My Fair Lady, George Cukor’s adaption of George Shaw’s play Pygmalion, is a musical tale centered on a common class flower girl who is transformed into a accepted lady in high society by a misogynistic linguistics expert.
On this day, April 29th, in 1958, Drury Lane Theatre in Westminster, London was packed with people anticipating the big debut of My Fair Lady. Ticket prices were three times more expensive than the usual, and within the first month over $350,000 pounds worth of tickets were sold. This London version of the musical matched its Broadway version with records of earning over $7.3 million in a two-year period.
My Fair Lady has marked history as the second highest-grossing play on Broadway and has ran for 2281 performances in a five-and-a-half year period. During its time on Broadway it has won over eight Oscar’s with and audience of over four million people.