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In the story Shaw's Pygmalion who does Nepommuck declare Eliza to be?
A Hungarian Princess
What movie and television projects has Basil Langton been in?
Basil Langton has: Performed in "King of the Damned" in 1935. Played Rollo Graham in "The Shadow of Mike Emerald" in 1936. Played Billy Grant in "The Belles of St. Clements" in 1936. Played Jack Pearson in "One Good Turn" in 1936. Played Ed in "The Minstrel Boy" in 1937. Played Jerry Stone in "Mr. Smith Carries On" in 1937. Played Noel Slater in "Merry Comes to Town" in 1937. Played Hugo Bellairs in "The Elder Brother" in 1937. Played Philip Fitzwilliam in "Father Steps Out" in 1937. Played Peter Bradfield in "Double Exposures" in 1937. Played Berthold in "Henry IV" in 1938. Played Andrew Sinker in "Almost a Gentleman" in 1938. Played (1939 version) in "The Words Upon the Window Pane" in 1938. Played Jack Barthwick in "The Silver Box" in 1939. Played Charles Granillo in "Rope" in 1939. Played Sebastian in "Twelfth Night" in 1939. Played Antonio in "The Tempest" in 1939. Played David Garrick in "Omnibus" in 1952. Performed in "I Spy" in 1955. Played Sanders in "Playhouse 90" in 1956. Played Nepommuck in "Pygmalion" in 1963. Played Dr. Borden (1984) in "General Hospital" in 1963. Played Sir Hudson Lowe in "Eagle in a Cage" in 1965. Played Henry Clifford in "Highway to Heaven" in 1984. Played Nathan David Weiss in "Murphy Brown" in 1988. Played Edgar in "Empty Nest" in 1988. Played The Minister in "Doctor Doctor" in 1989. Played Winston Catlow in "Wings" in 1990. Played Reverend in "Dark Shadows" in 1991. Played The Caretaker in "Star Trek: Voyager" in 1995. Played Alf in "The Naked Truth" in 1995.
Could u analyze the main characters of Pygmalion?
CHARACTER ANALYSISHenry HigginsHiggins is an extremely interesting character and the life of the play. Although the play's obvious concern is the metamorphosis of a common flower girl into a duchess, the development of Higgins' character is also important. The play isn't only Eliza's story. One also detects changes in Higgins or to be more precise he appears to the reader in a new light at the end. This is seen when he tells Eliza that he has grown accustomed to seeing her face and hearing her voice. This is not much of a sensitive display of emotions but it is quite different than the savage invective he hurled at her at the beginning of the play in Covent Garden.Higgins is portrayed as being highly educated. Apart from being a professor of phonetics, he has a deep reverence for literature and fancies himself as a poet. In all seriousness he thinks highly of "the treasures of (his) Mittonic mind." He is self-indulgent, whimsical, and ill mannered when it comes to interacting with other people.Higgins is not a man given to extravagant aesthetic tastes. The walls in the Wimpole street laboratory are not adorned by paintings but by engravings. His passionate fondness for sweets and chocolates stands out in comic contrast to his seriousness and austere mode of living. Higgins' most prominent characteristic is his restlessness and the consequent inability to sit still. He is constantly tripping and stumbling over something. For instance, in Act Three, Shaw writes in the stage directions that Higgins's sudden arrival at his mother's at home is accompanied by minor disasters - "He goes to the divan, stumbling into the fender and over the fire-irons on his way; extricating himself with muttered impatiently on the divan that he almost breaks it". These quirks and oddities of his character contribute to the laughs in the play and place Higgins in the tradition of the comic hero.It is obvious that simply as a professor of phonetics Higgins would not have been very humorous. Thus Shaw makes Higgins obsessed with his profession. His devotion to phonetics is so engrossing that it leaves little time or inclination for anything else. Consequently his behavior strikes people as odd and unconventional to the point of being rude. He despises the conventions of the middle class that include their manners and hypocritical sense of decorum. He claims to treat everyone with equal disrespect yet his invective is lavished on Eliza while Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and Clara, who represent a more despicable aspect of society are never verbally reprimanded; they are simply ignored.Higgins's volatile temperament and frequent outbursts provide some of the most amusing moments in the play. While his apparently unfeeling condescending attitude towards Eliza in Act Two - "She's so deliciously low - so horribly dirty" might have earned the reader reprimand for a lesser character, at times the reader is forced to laugh. This is because Higgins is not acting socially superior nor does he bear any malice or pride. Rather he is amazed at Eliza's poverty and is only stating the facts in a very clever yet also tactless way. He is genuinely concerned about cleanliness, which is proved by his order to Mrs. Pearce to clean Eliza with Monkey Brand soap, burn all her dirty clothes and wrap her up in brown paper until new ones arrive from the shop.When the play opens, the audience encounters an egotistical bully who harangues the helpless Eliza. He is insensitive to the feelings of those around him. However, surprisingly enough, the reader does not disapprove of his egoism and rather indulges his frequent tyrannical outbursts because this is the key to his character, his childishness. At a certain level Higgins is an overgrown child. Shaw wrote in his stage directions that Higgins is, "but for his years and size, rather like an impetuous baby 'taking notice' eagerly and loudly, and requiring almost as much watching to keep him out of unintended mischief."His manner varies from genial bullying when he is in a good humor to stormy petulance when anything goes wrong, but he is so entirely frank and void of malice that he remains likeable even in his least reasonable moments. This trait of impetuous childishness in an otherwise extremely articulate and learned adult lends complexity to his characterization. This interpretation is confirmed by Higgins himself when he defends himself against the imagined notions held by Mrs. Pearce. He tells Colonel Pickering, "Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of man. I've never been able to feel really grown-up and tremendous, like other chaps. And yet she's firmly persuaded that I'm an arbitrary overbearing bossing kind of person. I can't account for it." His blindness to his faults serves to endear the audience to him despite him being an egoist and a bully.It is important to note Higgins's lack of interest in women. In Act Three, Higgins's conversation with his mother regarding Eliza's society appearance gradually turns to the topic of young women and his antipathy towards them. Higgins dismisses the idea of any romantic association with a faint contempt for the fairer sex and dismisses them as "idiots." He categorically tells his mother, "Oh, I cant be bothered with young women. My idea of a lovable woman is something as like as you as possible. I shall never get into the way of seriously liking young women; some habits lie too deep to be changed." This antipathy to the fairer sex is a quintessential Shaw characteristic. Shaw believed that emotional entanglements were deterrents to intellectual fulfillment. Thus it is only natural that Higgins is single-mindedly devoted to his career and exhibits indifference bordering on contempt for women. Higgins embraces Pygmalion's typical distaste for the feminine.Shaw further adds complexity to the issue by suggesting that the perfect woman for Higgins is his mother. This implies that Higgins only desires a sexually unchallenging mother figure who can take care of his daily necessities. This role is more or less fulfilled to a large extent by Mrs. Pearce, his housekeeper, who mothers and reproves him for his unsociable mannerisms. In his climatic encounter with Eliza in Act Five, Higgins declares that he cares for "life, for humanity" rather than for particular individuals. His world is too broad in scope and cannot revolve only around Eliza. It is this humanism which makes him repudiate Eliza's complaint with a profoundly meaningful rejoinder that "making life means making trouble."Thus although there are several suggestions of the possibility of a romantic involvement between Higgins and Eliza, one knows that union between the two is impossible because of their fundamental incompatibility in their views they hold about life. The readers know that Higgins had bought a ring for Eliza in Brighton. One also learns that he has become habituated to her face and voice and depends upon her for his domestic needs. But one also realizes that the two of them could not live happily together. The main thrust of the play is not the depiction of the love between the master- pupil/artist-creation but rather the portrayal of the pupil's assertion of independence. Higgins is thus thrilled when Eliza is no longer a "millstone" hanging around his neck but at last a "woman" capable of taking care of herself.Shaw questions the defining criteria of what constitutes a gentleman through the character of Higgins. It is obvious that Higgins's manners are not much better than those of the Covent Garden flower girl. In fact Higgins comes off much worse because of the fact that he has had all the civilizing benefits of wealth and education yet he is rude to the point of being boorish and ill mannered, is given to frequent inflammatory outbursts, and possesses abominable table manners. The fact that such an ill- mannered person is accepted by society as a "gentleman" provides Shaw with an opportunity to expose the shallowness and hypocrisy of such a society. Shaw thus critiques a society that views wealth and the ability to speak correctly as the constitutive criteria of a prescriptive gentleman. It is one of Shaw's master ironic strokes to make such a rude and boorish egotistical bully the main agent for transforming a common flower girl into a lady.Eliza DoolittleEliza is the focal point of the play since its main thematic concern is the metamorphosis of a common flower girl to a lady. Shaw honestly admits in the epilogue that such metamorphoses are "common enough" and "have been achieved by hundreds of resolutely ambitious young women since Nell Gwynne set them the example by playing queens and fascinating kings in the theatre in which she began by selling oranges." Eliza thus occupies a stock romantic personality and Shaw's skill lies in not sentimentalizing her presentation. The play charts her growth and development as she moves form darkness to light and finally acquires self- awareness. Eliza moves from being a 'common flower girl' (in Acts One and Two) to becoming a 'lady' (in Acts Three and Four) and finally by the end of Act Five becomes a self-reliant 'woman' capable of facing reality.When the play opens, the audience is shown a brief glimpse of the world that Eliza occupies as a flower girl as she tries to wheedle a few coins in return for violets from the group of people seeking shelter under the Portico of St. Paul's church. She is forced by her circumstances to coax money out of prospective customers. When a bystander warns her about the notetaker, who is recording her words she thinks that she is being suspected of soliciting as a prostitute simply because she belongs to a class that cannot afford lawyers and that is a typical profession for a girl of her class. She has to fend for herself and vehemently asserts the virtue and sacredness of her character. Her loud and hysterical protests against the imagined harm to her character irritate Higgins, who hurls a torrent of invectives at her. Eliza however can express her feeling of wonder and fear only by crying out an indistinguishable sounding "Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo!" A little later when she receives a handful of coins she goes almost wild with delight and lacking the ability to express her feelings articulately can again only utter a baffling "Ah-ah-ow-ow-oo!" For Eliza, pain, wonder, fear and delight become an indiscriminate sound of vowels. At this point the audience is not aware that beneath this dirt and terrible speech lies the ability to evolve into a polished human beingHowever, even in this pathetic state Eliza is not totally depraved. She is self-sufficient and capable of earning her living by selling flowers. She exhibits cleverness and a degree of resourcefulness to get the maximum value possible for her flowers. She has enough self-respect and pride to defend her honor. But most significantly she reveals an ambition to better her lot by hiring a cab with the money Higgins has thrown into her basket. Her hiring of the cab is the first small step in her quest for self-awareness. The cab acts as the vehicle that carries her over the threshold from the shabby indigent world to the comforts of genteel life in Act Two. Wearing an ostrich feather hat and a shabby worn out coat, Eliza strikes one as a pathetic and odd figure. She haughtily demands that Higgins teach her to speak properly so that she can become a lady in a flower shop instead of selling flowers. Evidently at this stage Eliza only craves the economic security and social respectability that would come with her ability to speak correctly. She does not know that this desire for security and respectability only constitutes the second small step in her larger quest for self-realization. However she is required to purge both her body and soul before she can ascend to a higher plane of awareness. Her haughty air is soon reduced to confusion, fear, and helplessness as she bears the tyrannical outbursts of Higgins who insultingly calls her a "baggage" and "a draggle-tailed guttersnipe."Her soul is thus cleansed of childish pretensions as she encounters the grim real world. She undergoes a cleansing of her body at a physical level: her dirty clothes are burnt and her body purified through a hot bath.By Act Three Eliza has become a lady but she still has a long and arduous journey before her. At Mrs. Higgins' at-home she fails to restrict her conversation to the weather and everybody's health - the topics prescribed by Higgins - and proceeds to describe to her audience her aunt's death which touches on some of the gruesome aspects of life in the slums such as poverty, alcoholism and murder. The irony is that her talk fails to bewilder the Eynsford- Hills who misconstrue it as the new small talk. Her expletive "bloody" is excitedly repeated by Clara, who wishes to appear as part of the latest trends. At this stage Eliza is nothing more than a live doll, an automaton without a mind of her own. She is still a lifeless statue with an element of crudeness in her parrot-like conversation. She is wearing a mask of gentility that imperfectly hides her lower class affiliation. Shaw demonstrates that only fine clothes and the right accent are not sufficient to make a lady. Eliza's accomplishments are artificial. As Mrs. Higgins astutely proclaims, Eliza is simply "a triumph of (Higgins') art and of her dressmaker's". However it stands to her credit that at least she behaves naturally without any affections unlike the pretentious Clara. By the time Eliza returns after her triumphant society debut at the Ambassador's ball, she no longer exhibits this element of crudeness. She has benefited from Higgins's lessons in social poise and has acquired the ability to express her feelings articulately.In Act Four Eliza comes face to face with the great moment of truth and the reality of her situation. For the first time Eliza becomes aware of the impossibly wide gulf between her desires and the means at her disposal for fulfilling them. Higgins has unwittingly created in her a desire for the better things of life yet they are not available to her as she does not have the financial means to gain them only the poise and manners. When Higgins suggests that she could marry a wealthy husband, Eliza replies scornfully, "I sold flowers, I didn't sell myself" and that now she has been made a lady she isn't fit to sell anything else. Her stark rejoinder reveals a certain degree of emotional maturity and self- awareness. She then throws Higgins's slippers at him thereby freeing herself from a life of subordination and servitude. She returns the ring he had bought her in Brighton and determinedly leaves Wimpole Street. She has acquired a personality of her own and is no longer afraid to stand up to her creator and declare her independence.By Act Five Eliza develops into a self-sufficient woman able to express her feelings coherently and displays the perfect social poise and ease even in a difficult situation. Her gentility has become an inseparable part of her character. She is no longer afraid of Higgins and talks to him on terms of equality. In fact she even negates Higgins' contribution to her metamorphosis and insists that "the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated". She categorically asserts that it was Colonel Pickering's unfailing courteousness and manners rather than Higgins' phonetic lessons that truly made her a lady. She does not let Higgins dominate her and rejects his proposal that he, she and Pickering live together like old bachelor buddies. She astounds Higgins with her announcement that she will marry Freddy, who loves her and support him by offering herself as an assistant to Nepommuck, Higgins' former student. Although shocked, Higgins is also happy that Eliza is no longer a worrisome "millstone" weighing down his neck. He cannot give her what she needs and so she must leave to find it. He is only concerned with reforming humanity while she is concerned with human compassion and intimacy. Changes in Eliza in Pygmalion____________Before Eliza first encountered Mr. Higgins, she was simply a dirty, yet caring girl in the gutter of London. During her time with both Mr. Higgins and Colonel Pickering, Eliza did change, for the fist few weeks of her stay in Wimpole Street, she questioned everything that Higgins asked her to do, and generally couldn't see how they would help her. Later, Eliza begins to understand that Higgins, as harsh as he is, is trying to do his best to teach her, and therefore should be respected. After the ambassador's ball, we see more of the old Eliza resurfacing. She starts to worry again, and since she has grown attached to Higgins and Pickering, is devastated to see their finding her so trivial. Eliza's basic character remains relatively unchanged. We can still observe the old Eliza, under the upper-class persona. The play, "Pygmalion" brings out the message that looks can be extremely deceiving, while touching on the issue that self presentation really does change the way people look at you.
