Sexy and Warm, but Posh!

 Sylvia Dolores Finkelstein,

who, luckily for us, tweaked her name

to Dolores Gray...

Dolores made 6 movies,

including Designing Women (with Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall)

Kismet (with Howard Keel)

and It's Always Fair Weather

(with Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse and Michael Kidd).

Broadway shows included

Sherry!, Annie Get Your Gun, Destry Rides Again, 

and the London production of Follies.

She was even on an episode of Doctor Who.

So how come she wasn't a household name in MY household?

 Dolores' one solo album,

Warm Brandy was recorded in 1951,

and what a cover!

Her voice was called "a freight-train slathered in honey",

or so said one theatre critic.

Below with Bert Lahr in 

Two On The Aisle. 

Despite the matching hounds tooth,

there was no "match" (or love lost)  between these 2 titans.

 Somebody gave me a free ticket to see Nine

back in 1982, and Raul was wonderful.

Ditto all the ladies in his life.

Based on Fellini's 8 1/2, but Maury Yeston figured

his music added (.5) to the equation. 

Barbara Baxley and Barbara Cook

in the original production of 

She Loves Me,

and below, Ms. Baxley with Jack Cassidy (that cad)

in the same production.

Barbara's Broadway credits included

plays by Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, Neil Simon...

and film-wise, 

East of Eden, Nashville and Norma Rae.

We'll hear her more comical side,

with "A Trip To The Library".

 Billy Porter as the original Lola,

wearing his Kinky Boots,

a Cyndy Lauper musical from 2013.

Below, the cast with Cyndy at center,

and second from the left, 

Harvey Fierstein, who provided the book,

next to Stark Sands who played Charlie Price.

Best Musical award winner!

Ben Brantley said it had a  "love- and heat-seeking score",

and that the boots were "big red scene stealers", 

but he found the book to be 

sticky and sermonizing.

Well, it IS a Broadway Musical! 

  Pomping it up at the Ascot,

in the movie version of My Fair Lady...

Truth to tell, I am not a "get up at 4am to watch"

the Brit-Hitch sorta gal.

Nope, but I do enjoy perusing, post-mortem-like,

 all the fashions.

I can only hope that Meghan and her flock do it up like

the movie's art directors did:

Gene Allen, Cecil Beaton and George James Hopkins

won an Academy Award for Best Production Design.

Hats were by Paulette, a Parisian milliner.

 Robert Coote, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, and Julie Andrews,

the sublime cast.

Noel Coward was first sought for the role of Professor Higgins,

but rejected the offer, suggesting it would be perfect for Rex.

Mary Martin was similarly the first choice for Eliza,

but when she declined,

Julie was "discovered" playing (and scoring!)

 just down the block in The Boyfriend.

 Meeting Princess Margaret,

who seems to be wearing a bedsheet.

(Maybe it looks better from the front.)

Stanley in front of the Professor's painted library.

He played Alfred P. Doolittle on Broadway, in the West End,

 and in the movie (an Oscar for that!).

 This role, coming to him at the age of 66,

brought him international fame

(plus a lot more work and a lot more $$$).