Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the best-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music.
Rodgers is known for his songwriting partnerships, first with lyricist Lorenz Hart and then with Oscar Hammerstein II. With Hart he wrote musicals throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including Pal Joey, A Connecticut Yankee, On Your Toes and Babes in Arms. With Hammerstein he wrote musicals through the 1940s and 1950s, such as Oklahoma!, Flower Drum Song, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. His collaborations with Hammerstein, in particular, are celebrated for bringing the Broadway musical to a new maturity by telling stories that were focused on characters and drama rather than the earlier light-hearted entertainment of the genre.
Rodgers was the first person to win all four of the top American entertainment awards in theater, film, recording, and television – an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony – now known collectively as an EGOT.[1] In addition, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, making him the first ever to receive all five awards (later joined by Marvin Hamlisch).[2] In 1978, Rodgers was in the inaugural group of Kennedy Center Honorees for lifetime achievement in the arts.[3]
Early life
The poster for Fly With Me, the 1920 Columbia University Varsity Show. The music was co-written by Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and also included songs by Oscar Hammerstein II, making the show one of the first collaborations between the two men.[4]
Rodgers was born into a Jewish family in Queens, New York, the son of Mamie (Levy) and Dr. William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed the family name from Rogazinsky. Rodgers began playing the piano at the age of six. He attended P.S. 166, Townsend Harris Hall and DeWitt Clinton High School. Rodgers spent his early teenage summers in Camp Wigwam (Waterford, Maine) where he composed some of his first songs.[5]
In 1919, Richard met Lorenz Hart, thanks to Phillip Levitt, a friend of Richard's older brother. Rodgers and Hart struggled for years in the field of musical comedy, writing several 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, which also had music by Sigmund Romberg. 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. Among the stars he accompanied were Nora Bayes and Fred Allen.[7] 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. Although it was meant to run only 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.
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 some classic songs and film scores while out west, including Love Me Tonight (1932) (directed by Rouben Mamoulian, who would later direct Rodgers's 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 were either 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 wrote an almost unbroken string of hit shows that ended shortly before 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.
Rodgers' partnership with Hart began having problems because of the lyricist's unreliability and declining health from alcoholism. Rodgers began working with Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he had previously written songs (before ever working with Lorenz Hart). Their first musical, the groundbreaking hit Oklahoma! (1943), is a notable example of a "book musical", a musical play in which the songs and dances are fully integrated into the plot. What was once a collection of songs, dances and comic turns held together by a tenuous plot became a fully integrated narrative. Even though Show Boat is considered to be the earliest example of a book musical, Oklahoma! epitomized the innovations for which Show Boat had laid the groundwork and is considered the first production in American history to be intentionally marketed as a fully integrated musical.[9]
In 1943, Richard Rodgers became the ninth president of the Dramatists Guild of America. In November that year he and Hart mounted a revival of A Connecticut Yankee; Hart died from alcoholism and pneumonia just days after its opening.
Rodgers and Hammerstein went on to create four more hits that are among the most popular in musical history. Each was made into a successful film: Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949, winner of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), 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).
Rodgers was the subject of a two-part special on Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town television show in 1952
Much of Rodgers' work with both Hart and Hammerstein was orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett. Rodgers composed twelve themes, which Bennett used in preparing the orchestra score 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. The melody of the popular song "No Other Love" was later taken from the Victory at Sea theme entitled "Beneath the Southern Cross". Rodgers won an Emmy for the music for the ABC documentary Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years, scored by Eddie Sauter, Hershy Kay, and Robert Emmett Dolan. Rodgers composed the theme music, "March of the Clowns", for the 1963–64 television series The Greatest Show on Earth, which ran for 30 episodes. He also contributed the main title theme for the 1963–64 historical anthology television series The Great Adventure.
Rodgers wrote both words and music for his first new Broadway project No Strings, which earned two Tony Awards and played 580 shows. The show was a minor hit and featured the song, "The Sweetest Sounds".
Rodgers also wrote both the words and music for two new songs used in the film version of The Sound of Music. (Other songs in that film were from Rodgers and Hammerstein.)
Each of his final Broadway musicals faced a declining level of success as Rodgers was overshadowed by up-and-coming composers and lyricists. This was evident by the steady drop in run times and critic reviews. Do I Hear a Waltz? ran 220 performances; Two by Two, 343 performances; Rex only 49 performances; and I Remember Mama, 108 performances.[12]
While Rodgers went on to work with lyricists: Stephen Sondheim (Do I Hear a Waltz?), who was a protégé of Hammerstein, Martin Charnin (Two by Two,I Remember Mama) and Sheldon Harnick (Rex), he never found another permanent partner. These partnerships proved to be unsuccessful as a result of issues of collaboration. Sondheim's reluctance to participate in Do I Hear a Waltz? led to tension between the two. In addition, Charnin and Rodgers were met with opposing ideas when creating Two by Two.[12]
Nevertheless, his overall successful lifetime career did not go unrecognized. At its 1978 commencement ceremonies, Barnard College awarded Rodgers its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction.
Rodgers was an honoree at the first Kennedy Center Honors in 1978. At the 1979 Tony Awards ceremony—six months before his death—Rodgers was presented the Lawrence Langner Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in the American Theatre.
One of Rodger's final works was a revival of Fly With Me for the 1980 Varsity Show, to which he added several new songs. He died less than four months before its premiere in April 1980.[4]
Personal life
In 1930, Rodgers married Dorothy Belle Feiner (1909–92).[13] Their daughter, Mary (1931–2014), was the composer of Once Upon a Mattress and an author of children's books.[14] The Rodgers later lost a daughter at birth. Another daughter, Linda (1935–2015), also had a brief career as a songwriter. Mary's son and Richard Rodgers's grandson, Adam Guettel (b. 1964), also a musical theater composer, won Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations for The Light in the Piazza in 2005. Peter Melnick (b. 1958), Linda Rodgers's son, is the composer of Adrift In Macao, which debuted at the Philadelphia Theatre Company in 2005 and was produced Off-Broadway in 2007. Mary Rodgers' book Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers was published posthumously in 2022, and included her frank revelations and assessments of her father, family and herself.[15]
Rodgers was an atheist.[16] He was prone to depression and alcohol abuse and was at one time hospitalized.
Rodgers died in 1979, aged 77, after surviving cancer of the jaw, a heart attack, and a laryngectomy. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea.
Legacy
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. In 2002, the centennial year of Rodgers' birth was 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! The Boston Pops Orchestra released a new CD that year in tribute to Rodgers, entitled My Favorite Things: A Richard Rodgers Celebration.
Of all the writers whose songs are considered and examined in this book, those of Rodgers show the highest degree of consistent excellence, inventiveness, and sophistication ... [A]fter spending weeks playing his songs, I am more than impressed and respectful: I am astonished.[17]
Along with the Academy of Arts and Letters, Rodgers also started and endowed an award for non-established musical theater composers to produce new productions either by way of full productions or staged readings. It is the only award for which the Academy of Arts and Letters accepts applications and is presented every year. Below are the previous winners of the award:[19]
Rosemary Clooney recorded a version of "Falling in Love with Love" by Rodgers, using a swing style. After the recording session Richard Rodgers told her pointedly that it should be sung as a waltz.[21] After Doris Day recorded "I Have Dreamed" in 1961, he wrote to her and her arranger, Jim Harbert, that theirs was the most beautiful rendition of his song he had ever heard.
After Peggy Lee recorded her version of "Lover", a Rodgers song, with a dramatically different arrangement from that originally conceived by him, Rodgers said, "I don't know why Peggy picked on me, she could have fucked up Silent Night".[22]Mary Martin said that Richard Rodgers composed songs for her for South Pacific, knowing she had a small vocal range, and the songs generally made her look her best. She also said that Rodgers and Hammerstein listened to all her suggestions and she worked extremely well with them.[23] Both Rodgers and Hammerstein wanted Doris Day for the lead in the film version of South Pacific and she reportedly wanted the part. They discussed it with her, but after her manager/husband Martin Melcher would not budge on his demand for a high salary for her, the role went to Mitzi Gaynor.
^O'Leary, J. (2014). Oklahoma!, "lousy publicity," and the politics of formal integration in the American Musical Theater. Journal of Musicology, 31(1), 139–182. https://doi.org/10.1525/jm.2014.31.1.139
^"Drama". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
^Rodgers, Mary & Green, Jesse,Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers (2022). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0374298623
^Rodgers' biographer William G Hyland states: "That Richard Rodgers would recall, at the very beginning of his memoirs, his great-grandmother's death and its religious significance for his family suggests his need to justify his own religious alienation. Richard became an atheist, and as a parent, he resisted religious instruction for his children. According to his wife, Dorothy, he felt that religion was based on "fear" and contributed to "feelings of guilt." " Richard Rodgers, Yale University Press 1998, ISBN0-300-07115-9. Chapter 1 at The New York Times Books (accessed April 30, 2008).
^Wilder, Alec, 1973. American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950, Oxford University Press: 163. ISBN0-19-501445-6.
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