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"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" is a song from the 1956 musical My Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner.^[1] It was originally performed by Rex Harrison^[1] as Professor Henry Higgins ^[2] who also performed it in the 1964 film version.^[3]

Background

The song expresses Professor Henry Higgins's sentimental and wistful sadness for his pupil Eliza Doolittle who has chosen to walk out of his life, a sudden realization of how much he will miss her, and, in passing, his scorn for her life in a chosen marriage.

Recorded versions

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In popular media

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• In the film Thunderball, James Bond, while dancing with SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe, tells her “Strange as it may seem, I’ve grown accustomed to your face.”
• Cary Grant, in an extremely drunken state from an enforced imbibing of liquor in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, 1959, briefly succeeds at crooning this melody, slurring the words, "I've grown accustomed to my Bourbon," as he is placed in the driving seat of a car.
• Cary Grant has this melody as introductory music from the orchestra, when he is there to introduce Sir Noël Coward for an honorary award at the 24th Tony Awards, 1970.
• Kermit the Frog performed this song several times during the 1950s, '60s and '70s, though at that time he was not yet a frog. In this case, the character wore a wig while lipsyncing to Rosemary Clooney's recording of the song, singing to a small creature that is covered entirely by a piece of cloth with a face drawn on it. As "she" sings, the creature eats the mask off its own head, revealing itself to be the Muppet character Yorick (from Sam and Friends). Kermit keeps singing though, even as Yorick tries to munch on his hand and later his leg. Later on, Brian Henson (son of Jim Henson, the original performer of Kermit) and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph recreated the famous sketch for the Henson Alternative Show Stuffed and Unstrung and at the D23 Expo, once again using the Rosemary Clooney soundtrack.
• Barbra Streisand performed several lines in her "Color Me Barbra Medley" from the TV special and album Color Me Barbra.
• Schroeder references the song's title in the Peanuts film "Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown?" and states "Don't tell me I've grown accustomed to that face."
• Stewie Griffin sings his version in the Family Guy episode "Running Mates."
• Sideshow Bob sings his own version of this song ("The Very Reason That I Live") in The Simpsons (in the Season 14 episode The Great Louse Detective).
• Henry speaks this line to Eliza on Selfie episode 5, at the end of the episode.^[12]
• During coverage of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981; ABC World News Tonight anchor Frank Reynolds, upon receiving what turned out to be an erroneous report that White House Press Secretary James Brady had died from a bullet wound to the face, recounted attending a roast with Brady a few days earlier where the song was sung (as "She's Grown Accustomed to My Face") before receiving word that Brady was in fact still alive.

References

External links

• "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" from "My Fair Lady" on YouTube, 2001 London revival
• Nat King Cole - I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face on YouTube, Nat King Cole
• Tony Bennett, Count Basie - I've Grown Accustomed to her Face on YouTube, Tony Bennett, Count Basie
• Sonny Rollins - I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face (1956) on YouTube, Sonny Rollins (instrumental)
• Chet Baker - I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face on YouTube, Chet Baker (instrumental)
• I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face sketch on YouTube, from Sam and Friends, starring Kermit the Frog and Yorick