Richard Rodgers

Biography

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 work significantly influenced 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 in the 1940s and 1950s, such as Oklahoma!, Flower Drum Song, Carousel, Cinderella, 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 new maturity by telling stories that focus on characters and drama rather than the genre's earlier light-hearted entertainment.
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. He also won a Pulitzer Prize, making him the first person to receive all five awards. In 1978, Rodgers was in the inaugural group of Kennedy Center Honorees for lifetime achievement in the arts.

Early life

Rodgers was born into a Jewish family in Queens, New York, the son of William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed the family name from Rogazinsky, and Mamie Rodgers (née Levy). He began playing the piano at age six. He attended P.S. 166, Townsend Harris Hall, and DeWitt Clinton High School. Rodgers spent his early teenage summers at Camp Wigwam in Waterford, Maine, where he composed some of his first songs.
Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, and Oscar Hammerstein II all attended Columbia University. At Columbia, Rodgers joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. In 1921, he transferred to the Institute of Musical Art (which later became the Juilliard School) to study music composition. Rodgers was influenced by composers such as 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 Hart

In 1919, Rodgers met Lorenz Hart, thanks to Phillip Levitt, a friend of Rodgers'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 Poor Little Ritz Girl (1920), 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. 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 critics found the show fresh and delightful. Although it was meant to run only one day, the Guild knew it had a success and allowed it to reopen 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.
During 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 wrote some classic songs and film scores out west, including Love Me Tonight (1932) (directed by Rouben Mamoulian, who later directed 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 that 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×Slaughter on Tenth Avenue7 May 1997 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 13 tracks1Slaughter on Tenth Avenue8:452Interplay: Gavotte2:203Interplay: Blues3:444Fancy Free: Galop1:295Fancy Free: Waltz2:296Fancy Free: Danzon2:357The Three-Cornered Hat: The Neighbor's Dance3:008The Three-Cornered Hat: The Miller's Dance2:239The Three-Cornered Hat: Final Dance6:1510The Age of Gold: Polka2:1411Rodeo: Hoedown3:1312Estancia: Malambo3:3213Gayane Suite: Sabre Dance2:24", 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, Rodgers wrote the ballet Ghost Town for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, with choreography by Marc Platoff.

Rodgers and Hammerstein

Rodgers's partnership with Hart began to founder because of Hart's unreliability and declining health from alcoholism. Rodgers began working again with Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he had written songs before ever working with 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. Show Boat is considered the earliest example of a book musical, but Oklahoma! epitomized its innovations and is considered the first production in U.S. history to be intentionally marketed as a fully integrated musical.
In 1943, Rodgers became the ninth president of the Dramatists Guild of America. In November 1943, he and Hart mounted a revival of A Connecticut Yankee; Hart died from alcoholism and pneumonia just days after its opening.
Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote 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) and the relative failures Allegro (1947), Me and Juliet (1953), and Pipe Dream (1955). They also wrote the score to the film State Fair (1945, 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", "Oklahoma" (which became Oklahoma's state song), "It's A Grand Night For Singing", "If I Loved You", "You'll Never Walk Alone", "It Might as Well Be Spring", "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger Than Springtime", "Bali Hai", "Getting to Know You", "My Favorite Things", "The Sound of Music×The Sound of Music1959 · Album · SoundtrackSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 17 tracksA1Preludium / The Sound of MusicA2MariaA3My Favorite ThingsA4Do‐Re‐MeA5Sixteen Going on SeventeenA6The Lonely GoatherdA7How Can Love SurviveB1The Sound of Music (reprise)B2LaendlerB3So Long, FarewellB4Climb Ev’ry MountainB5No Way to Stop ItB6An Ordinary CoupleB7ProcessionalB8Sixteen Going on Seventeen (reprise)B9EdelweissB10Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Sixteen Going on Seventeen", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", and "Edelweiss", Hammerstein's last song.

Much of Rodgers's work with Hart and Hammerstein was orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett. Rodgers composed 12 themes that 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 preexisting footage—and was broadcast in dozens of countries. The melody of the popular song "No Other Love" was later taken from the Victory at Sea theme "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. He composed the theme music, "March of the Clowns", for the 1963–64 television series The Greatest Show on Earth, which ran for 30 episodes, and contributed the main title theme for the 1963–64 historical anthology television series The Great Adventure.
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." Rodgers, Hammerstein, and Joshua Logan won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for South Pacific. Rodgers and Hammerstein had won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for Oklahoma!.
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 37 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards, and two Emmy Awards.

After Hammerstein

Rodgers composed five more musicals after Hammerstein's death in 1960: No Strings (1962), Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965), Two by Two (1970), Rex (1976), and I Remember Mama (1979).
Rodgers wrote both words and music for 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 the film are by Rodgers and Hammerstein.)
Rodgers's final Broadway musicals had declining 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; Rex, only 49; and I Remember Mama, 108. Rodgers worked with lyricists Stephen Sondheim (Do I Hear a Waltz?), a protégé of Hammerstein; Martin Charnin (Two by Two, I Remember Mama); and Sheldon Harnick (Rex), but never found another permanent partner. Sondheim's reluctance to participate in Do I Hear a Waltz? led to tension between the two. Charnin and Rodgers had opposing ideas when creating Two by Two.
At its 1978 commencement ceremonies, Barnard College awarded Rodgers its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction. Also in 1978, Rodgers was an honoree at the first Kennedy Center Honors. At the 1979 Tony Awards ceremony (six months before his death), he received the Lawrence Langner Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in the American Theatre.
One of Rodgers'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.

Personal life

In 1930, Rodgers married Dorothy Belle Feiner. Their first daughter, Mary, composed Once Upon a Mattress and wrote children's books. The Rodgerses later lost a daughter at birth. Their youngest daughter, Linda, also had a brief career as a songwriter. Mary Rodgers's book Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers was published posthumously in 2022, and includes frank revelations and assessments of her father, family, and herself. Both Mary's and Linda's sons are also musical theater composers. Mary's son, Adam Guettel, won Tony Awards for Best Score and Best Orchestrations for The Light in the Piazza in 2005. Peter Melnick, Linda'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.
Rodgers was an atheist. He was prone to depression and alcohol abuse, and was at one time hospitalized.
Tom Drake portrayed Rodgers in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Words and Music, a semi-fictionalized depiction of the partnership of Rodgers and Hart. In Richard Linklater's 2025 film Blue Moon, he is played by Andrew Scott, who won the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

Death

Rodgers died at his home in Manhattan on December 30, 1979, at the age of 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 U.S. postage stamps. In 2002, the centennial year of Rodgers's birth was celebrated worldwide with books, retrospectives, performances, new recordings of his music, and a Broadway revival of Oklahoma!. The BBC Proms devoted an entire evening to Rodgers's music, including a concert performance of Oklahoma!, and the Boston Pops Orchestra released the CD My Favorite Things: A Richard Rodgers Celebration.
Alec Wilder wrote:

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 ... after spending weeks playing his songs, I am more than impressed and respectful: I am astonished.
In 2003, PS 166 on Manhattan's Upper West Side was renamed The Richard Rodgers School of The Arts and Technology.
Rodgers is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
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:

Relationship with performers

Rosemary Clooney recorded a version of "Falling in Love with Love" by Rodgers, using a swing style. After the recording session, Rodgers pointedly told her that it should be sung as a waltz. 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, in a dramatically different arrangement from his, Rodgers said, "I don't know why Peggy picked on me; she could have fucked up Silent Night". Mary Martin said 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. 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.