement last summer, Belgrad said, "My Fair
Lady is not just the quintessential stage musical and classic film,
but a fantastic story. We're thrilled to have the opportunity to bring
it to the screen once again. There is no one alive who knows this
material better than Cameron Mackintosh; he has staged two revivals of
My Fair Lady, the first in 1979 directed by Alan Jay Lerner himself,
and the second the award-winning adaptation that's now touring the
United States. He and Duncan Kenworthy have already set out on the
long journey of bringing a new version to the screen and we feel very
lucky to be a part of it. This update will preserve the magic of the
musical while fleshing out the characters and bringing 1912 London to
life in an authentic and exciting way for contemporary audiences."
"My Fair Lady's extraordinary tale of a man turning a flower girl into
a lady, and then falling for her, combines one of the most powerful
narratives in world literature with some of the wittiest and most
winning songs ever written for the stage," said Mackintosh in June
2008. "People everywhere will fall in love again with Lerner and
Loewe's miraculous songs set in a big, gorgeous film with contemporary
stars, a more realistically achieved vision of Edwardian London, and a
touch more Pygmalion at the heart of this powerfully emotional story
of a girl's transformation. The classic story of a flower girl
transformed into an instant sensation couldn't be more timely in a
contemporary world obsessed with overnight celebrity."
Kenworthy said: "When George Cukor shot his wonderful film entirely on
sets inside Warner's Burbank soundstages, Lerner and Loewe's smash hit
musical had been running on Broadway for seven years, and the film was
appropriately reverential and inevitably theatrical. With forty years
of hindsight, we're confident that by setting these wonderful
characters and brilliant songs in a more realistic context, and by
exploring Eliza's emotional journey more fully, we will honor both
Shaw and Lerner at the same time as engaging and entertaining
contemporary audiences the world over. The casting of Eliza is
crucial, and we are currently in discussion with a major international
star to play the role."
The Pygmalion story has always been closely connected with the screen.
Gabriel Pascal's film of 1938, starring Wendy Hiller and Leslie
Howard, had an Oscar-winning screenplay by George Bernard Shaw
himself. My Fair Lady, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and
music by Frederick Loewe, was first staged in 1956. The musical
starred Julie Andrews, rocketing her to stardom, and won the Tony
Award for Best Musical. It was then adapted for the screen in 1963,
directed by George Cukor, with Audrey Hepburn as Eliza and Rex
Harrison as Higgins. The film won eight Academy Awards®, including
Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, and was nominated for
four more.
In case you haven't noticed - the number of spams hasn't gone down -
they've increased geometrically. Once a spammer has your address, he
will continue to sent unwanted messages at regular intervals. It
takes no additional effort whatsoever to do so - it's all automatic.
Meanwhile, Scumbag Zero continues to sell this address to future
cockroaches. Like it or not, Rec.arts.theatre.musicals is Dead Man
Walking. It's only a matter of time until the spam utterly overwhelms
everything.
Now, if your object is my name under Manager, that's simply a side
effect of my being the only one willing to step up to the plate. If
you'd prefer to start your own group, and call it RATM 2, Mazel Tov.
I'll happily join. But, for the moment, we have a spanking new, shiny
group with no spam whatsoever.
About me and politics? If you visited "Only Musicals", you'll
discover the topics I've posted involve, well, only musicals. I don't
start political arguments, nor do I push existing discussions into
areas they don't really belong.
If I read other people trashing Sarah Palin, I'll run to her defense.
But I'd much rather discuss the new Dallas production of "It's a Bird,
It's a Plane, It's SUPERMAN!!!"
,
What you're saying makes no sense. Anyone can get the name of every
newsgroup that exists in in under a minute, using any old news reader to
do it. Selling newsgroup names is as pointless as selling copies of
Wikipedia articles.
What you should do is simply switch to a news server that makes an
effort to filter spam. The amount I'm seeing on RATM is enough to be
mildly annoying, I suppose, but no more than that.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Give up vows and dogmas, and fixed things, and you may grow like
That. ...you may come to think a blow bad, because it hurts, and not
because it humiliates. You may come to think murder wrong, because it
is violent, and not because it is unjust."
-- G. K. Chesterton. "The Ball and the Cross"
>What you should do is simply switch to a news server that makes an
>effort to filter spam. The amount I'm seeing on RATM is enough to be
>mildly annoying, I suppose, but no more than that.
My proposal is this:
Everyone who contributes content and posts through Google Groups
should stop doing so, and switch to a real newsserver. Once that
happens, we can all safely killfile everything posted through
Google, and 99% of the spam will disappear.
-Patti
--
Patti Beadles, Oakland, CA |
pattib~pattib.org | All religions are equally
http://www.pattib.org/ | ludicrous, and should be ridiculed
http://stopshootingauto.com | as often as possible. C. Bond
Yep.
I use News.Individual.NET and get no span whatsoever.
Cost: 10 Euros a year.
Joan
I post through eternal september which is 100% free and have only seen spam
when I looked at the Google on-line newsgroups for the first time. It was
astonishing as I never knew there was a spam problem at all until I read
about it here. I originally set up a g-mail account in order to post freely
in Usenet and keep my ISP free of spam that used to come as a result of
posting in Usenet. I then mangled my gmail account IDs sufficiently to make
it difficult to get to me through Usenet.
I don't understand how these things work, but am very glad I don't have to
put up with it. Many ISPs have discontinued providing Usenet service (from
what I gather is concerns about availability of pornography in binary groups
[which I don't understand either conceptually or theoretically, but ok] so
it seems Google provides an easy option for those with a degree of
techno-phobia. This would include me, but when Time/Warner shut down their
Usenet service I did some research and discovered how easy it was to get a
non-ISP provider; I'm so glad to be spam-free.
(I also don't get any spam through my ISP e-mail either or through my g-mail
which makes me wonder what happened to all that spam; did it cease to be
worthwhile to the spammers or am I just protected from what others seem to
be getting beyond the google interface?)
Nothing against Keira Knightley, but why not Anne Hathaway?
SNIP -
> The Pygmalion story has always been closely connected with the screen.
> Gabriel Pascal's film of 1938, starring Wendy Hiller and Leslie
> Howard, had an Oscar-winning screenplay by George Bernard Shaw
> himself. My Fair Lady, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and
> music by Frederick Loewe, was first staged in 1956. The musical
> starred Julie Andrews, rocketing her to stardom, and won the Tony
> Award for Best Musical. It was then adapted for the screen in 1963,
> directed by George Cukor, with Audrey Hepburn as Eliza and Rex
> Harrison as Higgins. The film won eight Academy Awards�, including
> Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, and was nominated for
> four more.
Nothing against Keira Knightley, but why not Anne Hathaway?
--------------------------
I had the same thought initially . . . then I thought . . . proper accent
vs. lack thereof.
Joan
>I'd prefer never hearing her name again. Can't we try to save this group
>before we start another?
The process for starting a Usenet newsgroup is... cumbersome and
annoying, and probably not worth the hassle.
>It already exists. It's called "Only Musicals". I'll send you an
>invite to see....
I got an invite, thanks. Unfortunately, it's not a Usenet
newsgroup. What you created is a Google Group, and exists
only on Google's servers. It can't be accessed via anything
but Google's horrible web interface.
There's always yahoo groups. You can either read the messages on the
website or choose to get them sent to you via email.
> I had the same thought initially . . . then I thought . . . proper
> accent vs. lack thereof.
People complained about AH's accent in "Becoming Jane" (though I believe
it had more to do with jingoism -- "How /dare/ this Yankee upstart
counterfeit "England's Jane"?!" -- than any real problem), and that
wasn't /about/ accent.
But Eliza is a very demanding musical role, and, as far as I can tell,
KK has no vocal training or experience at all.
--
John W. Kennedy
Read the remains of Shakespeare's lost play, now annotated!
http://pws.prserv.net/jwkennedy/Double%20Falshood/index.html
Need I repeat. Neither did Audrey Hepburn.
Joan
>
> "John W Kennedy" <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:4aebc1df$0$4994$607e...@cv.net...
>> Joan in GB-W wrote:
>>> "agrgurich" <agrg...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:2dcb80e5-0f13-4055...@d5g2000yqm.googlegr
>>> oups.com...
>>>> Nothing against Keira Knightley, but why not Anne Hathaway?
>>
>>> I had the same thought initially . . . then I thought . . .
>>> proper accent vs. lack thereof.
>>
>> People complained about AH's accent in "Becoming Jane"
>> (though I believe it had more to do with jingoism -- "How
>> /dare/ this Yankee upstart counterfeit "England's Jane"?!" --
>> than any real problem), and that wasn't /about/ accent.
>>
>> But Eliza is a very demanding musical role, and, as far as I
>> can tell, KK has no vocal training or experience at all.
>>
>
> Need I repeat. Neither did Audrey Hepburn.
Who didn't sing. In my book, actors who can sing should be
selected over actors who can't, when casting musicals.
Frankly, I'd rather have seen the Broadway Eliza in the movie
version of MFL.
--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( http://soflatheatre.blogspot.com/
If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower.
And I did my own sword fighting at the NJ Renaissance Kingdom when I
played King Pellinore. That doesn't make me ready to play Cyrano or Hamlet.
--
John W. Kennedy
"There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump
of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that
because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in
the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I
can't see it that way."
-- The last words of Bat Masterson
Stephen Ross Roberts-Newport
Read about our family:
http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/ps/3/fsg9vxwzgjd7y8lr1k9g.
And please click to give -- it*s free!
In 'My Fair Lady', her singing was dubbed, and beautifully, by the
great Marni
Nixon, who's renowned for having done so for numerous leading ladies
in several film-musicals.
>
> Joan- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
LT
>AS I WROTE BEFORE, if you don't like Only Musicals, start your own
>newsgroup. It takes about ten minutes. I'll happily follow.there.
Creating a Google group takes about ten minutes.
As I've pointed out before, that's not a Usenet group. Creating an
actual honest-to-god Usenet newsgroup with propagation is much
more work.
I'm not criticizing you for creating a Google group-- if that
works out for you, have a field day. Please understand, though,
that what you have created is not a newsgroup, and does not have
the features of a real newsgroup.
The confusion isn't your fault-- Google completely muddied the
waters here.
I considered quite seriously creating an full featured newsgroup.
Because I have a very realistic idea what such an undertaking would
involve, I thought long and hard before committing the time and money
to create an unpaid part time job.
I was about to make the jump, when I noticed a post by Steve Newport.
He repeatedly accused me of deliberately infecting RAT M with spam, to
order to destroy it. That way, I could force everyone onto my Usenet
group.
I need this bullshit? I'm going to spend time and money, just to be
accused of being a saboteur?
I suggest that Mr. Newport start his own Usenet Group. That way,
instead of heckling people out of the group, he can simply delete
them.
Arrogance killed the Usenet Group.