Rex Harrison

Rex Harrison, born Reginald Carey Harrison on 5 March 1908 at Derry House in Huyton, Lancashire, was an English actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television across more than six decades. The youngest of three children born to Edith Mary Harrison and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker, he adopted the name Rex at the age of ten. He was educated at Birkdale preparatory school and Liverpool College, and a childhood bout of measles left him with severely diminished sight in his left eye. His interest in acting emerged early, through school productions and visits to the Liverpool Playhouse.

Harrison made his professional stage debut at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1924, appearing in Thirty Minutes in a Street at the age of sixteen. He remained at the Playhouse in small roles until 1927, after which six years of touring and repertory work followed. His West End debut came in 1936 with Terence Rattigan's French Without Tears, a production that established him as a leading light comedian and marked his breakthrough as a stage performer. That same year he received critical notice for Heroes Don't Care. His stage career was interrupted when he served in the Royal Air Force from 1942 to 1944, attaining the rank of Flight Lieutenant.

Harrison's Broadway career extended from 1936 to 1989 and brought him two Tony Awards. The first came in 1949 for Best Actor in a Play, earned through his portrayal of Henry VIII in Maxwell Anderson's Anne of the Thousand Days, performed at the Shubert Theatre. His second Tony, for Best Actor in a Musical, followed his celebrated performance as Professor Henry Higgins in the 1956 production of My Fair Lady, in which he appeared opposite Julie Andrews. He returned to the role in a 1981 revival directed by Patrick Garland. In 1984 he received a third Tony nomination for his performance as Captain Shotover in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House. That same year he appeared alongside Claudette Colbert in Frederick Lonsdale's Aren't We All? at the Haymarket Theatre, a pairing he repeated with The Kingfisher in 1985 and Aren't We All? again in 1986. His final Broadway production was W. Somerset Maugham's The Circle, which opened on 14 November 1989 opposite Glynis Johns, Stewart Granger, and Roma Downey, following tryout engagements at Duke University, Baltimore, and Boston.

His film career began with The Great Game in 1930 and a bit part in The School for Scandal the same year. His first starring role came in the 1937 romantic comedy Storm in a Teacup, opposite Vivien Leigh. He received critical acclaim for his performance in Major Barbara in 1941, a production filmed in London during the Blitz. Following his wartime service, he returned to screens in Blithe Spirit in 1945, then moved to Hollywood under contract with 20th Century Fox, appearing in Anna and the King of Siam in 1946 and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir in 1947. He played Julius Caesar in the Fox epic Cleopatra in 1963, and the following year reprised his stage role as Henry Higgins in the film adaptation of My Fair Lady, a performance that earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. He subsequently starred as the titular character in Doctor Dolittle in 1967. Harrison retired from film after A Time to Die in 1983 and continued working on stage until shortly before his death.

Away from his professional work, Harrison was married six times and had two sons, Noel and Carey Harrison. He published his first autobiography in 1975, and a second, A Damned Serious Business: My Life in Comedy, appeared posthumously in 1991. In June 1989, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him. Despite contending with glaucoma, dental pain, and a diminishing memory in his later years, he remained active on Broadway and in the West End until the end of his life. Harrison died of pancreatic cancer on 2 June 1990 at the age of 82.