Editing Rex Harrison (section)

=== America ===
Harrison was offered top billing in MGM's ''[[The Reluctant Debutante (film)|The Reluctant Debutante]]'' (1958) alongside his wife Kay Kendall.

He co-starred opposite [[Doris Day]] in ''[[Midnight Lace]]'' (1960) and [[Rita Hayworth]] in ''[[The Happy Thieves]]'' (1961).
[[File:1963 Cleopatra trailer screenshot (34).jpg|thumb|Harrison as [[Julius Caesar]] in ''[[Cleopatra (1963 film)|Cleopatra]]'' (1963) for which he was nominated for an Academy Award]]

Harrison received an offer from [[Joseph L. Mankiewicz]] to play Julius Caesar in the 20th Century Fox epic ''[[Cleopatra (1963 film)|Cleopatra]]'' (1963).

In 1964 Harrison reprised his 1956 stage performance as Henry Higgins in ''[[My Fair Lady (1964 film)|My Fair Lady]]'', for which he won an [[Academy Awards|Oscar]] for [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]].

He was one of several stars in the popular ''[[The Yellow Rolls-Royce]]'' (1964), and played the Pope opposite [[Charlton Heston]] in Fox's ''[[The Agony and the Ecstasy (film)|The Agony and the Ecstasy]]'' (1965), for Carol Reed.

Harrison starred in 1967's ''[[Doctor Dolittle (1967 film)|Doctor Dolittle]]''. At the height of his box office fame after the success of ''My Fair Lady'', Harrison proved a temperamental force during production, demanding auditions for prospective composers after musical playwright [[Leslie Bricusse]] was contracted<ref>{{harv|Harris|2008|page=131}}</ref> and demanding to have his singing recorded live during shooting, only to agree to have it rerecorded in post-production.<ref>{{harv|Harrison|1975|p=155}}</ref> He also disrupted production by engaging in incidents with his then wife, [[Rachel Roberts (actress)|Rachel Roberts]], and through other deliberate misbehaviour, such as intentionally moving his yacht in front of cameras during shooting in St Lucia and refusing to move it out of sight, all prompted by contract disputes.<ref>{{harv|Harrison|1975|pp=242–243}}</ref> Harrison was at one point temporarily replaced by [[Christopher Plummer]], until he agreed to be more cooperative.<ref>{{harv|Harrison|1975|pp=133–134}}</ref> Harrison was not by any objective standards a singer and the ''talking on pitch'' style he used in ''My Fair Lady'' was adopted by many other classically trained actors with limited vocal ranges; the music was written to allow for long periods of [[recitative]], or "speaking to the music". Nevertheless "[[Talk to the Animals]]", which Harrison performed in ''Doctor Dolittle'', won the [[Academy Award for Best Original Song]] in 1967.  In a rare coincidence the very next year his son [[Noel Harrison]] sang the song that won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, "[[The Windmills of Your Mind]]."

Harrison reunited with Mankiewicz in ''[[The Honey Pot]]'' (1967), a modern adaptation of [[Ben Jonson]]'s play ''[[Volpone]]''. Two of his co-stars, [[Maggie Smith]] and [[Cliff Robertson]], were to become lifelong friends. Both spoke at his New York City memorial at the [[Little Church Around the Corner]] when he died in 1990. 

Harrison made two more films for 20th Century Fox, both expensive play adaptations that failed at the box office: ''[[A Flea in Her Ear (film)|A Flea in Her Ear]]'' (1968), and ''[[Staircase (film)|Staircase]]'' (1969).<ref>{{harv|Hadleigh|2001|p=91}}</ref>