Eliza Doolittle is a fictional character and the protagonist in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion (1913) and its 1956 musical adaptation, My Fair Lady.
Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle meets Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins in the 1956 musical adaptation of Pygmalion, My Fair Lady
Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle on the set of the 1964 movie musical My Fair Lady.
Pygmalion is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, named after the Greek mythological figure. It premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on 16 October 1913 and was first presented on stage in German. Its English-language premiere took place at His Majesty's Theatre in London's West End in April 1914 and starred Herbert Beerbohm Tree as phonetics professor Henry Higgins and Mrs Patrick Campbell as Cockney flower-girl Eliza Doolittle.
A Sketch Magazine illustration of Mrs Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle from 22 April 1914. Shaw wrote the part of Eliza expressly for Campbell, who played opposite Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Henry Higgins.
After creating the role of Colonel Pickering in the London production, Philip Merivale (second from right) played Henry Higgins opposite Mrs Patrick Campbell (right) when Pygmalion was taken to Broadway (1914)
Lynn Fontanne (Eliza) and Henry Travers (Alfred Doolittle) in the Theatre Guild production of Pygmalion (1926)
First American (serialized) publication, Everybody's Magazine, November 1914