Columbia Masterworks Records by John Gielgud—the longest-running "Hamlet" in Broadway history to date. Columbia Masterworks' most successful Broadway album was the original cast recording of "My Fair Lady" (OL-5090, 1956), starring Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Stanley Holloway and Robert Coote. This first album was issued only in mono, but the first stereo recording of "My Fair Lady"—featuring the same four stars, this time with the London cast—followed in 1959. And in 1964, Columbia Masterworks issued the film soundtrack album of the show, starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn's "singing voice", Marni Nixon. The most successful film soundtrack release on Columbia Masterworks was the
Marni Nixon recordings. Born in Altadena, California to Charles Nixon and Margaret Elsa (née Wittke) McEathron, Nixon was a child film actress who also played the violin and began singing at an early age in choruses, including performing solos with the Roger Wagner Chorale. She went on to study singing and opera with, among others, Vera Schwarz, Carl Ebert, Boris Goldovsky and Sarah Caldwell. In 1947, having adopted the stage name Marni Nixon, she made her Hollywood Bowl solo debut in "Carmina Burana" with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under conductor Leopold Stokowski. Nixon's career in film started in 1948 when she sang