In adapting this show, the highest standards were applied to create as near perfect a production as human ingenuity and imagination could contrive. The result was, as the critic William Hawkins said, "a legendary evening", or, in the words of Brooks Atkinson, "one of the best musicals of the century ... close to the genius of creation." With these and similar critical accolades as a springboard, My Fair Lady went on to become the greatest commercial triumph the American theater had known up until that time. On June 13th, 1961, it became the longest-running production in Broadway history, outdistancing the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical play, Oklahoma!, which had held that record up to then. By that time it had been seen by over three million patrons, and had earned almost forty million dollars; the long-playing recording by the original cast sold over three million discs at a price of fifteen million dollars; the motion-picture rights were sold for over five million dollars. The national tour of a second company begun on March 18th, 1957, stayed on the road several years, breaking box-office precedents in city after city. Numerous companies were formed to present it throughout the civilized world, including the Soviet Union in 1960.