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Richard Rodgers |
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Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was one of the great composers of musical theater, best known for his song writing partnerships with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. He wrote more than 900 published songs, and forty Broadway musicals. Many of his compositions continue to have a broad appeal and have had a significant impact on the development of popular music. He is one of only two individuals to have won an Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Tony Award, and Pulitzer Prize (the other being Marvin Hamlisch).
Life and careerBorn in Arverne, Queens, New York to a prosperous Jewish family, Richard Rodgers was the son of Dr. Will Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed the family name from Rojazinsky, and his wife Mamie (née Levy). Richard Rodgers attended the same public school as Bennett Cerf and began playing the piano at age six. Rodgers attended Townsend Harris Hall and DeWitt Clinton High School. In 1919 Phillip Leavitt, a friend of Rodger's older brother, introduced him to lyricist Lorenz Hart. Rodgers, Hart, and Rodgers' later partner Oscar Hammerstein II all attended Columbia University; Rodgers dropped out in 1921 and then attended the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard). Rodgers was influenced by composers like Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern, as well as by the operettas his parents took him to see on Broadway when he was a child. Rodgers and HartRodgers and Hart struggled for years in the field of musical comedy, writing a number of amateur shows, but they made their professional debut with the song "Any Old Place With You," featured in the 1919 Broadway musical comedy A Lonely Romeo. Their first professional production was Poor Little Ritz Girl in 1920, and their next professional show was not until The Melody Man in 1924. Rodgers was considering quitting show biz to sell children’s underwear when he and Hart finally broke through in 1925. They wrote the songs for a benefit show presented by the prestigious Theatre Guild, called The Garrick Gaieties, and the critics found the show fresh and delightful. Only meant to run one day, the Guild knew they had a success and allowed it to re-open later. The show's biggest hit, the song that Rodgers believed "made" Rodgers and Hart, was "Manhattan." The two were now a Broadway songwriting force. Throughout the rest of the decade, the duo wrote several hit shows for both Broadway and London, including Dearest Enemy (1925), The Girl Friend (1926), Peggy-Ann (1926), A Connecticut Yankee (1927), and Present Arms (1928). Their 1920s shows produced standards such as "Here In My Arms," "Mountain Greenery," "Blue Room," "My Heart Stood Still" and "You Took Advantage of Me." With the Depression in full swing, the team sought greener pastures in Hollywood during much of the first half of the 1930s. The hardworking Rodgers later regretted these relatively fallow years, but he and Hart did create some classics while out west, writing a number of songs and film scores, including Love Me Tonight (1932) (directed by Rouben Mamoulian, who would direct Rodgers' Oklahoma! on Broadway) which introduced three standards: "Lover," "Mimi", and "Isn't It Romantic?." Also, after trying several different lyrics that didn't quite work, they put out a song that became one of their most famous, "Blue Moon." Other film work includes the scores to The Phantom President (1932), starring George M. Cohan, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (1933), starring Al Jolson, and, in a quick return after having left Hollywood, Mississippi (1935), starring Bing Crosby and W.C. Fields. In 1935 they returned to Broadway with a vengeance, writing an almost unbroken string of hit shows that only stopped when Hart, a troubled alcoholic, died in 1943. Among the most notable are Jumbo (1935), On Your Toes (1936, which included the ballet "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue", choreographed by George Balanchine), Babes In Arms (1937), I Married an Angel (1938), The Boys From Syracuse (1938), Pal Joey (1940), and their last original work, By Jupiter (1942). Rodgers also contributed to the book on several of these shows. Many of the songs from these shows are still being sung today, including "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," "My Romance," "Little Girl Blue," "There's a Small Hotel," "Where or When," "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady Is a Tramp," "Falling In Love With Love," "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and "Wait Till You See Her." Much of Rodgers work with both Hart and Hammerstein was orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett. Rodgers and HammersteinAnticipating the end of a partnership, Rodgers began working with Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he had previously written a number of songs (before ever working with Lorenz Hart). Their first musical, the groundbreaking hit, Oklahoma! (1943), marked the beginning of the most successful partnership in musical theatre history. Their work revolutionized the form. What was once a collection of songs, dances and comic turns held together by a tenuous plot became an integrated work of art. The team went on to create four more hits that are among the most popular of all musicals and were each made into hit films, Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949, another Pulitzer Prize winner), The King And I (1951), and The Sound Of Music (1959). Other shows include the minor hit, Flower Drum Song (1958), as well as relative failures Allegro (1947), Me And Juliet (1953) and Pipe Dream (1955). They also wrote the score to the movie State Fair (1945) and a special TV production of Cinderella (1957). Their collaboration produced many well-known songs, including "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'," "People Will Say We're In Love," "If I Loved You," "You'll Never Walk Alone," "It Might As Well Be Spring," "Some Enchanted Evening," "Getting To Know You," "My Favorite Things," "The Sound of Music," "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," "Do-Re-Mi," and "Edelweiss," Hammerstein's last song. Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals earned a total of 35 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards, and two Emmy Awards. Rodgers worked without a lyricist to provide twelve themes for Robert Russell Bennett to use in scoring for the 26-episode World War II television documentary "Victory at Sea" (1952-53). This NBC production (26 half-hour episodes) pioneered the "compilation documentary"--programming based on pre-existing footage--and would be eventually syndicated for broadcast in dozens of countries worldwide. Rodgers likewise composed themes for ABC's similar Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years (documentary), scored by Eddie Sauter and Robert Emmett Dolan, for which he won an Emmy Award. After Hammerstein's death in 1960, Rodgers wrote both words and music for his first new Broadway project No Strings (1962, which earned two Tony Awards). The show was a minor hit and featured perhaps his last great song, "The Sweetest Sounds." He went on to work with lyricists Stephen Sondheim (protege of Hammerstein), Sheldon Harnick, and Martin Charnin, with uneven results. A survivor of cancer of the jaw, a heart attack and a laryngectomy, Richard Rodgers died aged 77 in 1979 in New York City. In 1990 he was honored posthumously when the 46th Street Theatre was renamed The Richard Rodgers Theatre. In 1999, Rodgers and Hart were each commemorated on United States postage stamps. In 2002, Rodgers' centennial was celebrated worldwide, with books, retrospectives, performances, new recordings of his music, and a Broadway revival of Oklahoma! Critical reputationIn his landmark book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950, Alec Wilder said of Rodgers:
FamilyIn 1930, Rodgers married Dorothy Belle Feiner. Their daughter, Mary, is the composer of Once Upon a Mattress and an author of children's books. Rodgers' grandson, Adam Guettel, also a musical theatre composer, won Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations for The Light in the Piazza in 2005. Peter Melnick, another grandson, is the composer of Adrift In Macao, which debuted at the Philadelphia Theatre Company in 2005 and was produced Off Broadway in 2007. Major works
Wider influence
LegacyIn 1950, the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York." At its 1978 commencement ceremonies, Barnard College awarded Rodgers its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction. Several US schools are named after Richard Rodgers. References
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