Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical by Laurie Winer
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II (1895 –1960) was a lyricist, librettist, and producer winning eight Tony Awards and two Academy Awards for best song. Collaboration with Richard Rodgers arguably ushered in The Golden Age of Musicals, making the story, not songs or stars, central.
Hammerstein family finances fluctuated according to show business success of “the old man,” impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. Oscar moved six times before he was nine. Instead of shying away from the field, his father Willie became manager of the Victoria Theatre. Vaudevillian routines were racist, sexist, and targeted minorities. Oscar got a good look at (accepted) bigotry early on.
Oscar Hammerstein II (Public Domain)
His mom and grandmother considered him a genius. Willie taught him to be “a good boy and a good citizen.” Oscar became both, developing solid work ethic and confidence. In order to please his father, he attended Columbia Law School. At 20, the young man penned his first musical play. (Fourteen year-old Richard Rodgers was in the audience.) A school advisor encouraged him to pursue writing. Uncle Arthur offered a dogsbody job in his theatrical offices. That spring, Oscar married Myra Finn.
Musicals at the time were slapdash, “whipped up by producers and managers who gambled their own money,” writes author Laurie Winer. Stars were important; plots threadbare. Operettas, on the other hand, were stuffed with overlapping stories. Oscar tried his hand at these with Otto Harbach and Sigmund Romberg.
Jerome Kern (Courtesy of The Hammerstein Family) In 1914 Jerome Kern wrote “They Didn’t Believe Me,” with lyrics by Herbert Reynolds. With this one tune, the popular love song grew up, becoming something richer and more complex than it was before.
The face of musical theater forever changed with 1927’s opening of Showboat, a musical play as distinguished from musical comedy that integrated song, humor, and dance. Written by Jerome Kern and Oscar it deals with important social issues. Edna Ferber’s novel is blatantly xenophobic. Oscar did his best to treat this with clear vision, continuing to tinker with it for years. Winer points out that unlike later “endurance songs,” the iconic “Ol’ Man River” offers no promise of relief but death – exceptional for a deeply optimistic man. Both Oscar and Kern took credit for it.
With his wife in New York, the cuckolded Oscar sailed to oversee London productions. (Later, Myra would be the inspiration for Ado Annie in Oklahoma!.) Onboard, he met and fell in love with Dorothy Jacobson. Both divorced and they married. Oscar had two children by Myra and would have one more with Dorothy. He was, by all reports, a good father when the kids fit into his schedule. Billy Hammerstein said, “I took it for granted he loved me because I was his son.” This assumption applies to a number of Hammerstein characters.
In the film operetta May Wine, a besotted assistant declares herself to her boss. He slaps her across the mouth. She says it doesn’t hurt at all. Ten years later, Billy Bigelow would slap Julie (Carousel) who had the same response. Showboat came out as a film. The Hammersteins moved to Highland Farms in Pennsylvania. Oscar and Kern wrote “The Last Time I Saw Paris.”
Rodgers and Hammerstein (Public Domain)
Richard Rodgers was having a tough time with longtime professional partner Larry Hart’s depression and alcoholism. Brought together to adapt Edna Ferber’s Saratoga, Rodgers and Hammerstein instead turned to Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs – which became Oklahoma!. The musical was considered groundbreaking in part, because it didn’t feature chorus girls in the first 40 minutes. Agnes de Mille introduced ballet into the format.
After the film State Fair, which both men thought of as slight, came adaptation of Liliom by Ferenc Molnar. Carousel was considered their darkest, deepest work. In the play, allowed back to earth for a day, Billy fails at his attempt for redemption and is presumably sent to hell. Oscar said he rewrote the ending because he couldn’t conceive of an unregenerate soul.
As collaborators, Rodgers and Hammerstein worked better apart. The composer drank and bedded a string of young actresses. Hammerstein had a long term affair with a showgirl. The partners produced a number of plays and musicals including Annie Get Your Gun and wrote the unsuccessful Allegro.
Oscar and Dorothy Hammerstein at Highland Farms This image is of Australian origin and is in the public domain in Australia and the United States
Young Mary Rodgers, Richard’s daughter, remembers Oscar as “a big, rumpled guy with a full, friendly mouth, gentle eyes, a soft voice, and badly pockmarked skin who wrote with a soft pencil standing upright…” All but abandoned by her own father, she hung out at Highland Farms. “During the war, their house was virtually an orphanage.” It was there she met and bonded with 12 year-old Stephen Sondheim, fleeing his own horrific parental situation. In Oscar, Sondheim acquired an invaluable father, friend, and mentor.
Josh Logan brought to Rodgers and Hammerstein James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific. As Logan knew about army etiquette, he helped Oscar with the book, but was later denied royalties ostensibly because of R & H’s business structure. Logan forgave Oscar but not Rodgers (often the case). Michener’s stories are more complicated and darker than the musical. Emile de Beque, for example has eight daughters with four women of three nationalities. South Pacific became the longest running musical after Oklahoma!.
South Pacific Rehearsal 1949: Joshua Logan, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Mary Martin, James Michener. (Public Domain)
The King and I was based on two memoirs by Anna Leonowens, a 32 year-old widow who went to Siam to teach the king’s children. Rex Harrison and Irene Dunne starred in a 1946 film. Gertrude Lawrence bought the rights and approached Rodgers and Hammerstein. Winer interprets the young prince’s vows of an enlightened future at his father’s deathbed to Oscar’s hopes for Civil Rights and Nuclear Disarmament, two issues among many in which he was active. The lyricist struggled over “Hello, Young Lovers” and was proud of the results. As usual, he sent Rodgers the lyric. Days later, at the end of a call, the composer added, “Oh, I got that lyric. It works fine.”
The last of the collaborators’ major musicals was based on Maria Von Trapp’s 1949 autobiography. Mary Martin bought the rights to a German film based on it. Many critics thought The Sound of Music lacked Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “pioneering spirit.” “The film version underlined all the qualities that inflamed naysayers…it’s a string-filled fantasia that underlines every glance, every feeling, and encases it all in suffocating sureness. But children loved it, and the movie broke box-office records in more than twenty countries,” writes Winer.
Mary Martin and children from The Sound of Music – Photo by Toni Frissell (Public Domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-US
Flower Drum Song was considered a runner up and criticized for what reviewers saw as cultural condescension in songs like “Chop Suey.” There was, however, new attention to casting. Rodgers’ drinking veered out of control. Hammerstein died of stomach cancer nine months after the opening of The Sound of Music. The last song he wrote was “Edelweiss.” In 1965, the film won the Academy Award. Nineteen years later, having written five more musicals, Richard Rodgers passed away.
Laurie Winer’s book begins by describing theater before Rodgers and Hammerstein and ends with contemporary Broadway. It covers everything Oscar wrote; this review does not. It also chronicles collaborators (especially Rodgers), show construction, some lyrics, and historical context. There’s more, though not much about family. I would’ve enjoyed more intimate anecdotes about his relationship to Rodgers and some about musical casts. Winer has given considerable thought to connection of life and songs as well as the evolution of musicals which adds immeasurably.
Accused of being over sentimental – many think the films, not the shows elicited this – Oscar said, “I’m not very interested in urban irony, I’m not that kind of man…I love trees…”
Book photos and author’s image courtesy of Yale University Press
Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of The Musical by Laurie Winer
Yale University Press
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