Rex: An Autobiography

"In this long-awaited memoir one of the theatre's most sophisticated and magnetic personalities tells about his life, his loves, and his pursuit of happiness. Rex Harrison is best remembered by millions of Americans for his superb performances as Professor Henry Higgins in the stage and screen versions of My Fair Lady, for which he received an Oscar. He has had other brilliant successes, among them the stage role of Henry VIII in Maxwell Anderson's Anne of the Thousand Days, for which he received the Antoinette Perry Award as the Best Actor of the Year, the role of Julius Caesar in the film Cleopatra, and as Don Quixote on television. During the time he spent writing this book, he played in the title role of Pirandello's Henry IV in Canada, the United States, and London. The path that led from a one-line professional part at the Liverpool Repertory to his international triumphs was not all rose-strewn. For nine years he toured in road companies of plays that had been hits. A brief experience in New York in a Joyce Cary play, Sweet Aloes, was followed by his first great success in London in Terence Rattigan's French Without Tears. For the next few years Rex had leading parts in plays while giving every bit of his spare time to increasingly important roles in motion pictures. Whether Mr. Harrison is writing about his touring days or his performances in London as the bombs fell, serving in the Royal Air Force or sampling la dolce vita in Hollywood, creating his own villa at Portofino or waiting on location for the next extravagant film take, his humor and sense of proportion never desert him. Although there is a little of Henry Higgins in the man, Rex Harrison has let a woman in his life from time to time. He has suffered great personal losses and survived. He has had brilliant triumphs and some disheartening failures. Mr. Harrison discusses the differences between stage and film acting techniques. He writes of his happy life with his present wife, Elizabeth, and also of the ups and downs of life with Collette Thomas, Lilli Palmer, Kay Kendall, and Rachel Roberts. Readers will be fascinated with his stories about Julie Andrews, Greta Garbo, Greer Garson, Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Maxwell Anderson, Richard Burton, Noël Coward, Laurence Olivier, and many others. No gossipy, superficial book, this is an account of the good years of Rex Harrison and the bad, the tragedies and the triumphs. It is a self-portrait of an actor who may yet play his greatest role."--Dust jacket.