Keira Knightley is in talks to follow in the footsteps of Audrey Hepburn and star in a remake of My Fair Lady. The 23-year-old will star as Eliza Doolittle, the humble cockney flower girl who makes good in Edwardian high society.
Producers will keep the story rooted in 1912 London and are in talks with actors to star opposite Knightley as Doolittle's upper-crust tutor, Henry Higgins.
My Fair Lady is Lerner and Loewe's musical adaptation of Pygmalion, a stage-play by George Bernard Shaw. The production broke box office records when it debuted on Broadway in 1956 and made a star of the young Julie Andrews. The 1964 film version, starring Hepburn and Rex Harrison, went on to win eight Oscars. It featured the songs I Could Have Danced All Night, Wouldn't it Be Lovely and Get Me to the Church on Time.
Bernard Shaw's plot has become something of a Hollywood staple down the years. Aside from My Fair Lady, other unofficial adaptations of Pygmalion include the Eddie Murphy comedy Trading Places, Pretty Woman and the 1999 teen outing She's All That, starring Freddie Prinze Jr and Rachael Leigh Cook.
Knightley is becoming something of a devotee of the period piece. Later this year she will appear in both the Dylan Thomas drama The Edge Of Love and 18th century tale The Duchess. After that, work is expected to begin on King Lear, in which she will play Cordelia alongside Anthony Hopkins and Gwyneth Paltrow.
While her acting has occasionally come in for criticism, Knightley shouldn't have too much problem with Lerner and Loewe's famous songs. The actor plays a singer in The Edge of Love, which features a section in which she performs the song Blue Tahitian Moon (see our video above). She reportedly had singing lessons for the role.
