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My Fair Lady Star Rex Harrison "Treated Us Like Dirt"

Rex Harrison might have played the debonair gent on screen on numerous occasions, but in real life he was caddish figure with terrible table manners, one of his former colleagues has claimed.

The star of movies like ‘My Fair Lady’, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar, and 'Cleopatra’ served in the Air Force during the Second World War, with the claims being made by Eileen Younghusband, a former officer who worked alongside him.

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93-year-old Mrs Younghusband wrote about her experiences in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in the book 'One Woman’s War’, in which she details her encounters with Harrison.

She describes an aloof man who would call his various lovers loudly on a communal telephone and look down on his fellow officers, while working in the top-secret filter room which was helping to combat Nazi air attacks.

Speaking at the Hay Festival, Mrs Younghusband said: “He really thought he was somebody special. He would often come into the filter room, stand on a balcony and look down.”

She added that she would often see him in the mess, where a communal telephone was provided for staff.

“He would be there and he was ringing up his next lover,” she said. “He went through five lovers in the end I think; this one was the second.

“There he was, with all these endearments at the top of his voice. He treated us like dirt, we were nothing. We didn’t have anything to do with his film career.

“I particularly disliked him because of his table manners,” she went on.

“He would fill his mouth with toast and marmalade and eat so messily that the soggy bread would ooze out of the side of his mouth. Quite revolting!”

All told, Harrison, who was knighted in 1989, had six wives.

He was best-known for his Oscar-winning role as Professor Henry Higgins in ‘My Fair Lady’, Julius Caesar in ‘Cleopatra’ and John Doolittle in ‘Doctor Doolittle’.

He died from pancreatic cancer in 1990, aged 82.

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Image credits: Rex Features