Biography
Born Reginald Carey Harrison on 5 March 1908 in Huyton, England, the urbane performer died on 2 June 1990 in Manhattan, New York, USA. Over a lengthy career he moved with equal assurance between serious drama and sophisticated comedy on stage and screen, yet most audiences associate him indelibly with his definitive embodiment of Professor Henry Higgins in the landmark musical My Fair Lady. He first stepped before provincial audiences in 1924; six years afterward he reached the West End and simultaneously entered motion pictures. Thereafter he balanced theatrical engagements with film assignments until 1956, when he committed two seasons to the Broadway production of My Fair Lady and received a Tony Award for his performance. He repeated the role in London in 1958 and later collected an Academy Award for the 1964 screen adaptation. The conversational manner he brought to singing lent particular distinction to “The Rain In Spain,” “Why Can’t The English?,” “I’m an Ordinary Man,” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face.” Despite the show’s triumph he never again appeared in a stage musical and completed only one additional screen musical, Doctor Dolittle (1967), a costly commercial failure. Among later distinctions he was awarded Italy’s Order of Merit for his depiction of Pope Julius II in Carol Reed’s The Agony And The Ecstasy, and in recognition of his theatrical achievements he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. Only weeks prior to his death he returned to Broadway, appearing with Glynis Johns and Stewart Granger in Somerset Maugham’s The Circle. His son from his marriage to actress Lilli Palmer, Noel Harrison, himself became a singer and actor.
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