Rex Harrison

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source.
Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations of additional sources.
Rex Harrison

Rex Harrison pictured in 1947
Born Reginald Carey Harrison
March 5, 1908(1908-03-05)
Huyton, Merseyside, England
Died June 2, 1990 (aged 82)
New York City, New York, USA
Spouse(s) Colette Thomas (1934-1942)
Lilli Palmer (1943-1957)
Kay Kendall (1957-1959)
Rachel Roberts (1962-1971)
Elizabeth Harris (1971-1975)
Mercia Tinker (1978-1990)

Sir Reginald “Rex” Carey Harrison (5 March 1908 – 2 June 1990) was an English Academy Award and Tony Award-winning theatre and film actor.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Youth and stage career

Harrison was born in Huyton, a suburb of Liverpool, then part of Lancashire, and educated at Liverpool College.[1] He first appeared on the stage in 1924 in Liverpool. Harrison's acting career was interrupted during World War II whilst he served in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant.[1] He acted in various stage productions until 11 May 1990. He acted in the West End of London when he was young, appearing in the Terence Rattigan play French Without Tears, which proved to be his breakthrough role.

He alternated appearances in London and New York, winning a Tony Award for his appearance as Henry VIII in Anne of the Thousand Days and international superstardom (and a second Tony Award) for his Henry Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady. Later appearances included 's Pirandello's Enrico IV, a 1984 appearance at the Haymarket Theatre with Claudette Colbert in Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All?, and also on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre presented by Douglas Urbanski, at the Haymarket in J. M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton with Edward Fox. He revived his Henry Higgins in a highly paid revival of My Fair Lady in 1981, cementing his association with the plays of George Bernard Shaw which included a Tony nominated performance as Shotover in Heartbreak House, Julius Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra, and General Burgoyne in a Los Angeles production of The Devil's Disciple...

[edit] In film

Harrison as Julius Caesar in the film Cleopatra, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award
Harrison as Julius Caesar in the film Cleopatra, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award

Harrison's film debut was in The Great Game (1930), and other notable early films include The Citadel (1938), Night Train to Munich (1940), Major Barbara (1941), Blithe Spirit (1945), Anna and the King of Siam (1946), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), and The Foxes of Harrow (1947). He was best known for his portrayal of Professor Henry Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady, based on the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, especially after he reprised the role in the 1964 film version, for which he won a Best Actor Oscar. The 1956 cast album set sales records at the time. He revived the role on stage in the early 1980s. He also starred in 1967's Doctor Dolittle. Harrison was not by general terms a singer; thus, the music was generally written to allow for long periods of recitative, generally identified as "speaking to the music". Although excelling in High Comedy (Noel Coward said "Rex Harrison is the greatest interpreter of high comedy in the world ... next to Me!"[cite this quote]), he attracted favourable notices in dramatic roles such as his portrayal of Julius Caesar in Cleopatra (1963) and as Pope Julius II in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), opposite Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. He also appeared as an aging homosexual man opposite Richard Burton as his lover in Staircase. He also acted in a Hindi movie Shalimar alongside the Indian Superstar Dharmendra.

[edit] Personal life

Harrison was married six times. In 1942 he divorced his first wife, Colette Thomas, and married actress Lilli Palmer the next year; the two later appeared together in numerous plays and films, including The Fourposter. After several years in film, he achieved wide acclaim starring in the adaptation of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit (1945). He followed that with his first major American film, starring as King Mongkut in Anna and the King of Siam. 1947 saw the release of the classic The Ghost and Mrs. Muir opposite Gene Tierney.

In 1947, while married to Palmer, Harrison began an affair with Carole Landis that became public knowledge. Hollywood blamed Harrison for Landis's 1948 suicide and the scandal resulted in him losing his contract with Fox.[citation needed] Harrison and Palmer divorced in 1957. He soon remarried, to actress Kay Kendall. He was subsequently married to Welsh-born Rachel Roberts, who, like Landis, later committed suicide by taking sleeping pills. Harrison then married Elizabeth Rees-Williams and, finally, Mercia Tinker, who would become his widow in 1990.

Chronology of Harrison's six marriages

[edit] Honors and death

On 25 July 1989, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, while an orchestra played the music of songs from My Fair Lady.

Having retired from films in the late 1970s, he had continued to act on Broadway until the very end, despite suffering from glaucoma, painful teeth and a failing memory. In 1990 he was appearing on Broadway in The Circle by W. Somerset Maugham, opposite Glynis Johns and Stewart Granger, when he fell ill.[2] It was discovered that he had pancreatic cancer but had been unaware of it, and he died peacefully three weeks later in New York City at the age of 82, causing the show to end prematurely.

Rex Harrison has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one at 6906 Hollywood Boulevard for his contribution to motion pictures, and another at 6380 Hollywood Boulevard for his contribution to the television industry.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Awards

Nominations :


[edit] References

  1. ^ www.filmreference.com
  2. ^ Rex Harrison Back on Broadway

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:


Awards
Preceded by
Albert Finney
for Tom Jones		 NYFCC Award for Best Actor
1964
for My Fair Lady		 Succeeded by
Oskar Werner
for Ship of Fools
v • d • e
Academy Award for Best Actor

Maximilian Schell (1961) · Gregory Peck (1962) · Sidney Poitier (1963) · Rex Harrison (1964) · Lee Marvin (1965) · Paul Scofield (1966) · Rod Steiger (1967) · Cliff Robertson (1968) · John Wayne (1969) · George C. Scott (1970) · Gene Hackman (1971) · Marlon Brando (1972) · Jack Lemmon (1973) · Art Carney (1974) · Jack Nicholson (1975) · Peter Finch (1976) · Richard Dreyfuss (1977) · Jon Voight (1978) · Dustin Hoffman (1979) · Robert De Niro (1980)

Complete List · (1928–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001-present)
v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play

José Ferrer / Fredric March (1947) · Henry Fonda / Paul Kelly / Basil Rathbone (1948) · Rex Harrison (1949) · Sidney Blackmer (1950) · Claude Rains (1951) · José Ferrer (1952) · Tom Ewell (1953) · David Wayne (1954) · Alfred Lunt (1955) · Paul Muni (1956) · Fredric March (1957) · Ralph Bellamy (1958) · Jason Robards, Jr. (1959) · Melvyn Douglas (1960) · Zero Mostel (1961) · Paul Scofield (1962) · Arthur Hill (1963) · Alec Guinness (1964) · Walter Matthau (1965) · Hal Holbrook (1966) · Paul Rogers (1967) · Martin Balsam (1968) · James Earl Jones (1969) · Fritz Weaver (1970) · Brian Bedford (1971) · Cliff Gorman (1972) · Alan Bates (1973) · Michael Moriarty (1974) · John Kani / Winston Ntshona (1975)
v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical

Paul Hartman (1948) · Ray Bolger (1949) · Ezio Pinza (1950) · Robert Alda (1951) · Phil Silvers (1952) · Thomas Mitchell (1953) · Alfred Drake (1954) · Walter Slezak (1955) · Ray Walston (1956) · Rex Harrison (1957) · Robert Preston (1958) · Richard Kiley (1959) · Jackie Gleason (1960) · Richard Burton (1961) · Robert Morse (1962) · Zero Mostel (1963) · Bert Lahr (1964) · Zero Mostel (1965) · Richard Kiley (1966) · Robert Preston (1967) · Robert Goulet (1968) · Jerry Orbach (1969) · Cleavon Little (1970) · Hal Linden (1971) · Phil Silvers (1972) · Ben Vereen (1973) · Christopher Plummer (1974) · John Cullum (1975)
Persondata
NAME Harrison, Rex
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harrison, Reginald Carey
SHORT DESCRIPTION Actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Huyton, Merseyside, England
DATE OF DEATH June 2, 1990
PLACE OF DEATH New York City, United States