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When she heard about the Dictabelts that Tony and I sent each other, she said, “Oh, if
only
Rupert and I had had that opportunity! I would have him with me still.”

I HAVE NEVER
really liked to know before a performance who is in the audience, and in those days it was especially intimidating.

Laurence Olivier saw the show one night, and came backstage to see Rex. He stopped by my dressing room and informed me that although
I gave a lovely performance, I needed to speak louder and project more.

The playwright Terence Rattigan was often present—Noël Coward, too, both being close friends of Rex’s and Kay’s.

Ingrid Bergman came. She was tall, radiant, and natural, and while she visited me, she asked if she could use the “john” in my dressing room. For days afterward I didn’t want to sit on the hallowed seat!

Helen Keller attended a performance and came backstage. The entire company was bowled over by her. She was probably in her sixties by then. She could neither see nor hear the show, but her interpreter relayed the entire performance to her by signing on her hand. Helen conveyed to me in a halting voice that she identified with Eliza, because she had so many problems herself with language. It was deeply moving.

The great opera singer Maria Callas came to see us. Afterward, she asked me how many performances I did a week.

“Eight,” I replied.

“How do you
do
that?” she was genuinely amazed. “How do you survive? At the height of the season I sing maybe two performances a week or, at the very most, three. You do
eight
shows a week, night after night, and
two
on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Not only that, but you sing
and
you speak, which means you have to keep changing your vocal placement.”

She was truly impressed, and I was grateful for the acknowledgment of how hard we were all working.

M
Y MOTHER CAME
to New York in early spring. She traveled over with Charles Tucker, and it was a pleasure for me to spoil her and try to give her a good time.

Oddly, I don’t recall her reaction to seeing me in
My Fair Lady
. I am sure she loved the show itself, but I don’t remember any embrace of delight, or pride in my achievement. Looking back now, I think she was a little weary, bewildered, and absent; perhaps because of seeing New York for the first time, but most probably from the effects of the stress at home.

Charlie, on the other hand, was over the moon…proud, ebullient. He squired Mum around New York when I was at the theater. He announced that he was going to buy me the fur coat he’d predicted I would one day have, and he took me and my mother to a discount place on Seventh Avenue and bought us each one. Though animal rights activists will rightly shudder at this, he chose a classic design for me that was practical and quite weatherproof. It suited me, and back then I loved the feeling of luxury when I wore it.

EVENTUALLY
MY FAIR LADY
took its toll on me, and on my voice. The role was so demanding, and the shows when I didn’t have to pace myself vocally were rare.

About five months into the run, I began to notice that, though I would commence the show in fine voice, about two-thirds of the way through the evening, my vocal quality would weaken. A few weeks later, my voice would last for perhaps
half
the show before again losing strength and
sounding fainter. After a few more weeks, my vocal strength lasted a mere quarter of the way through the show. It was puzzling and worrying; I had never experienced anything like it before.

Rex was having vocal problems as well, and at one point had to be out of the show for a few days.

Though I was in trouble myself, I could not be off at the same time as Rex. Audiences would have been appalled if two leads were absent. Anytime a prominent cast member is out, the rest of the company assumes the burden and the balance shifts.

Rex’s standby, an actor called Tom Helmore, was brought in. He had been preparing the role of Higgins, but he’d never actually worked with the principals, so he rehearsed with us all day Tuesday before going on that evening and then all morning Wednesday before the two shows.

Somehow we made it through Tuesday night, though neither Tom nor I was doing well in the vocal department.

During the matinee the next day, Helmore lost his voice. It descended into his boots, until he became incomprehensible. He had been drilled and pushed too hard, and his overstressed vocal cords simply folded on him.

By the evening’s performance, he could only manage a whisper. He confided to me backstage, “It’s funny, I feel
so
much better!” I think he was referring to his ability to play the role. Nevertheless, I could not hear him and neither could the audience. Their astonishment was palpable. Patrons began to drift out of the theater.

I was pulling everything I knew out of the hat to keep the show going. I replied to everything that Tom said in such a way that the audience understood what he had said to me.

I arrived at the song “Just You Wait,” and
my
voice was by now so fatigued that when I reached the middle of the song—
“
…
one day I’ll be famous
…
”
—a sound came out of my throat like nails scraping on a blackboard. I thought, “Oh my God, I am in
terrible
trouble.” I could still speak, thank heavens, and “Just You Wait” is a song that, in a pinch, can be talked instead of sung…so I did just that.

The scenes that follow are a montage of Eliza working with Higgins on her speech lessons. There are several blackouts in this sequence to suggest
the passage of time, but they were not long enough for me to get offstage to alert management of my dilemma. Poor Tom Helmore couldn’t be heard at all, I could not sing, and still we had “The Rain in Spain” to do and I had “I Could Have Danced All Night” immediately after that. I knew without a shadow of doubt that I would not be able to manage it.

During each brief blackout, I sent word via members of the company.

“Tell Biff that I have also lost my voice! Please ask him to do something. I will not be able to sing ‘I Could Have Danced All Night.’ Tell him to trust me.”

They dutifully did so. I received no response, and the show wove inexorably through the lessons montage. In every blackout as we regrouped, I kept saying, “Did Biff hear me?”

“Yes, he heard you.”

“Well,
please
tell him to believe me!”

Still no response.

I talked my way through “The Rain in Spain,” thinking, “In one minute I’m going to be as mortified as I have ever been in my whole life.” I didn’t have the guts to stand before the audience and say, “I am so sorry. I, too, have lost my voice.” With a lifetime of discipline and training, I just couldn’t stop a show, break character, and talk to the audience without management’s permission, and I knew I could not perform “I Could Have Danced All Night” as a talk-song. It is purely melodic with a big, high finish.

Tom Helmore, Cooter, and I sank onto the couch as “The Rain in Spain” ended, and I thought, “This is it. This is the worst moment of my life.”

Suddenly, miraculously, Biff and Jerry Adler appeared on either side of the stage, walking the huge front curtains to a close.

“That’s it, folks,” Biff said to us. “We are shutting down for the night.” He slipped through the curtains and addressed the audience, explaining that, as they were obviously aware, Mr. Helmore was having vocal difficulties. Refunds or exchanges would be processed.

Biff told me later that he had heard my vocal dilemma and had received my messages, but that protocol required him to dash to the front of the
theater and ask the house manager’s permission to phone Herman Levin, our producer, and get
his
permission to shut down the show. Hence, the agonizing delay.

I went back to my dressing room and leaned against the door, feeling as if the hand of God had come down and plucked me from a fate worse than death in the nick of time. No one was around. It was the middle of the evening, still quite light outside, and no other shows had let out yet. The theater was eerily silent.

The following morning, the press simply mentioned poor Tom Helmore and the fact that he had a very bad cold. There was not one mention of my vocal troubles. Amazingly, Tom went on again for the next few nights, and with some decent sleep, I, too, recovered enough to manage three or four more performances until Rex returned, though I was out of my mind with worry. Finally, I took time off and my understudy went on.

I went to see various specialists.

One doctor told me there was nothing wrong with my throat. “It’s a little pink, but that’s all. You’re fine.”

I asked him, “Then how come I can only sing for a quarter of the show before my voice weakens?”

“Well,” he replied, “the cords are a little tired, but they’re not
red
, they’re just pink. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

Another doctor—one recommended by Alan Lerner—gave me a complete physical, then suggested that perhaps my problem was sexual. “Are you and Tony having physical relations? Maybe you shouldn’t kiss or hug or overstimulate each other for a while.”

No point in continuing to see
that
medical genius!

Eventually I saw a dear man called Dr. Rexford, an Austrian, old-school, knowledgeable throat specialist. He took one look at my cords and said, “No wonder you’re having problems. You have
acute
vocal fatigue. If, for instance, you hop on one leg for the longest time, it will eventually weaken. You rest it overnight and it might be a little better, but hop on it again the next day and it will become weaker
sooner
. That is what has been happening to your cords.”

Dr. Rexford prescribed ten days of rest, and at that very moment, my father came to visit. It was difficult for me, because I hoped to give
him a wonderful time, but I had to rest and remain silent. I was a basket case of anxiety, nerves, and tension, knowing that so much of the show rested on my shoulders. I knew I had to return to performing as soon as possible, and that I still had more than a year to go before completing my contract.

Dad immediately assumed that what I needed was country air. His solution was to take me to Central Park, rent a skiff, and row me around the lake talking quietly to me all the while. I remember looking at him with affection, thinking, “Dad, you’re a darling, but I don’t think this is really going to do it for me.” But it was dear of him. He tried so hard to bring me back to nature and its soothing, healing qualities.

I began to visit Dr. Rexford every Saturday morning. He would check my vocal cords, pulling my tongue out so far that I became expert at relaxing my muscles and I seldom gagged at the mirror that was halfway down my throat. He always gave me a vitamin shot—B-12 and B-Complex—which was painful since he insisted on keeping his old needles and resterilizing them, rendering them horribly blunt. He would then sit at his piano and make me vocalize with him. He employed an awful falsetto voice, demonstrating what he wanted from me vocally, but he knew his craft.

The instinct, when one is in self-preservation mode, is to grab the cords and make a harsher, harder sound. If in fact you do
not
rub them together abrasively, but let them relax and use a good deal of breathy air as the sound comes through, it can stand you in good stead.

I hyperventilated so much trying to follow his advice that I nearly passed out onstage once or twice, but I learned some invaluable techniques for getting through a show: as much humidifying steam as possible in my apartment and my dressing room, no alcohol, no ice, vocal rest, of course—and NO talking on the telephone, especially first thing upon waking.

Midweek was always the hardest time for me. To this day, I still think of Wednesdays as “Black Wednesdays.” I would be in the theater early to prepare for the matinee. After the performance I would nap in my dressing room—always making sure that my upper half was propped up against pillows, as the blood rushes to vocal cords and thickens them if
you lie flat, especially after having used them. I would then eat a light meal and get ready for the second show. I would not leave the theater until midnight or after. I barely saw daylight on a Wednesday.

Doing two heavy shows on one day can slam you down in terms of fatigue. I would gradually pull myself back up for the Thursday evening performance, and by Friday night would feel a little better. Saturday arrived and with another two shows I would be flattened once again. I could relax on Sunday, but by Monday evening we started the process anew.

At the bottom of 51st Street, the New York docks are situated on the Hudson River, and the
Queen Mary
or
Queen Elizabeth
Cunard liners departed for England around noon on a Wednesday. I would be in my dressing room, applying my makeup for the first show of the day, and I would hear the great ship’s horn as the tugboats guided one or the other out to sea. The sound always made me feel sad. The liners represented freedom and home, and I longed to be aboard and sailing away in the fresh sea air.

I started seeing Dr. Rexford on Wednesday mornings as well.

REX, TOO, FELT
the strain of eight performances a week. He also became a little bored. To keep himself amused, he would do mischievous things.

We’d be doing the lessons montage, and he’d suddenly pull down a trombone that was on the wall and blow it in my ear. I’d jump out of my skin, though he always made it seem as though it was part of the action.

Later I’d ask, “What did you do
that
for?”

“They wouldn’t have put it there if they hadn’t wanted me to use it.”

Or he would take up the box Brownie camera that was set decoration and ad-lib, “Hold it!” and pretend to take a photograph of me.

Cooter did a fair bit of ad-libbing, too, upping one or two lines to three or four, then five or six. He could bluster on forever, and backstage we would raise eyebrows and say, “Oh Cootie,” as he “milked” a monologue for several minutes.

For some reason, about three months after we opened, I started to get the giggles onstage. I have no idea what actually sponsored this appalling
lack of discipline, but I could not help myself. When this occurred, Rex would look at me in total surprise, his eyebrows raised high, and from sheer nerves, I giggled all the more. I’m ashamed to admit that at times it got so bad I could barely speak my lines. If I didn’t look at Rex, I managed pretty well, but he was so unpredictable with his expressions and the things he might do, that the minute I got onstage with him, the slightest thing would set me off. I can only guess at the extent to which my nerves were frayed. Was Rex setting me up? Did he sense my awe and fear of him? Did I sense his irritation with me? Who knows!

I prayed in my dressing room before the show, “Please God,
don’t
let me be such a wimp.
I do not wish to giggle
.” It took me about six weeks to get over that idiotic phase.

“THE RAIN IN SPAIN”
was a high point in
My Fair Lady
. Eliza has finally spoken flawlessly, and there is great excitement. Higgins picks up a cloak, Pickering pretends to be a bull and charges the cloak, then Higgins swirls Eliza in his arms for a mad tango, at the end of which they all fall back onto the couch with laughter. At this moment applause usually stopped the show, and there was time for a brief sotto voce exchange between Rex, Coote, and me.