According to The Disciple and His Devil, the biography of Gabriel Pascal by his wife Valerie, it was Gabriel Pascal who introduced the famous phonetic exercises "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" and "In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen" into Pygmalion in 1938, the first of which wound up leading to the song in My Fair Lady.
About the Author: Hungarian film star Valerie Hidvegy (Pascal), now the widow of George Delacorte, famed New York philanthropist and publisher, cut through the Iron Curtain to marry Gabriel Pascal, producer of Bernard Shaw’s films, for a life of struggle, unhappiness, and all-conquering love. Finally, Pascal’s idea to make Pygmalion into a musical became My Fair Lady, but by then he was dead. --Amazon, The Disciple and His Devil.
Why Spain? Simple. We are planning for our trip to Southern Spain in a couple of weeks. The timeshare exchanges were favorable there -- I really wanted to travel to the Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, or Ukraine -- but for some strange reason -- NONE of those destinations interested my hubby!
Friday night, we stopped at our local Border's and picked up Insight Guides Southern Spain: Costa Del Sol, Andalucia. Tonight we'll be meeting up with friends of ours who spent a couple of years in Spain, stationed there when the mister was a Navy pilot. We hope to pick up some pointers for our trip to Southern Spain. Hopefully, the rain in Spain will be staying mainly in the plain!
P.S. Incredible Coincidences -- I recently heard from a fellow lensmaster that he and his companion will also be vacationing in Southern Spain. We tried to arrange for a meet-up, but would you believe that we will 'miss' each other by 3 days? Now that is one of many incredible coincidences -- ah, chalk this one up to The World's Greatest Mysteries perhaps?
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