Up for auction a "My Fair Lady" Cast Signed (X4) Playbill Page. Signers include; Rex Harrison, Cheryl Kennedy, Milo O'Shea and Cathleen Nesbitt. This item is certified authentic by JG Autographs and comes with their Letter of Authenticity.
ES-5466
Sir Reginald Carey "Rex" Harrison (5
March 1908 – 2 June 1990) was an English actor. Harrison began his career on
the stage in 1924. He made his West End debut in 1936 appearing in the Terence Rattigan play French Without Tears,
in what was his breakthrough role. He won his first Tony Award for his performance as Henry VIII in the
play Anne of the Thousand Days in
1949. He won his second Tony for the role of Professor Henry Higgins in the
stage production of My Fair Lady in
1957. In addition to his stage career, Harrison also appeared in numerous
films. His first starring role was opposite Vivien Leigh in the romantic comedy Storm in a Teacup (1937).
Receiving critical acclaim for his performance in Major Barbara (1941),
which was shot in London during the Blitz, his roles since then included Blithe Spirit (1945), Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Cleopatra (1963), My Fair Lady (1964),
reprising his role as Henry Higgins which earned him the Academy Award for Best
Actor, and the titular character in Doctor Dolittle (1967).
In 1975, Harrison released his first autobiography. In June 1989, he was
knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He was
married six times and had two sons: Noel and Carey Harrison. He continued working in stage productions
until shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in June 1990 at the age of 82. His
second autobiography, A Damned Serious Business: My Life in Comedy,
was published posthumously in 1991.
Cheryl
Kennedy (born 29 April
1947) is an English actress. She
was born in Enfield, Middlesex, and educated at a convent. Her first appearance was
at the age of 15 at Stratford East Theatre Workshop in What a Crazy World. She
enjoyed success as a stage actress, notably in West End musicals such as the 1967 revival of The Boy Friend. Her
other West End theatre credits include Victoria in Half a Sixpence, Winnie in The Matchgirls, Belinda in Jorrocks at
the New Theatre, and Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends at
the Garrick Theatre. In 1977
she appeared as Maggie in Teeth 'n' Smiles at
the Oxford Playhouse. She starred alongside Michael Crawford in a production of Flowers for Algernon at
the Queen's Theatre and
features on the original London cast recording of the show. She appeared in
the TV musical Pickwick for
the BBC in 1969. During the 1970s she appeared in
several British films,
including the Lust segment of The Magnificent Seven
Deadly Sins (1971) and as Jo Mason in the Dick Emery film Ooh... You Are Awful (1972).
Her television credits include The Strauss Family, The Sweeney, Schalcken the Painter, Hari-Kari
and Sally, When the Bough Breaks, It's a Lovely Day
Tomorrow and Time and Time Again. For ITV she was in an episode of the series The Professionals.
Kennedy took the role of Eliza Doolittle opposite Rex Harrison in a 1980 revival of the 1950s Broadway production of My Fair Lady. Her
casting was initially challenged by Actor's Equity because
she had been chosen ahead of more than 50 American actress finalists but Rex
Harrison insisted that a British-born actress should take the part;[1] additionally, Mike Merrick, the show's
producer, maintained her singing ability, her experience in musicals in London's West End and the authenticity she would bring as a result
of her and her parents' lives in the London area made her uniquely qualified
for the role.[2] From the show's opening in New Orleans in September 1980, she continued in the role
for nearly a year as it toured American cities. Shortly before it began a run
on Broadway at the Uris Theater on 18 August 1981, she was forced to
withdraw after a physician diagnosed nodes on her vocal cords;[1] Nancy Ringham, her understudy, assumed the role
in her Broadway debut.
Milo
Donal O'Shea (2 June 1926 – 2
April 2013) was an Irish actor. He was
twice nominated for the Tony Award
for Best Actor in a Play for his performances in Staircase (1968) and Mass Appeal (1982). O'Shea
was born and brought up in Dublin and educated by the Christian Brothers at Synge Street school, along with his friend Donal Donnelly. His father was a singer and his mother a
ballet teacher. Because he was bilingual, O'Shea performed in English-speaking
theatres and in Irish in the Abbey Theatre Company. At age 12, he appeared in George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra at
the Gate Theatre. He later
studied music and drama at the Guildhall
School in London and was a skilled pianist. He was discovered
in the 1950s by Harry Dillon, who ran the 37 Theatre Club on the top floor of
his shop the Swiss Gem Company, 51 Lower O'Connell Street Dublin. Early in his
career O'Shea toured with the theatrical company of Anew McMaster.
Cathleen
Nesbitt CBE (born Kathleen
Mary Nesbitt; 24 November 1888 – 2 August 1982) was an English actress
of stage, film and television. Born in Birkenhead, Cheshire,[1] England to Thomas and Mary Catherine (née
Parry) Nesbitt as Kathleen Mary Nesbitt in 1888 of Welsh and Irish descent, she
was educated in Lisieux, France, and at the Queen's University of
Belfast and the Sorbonne. Her younger
brother, Thomas Nesbitt, Jr., acted in one film in 1925, before his death in
South Africa in 1927 from an apparent heart attack. She made her debut in
London in the stage revival of Arthur Wing Pinero's The
Cabinet Minister (1910). She acted in countless plays after that. In 1911, she joined the Irish Players,
went to the United States and debuted on Broadway in The Well of the
Saints. She also was in the cast of John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western
World with the Irish Players when the whole cast was pelted
with fruits and vegetables by the offended Irish American Catholic audience.
She became the love of English poet Rupert Brooke in 1912. Brooke wrote love sonnets to her,
and they were engaged to be married when he died during World War I.
Nesbitt returned to the US and appeared on Broadway in Quinneys (1915)
and John Galsworthy's Justice (1916)
as John Barrymore's leading
lady in his first dramatic stage role. After five other plays there, she
returned to England. For the rest of the decade she performed in London; her
roles included the title role in a revival of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.
Her film debut was in the silent A Star Over Night (1919). She then
performed in The Faithful Heart (1922). She did not appear in
a film again until 1930, when she played the role of Anne Lymes in Canaries Sometimes Sing,
which was an early talkie. In 1932, she
appeared in The Frightened Lady.
She appeared in the 1938 film version of Pygmalion as
"a lady" who attends the Embassy ball. In the opening credits her
first name was spelled as "Kathleen", but as "Cathleen" at
the end of the film. She played the part of Mother in the 1949 BBC TV remake of
the drama film Elizabeth of Ladymead.
Nesbitt's first Hollywood film was Three Coins in the
Fountain (1954), in which she played the character role of
La Principessa. This was followed that same year by Black Widow, in which
she played Lucia Colletti. She was Cary Grant's Grandmother Janou in 1957's An Affair to Remember (though
she was, in fact, only 16 years older than Grant) and, the following year, was
part of the ensemble cast of Separate Tables. She
also appeared in The Parent Trap (1961),
and Promise Her Anything (1965).