Richard Charles Rodgers
(June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American
compose of music for more than 900 songs
and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for
films and television. He is best known for his songwriting
partnerships with the
lyricists Lorenz Hart and
Oscar Hammerstein II. His compositions
have had a significant impact on
popular
music down to the present day, and have an enduring broad
appeal.
Rodgers is one of only two persons to have won an
Oscar, a
Grammy,
an
Emmy, a
Tony
Award, and a
Pulitzer Prize
(
Marvin Hamlisch is the
other).
Biography
Early years
Born into
a prosperous Jewish family in Arverne, Queens
, New York
City
, Rodgers was the son of Mamie Levy and of Dr.
William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed the
family name from Abrahams. Richard began playing the piano
at age six. He attended P.S. 10, Townsend Harris Hall and
DeWitt Clinton High School.
Rodgers spent his early teenage summers in Camp Wigwam (Waterford,
ME) where he composed some of his first songs. Rodgers,
Lorenz Hart, and Rodgers's later collaborator
Oscar Hammerstein II all
attended
Columbia University.
During his time at Columbia he became a member of the
Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.
In 1921, Rodgers
shifted his studies to the Institute of Musical Art (now 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.
Career
Rodgers and Hart
In 1919, Richard met
Lorenz Hart, thanks
to Phillip Leavitt, a friend of Richard's older brother.
Rodgers and Hart struggled for years in the
field of musical comedy, writing a number of amateur shows. 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 the 1920
Poor Little Ritz Girl. Their next professional show,
The Melody Man, did not premiere until 1924.
When he was just out of college Rodgers worked as musical director
for
Lew Fields. Amongst the stars he
accompanied were
Nora Bayes and
Fred Allen. Rodgers was considering quitting show
business altogether 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
during the first half of the 1930s, the team sought greener
pastures in Hollywood. The hardworking Rodgers later regretted
these relatively fallow years, but he and Hart did write a number
of classic songs and film scores while out west, including
Love Me Tonight (1932)
(directed by
Rouben Mamoulian, who
would later direct Rodgers'
Oklahoma! on Broadway), which introduced
three standards: "
Lover", "
Mimi", and "
Isn't
It Romantic?." Rodgers also wrote a melody for which Hart wrote
three consecutive lyrics which either were cut, not recorded or not
a hit. The fourth lyric resulted in one of their most famous songs,
"
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 and began writing with a
vengeance, resulting in an almost unbroken string of hit shows that
ended only with Hart's death 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 sung and remembered,
including "
The Most
Beautiful Girl in the World", "
My
Romance", "
Little Girl
Blue", "
I'll Tell
the Man in the Street", "
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."
In 1939 he wrote the ballet
Ghost Town for the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo,
with choreography by
Marc Platoff
.
Rodgers and Hammerstein
His partnership with Hart having problems because of the lyricist's
unreliability and declining health, 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 American 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 successful films:
Carousel (1945),
South Pacific
(1949, a 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 film
State Fair (1945) (which was
remade in 1962 with
Pat Boone), and a
special TV musical 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.
Much of Rodgers's work with both Hart and Hammerstein was
orchestrated by
Robert Russell
Bennett. Rodgers composed twelve themes, which Bennett scored
for the 26-episode
World War II
television documentary
Victory at
Sea (1952-53). This NBC production pioneered the
"compilation documentary"--programming based on pre-existing
footage—and was eventually broadcast in dozens of countries.
Rodgers won an
Emmy for the theme music for the
ABC documentary
Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years,
scored by Eddie Sauter and Robert Emmett Dolan.
In 1950,
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."
In 1954, Rodgers conducted the
New York Philharmonic
Orchestra in excerpts from
Victory at Sea,
Slaughter on Tenth Avenue and the
Carousel Waltz
for a special LP released by
Columbia
Records.
Rodgers and Hammerstein
musicals earned a total of 35
Tony
Awards, 15
Academy Awards, two
Pulitzer Prizes, two
Grammy Awards, and two
Emmy
Awards.
After Hammerstein
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.
At its
1978 commencement ceremonies, Barnard College
awarded Rodgers its highest honor, the
Barnard Medal of Distinction.
Rodgers died in 1979 at age 77 after surviving cancer of the jaw, a
heart attack, and a laryngectomy. He was
cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea. In
1990, the 46th Street Theatre was renamed "The Richard Rodgers
Theatre" in his memory. In 1999, Rodgers and Hart were each
commemorated on United States postage stamps. 2002 was the
centennial year of Rodgers's birth, celebrated worldwide with
books, retrospectives, performances, new recordings of his music,
and a Broadway revival of
Oklahoma!. The
BBC Proms that year devoted an entire evening to
Rodgers' music including a concert performance of
Oklahoma!
Several American schools are
named after Richard Rodgers.
Alec Wilder wrote the following about
Rodgers:
In April 2009, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama
met Queen Elizabeth II, for the first time at Buckingham Palace.
The Obamas gave the queen a gift of an iPod and a rare songbook
signed by Richard Rodgers.
Personal life
In 1930, Rodgers married Dorothy Belle Feiner. Their daughter,
Mary, is the composer of
Once Upon a Mattress and an author
of children's books. The Rodgers later lost a daughter at birth,
but another daughter, Linda, was born in the 1930s.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.
Shows with music by Rodgers
Hart as lyricist
Hammerstein as lyricist
Other lyricists and solo works
Wider influence
- The Internet Movie Database lists 276 film and TV soundtracks
using songs by Rodgers, as well as 46 films and TV events that
credit him as the composer.
- In 1960, the saxophonist John Coltrane recorded a jazz version of
"My Favorite Things" from
The Sound of Music whose
rich modal improvisations proved
seminal. The tune became a regular part of his repertoire.
- The entry "Blue Moon" discusses
in detail the extraordinary origins, subsequent history, and
enduring popularity of the song. It is the only hit song by Rodgers
not taken from a show or movie. The 1961 doo-wop arrangement by The
Marcels so incensed Rodgers that he wanted to litigate.
Hammerstein talked him out of it, arguing that the recording would
ultimately increase royalties, which turned out to be the
case.
- The entry "You'll
Never Walk Alone" (from Carousel) discusses in detail the
many cover versions of this song, and its extraordinary popularity
with professional soccer teams and their fans.
- Jerry Lewis ends his Labor Day telethon by singing "You'll Never Walk
Alone."
- "Oh, What a Beautiful
Mornin'" from Oklahoma! is
sometimes mistaken for a traditional folk song.
- "Edelweiss", "Ländler" (Rodgers' adaption of a traditional
Austrian folk dance tune), and "Do-Re-Mi",
all from The Sound of
Music, frequently go unrecognized as Rodgers' tunes.
- "Happy Talk" is covered by Daniel Johnston and Jad Fair.
Captain Sensible did a jaunty rendition in the 1980s, complete with
burlesque organ. The British rapper Dizzee
Rascal uses the chorus of this song.
- Several professional awards in
musical theater are named for Rodgers.
Footnotes
References
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