Fatal Charm: The Life of Rex Harrison

Fatal Charm: The Life of Rex Harrison by Walker, Alexander. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780752849010.

For decades Rex Harrison was the king of the English stage. My Fair Lady immortalised his persona, the epitome of the English gentleman, but beneath those easy manners and cool wit lurked a tyrannical egoism. Rex always needed a woman beside him and he married six times; both Carole Landis, a young starlet, and Rachel Roberts, the actress who was his fourth wife, committed suicide. Alexander Walker traces the public and private life of this brilliant actor, from his genteel beginnings in the suburbs of Liverpool through hard graft and triumph on the English stage, to a prurient Hollywood from which scandal forced him to flee. Drawing on unpublished sources, on conversations with Rex Harrison and on interviews with Harrisons closest family and friends, Alexander Walker portrays Rex Harrison, the high-comedy actor, and Rex Harrison, the incomparable despot.