The Hammersteins

by Oscar Andrew Hammerstein

  Dorothy and Oscar with their son, Jimmy

  Stevie, however, was not exactly adorable. Susan Blanchard remembers: “We were all somewhat wary of him because he had a terrific temper. One time we were playing Monopoly and I accused him of cheating and he hit me. Much later he told me he had hit me because he was cheating.” Her half-brother Jimmy “loved him as a brother, but Steve was not warm. Steve was brittle, competitive, and sarcastic. More so than other kids his age and better at it. There was nothing cuddly about him.”

  Although Oscar and Dorothy had a fully staffed apartment on East Sixty-first Street, they stayed there as little as possible, coming in only for winters, rehearsals, or when there was a problem with a play. They spent most of their time at Highland Farm.

  Oscar thrived when he was at the farm, luxuriating in his sacred daily routine: up at six, a swim followed by a massage, breakfast of orange juice, coffee, bacon, and eggs—medium, with mustard—joined by Dorothy, and by eight thirty dressed in his usual rumpled pants and shirt, then working in his study till four thirty. During that time a DO NOT DISTURB sign was lit—meaning Jimmy and Stevie couldn’t play the piano.

  Oscar’s public persona was that of a warm, loving, generous colleague, friend, father, and husband. Some quibbled with that portrait, claiming that beneath the veneer of courtly and charming gentlemanly behavior beat the heart of a pragmatic, hard-as-nails, even ruthless, man. Admittedly his calm, even-tempered demeanor was a welcome counterweight to Dorothy’s emotional nature. He could be sweet, but, especially with his children, he could also be cold, condescending, and provocative. Truth was “he talked a good game, but he didn’t want intimacy,” Mary Rodgers remembers, not fondly.

  Oscar contemplates his next move.

  Sondheim adds: “He and my father shared something, I think, which is that they were not good parents until you were at a rational age, and the trouble with that is, by the time you are a rational age, a number of wounds have been inflicted and scars have formed.”

  Sondheim taught Oscar how to play chess, and the highly competitive wordsmith older man got progressively better surprisingly quickly. Early on he hesitated while moving a piece, pondered, then moved another piece. The boy was impressed that the novice had seen the trap he had set. “No,” Oscar Hammerstein said, “I heard your heart beating.”

  Over the years, Stephen Sondheim became a surrogate son to Oscar Hammerstein, who favored the precocious and clearly talented boy over his other children. Spending time to take the teenager under his wing, Oscar nurtured him psychologically and professionally. “He saved my life” a grateful Sondheim puts it succinctly, adding, “I wrote for the theatre to be like Oscar.”

  When Sondheim showed Oscar his first play and asked for the unvarnished truth, Oscar gave it to him: awful, was the verdict. Oscar then gave him a four-part exercise:

  1. Write a musical; all of it—book, music, lyrics—for a good play

  2. Do the same for a not-so-good play

  3. Now adapt a play from a novel or short story

  4. Last, write an original musical

  Sondheim, perfectly capable of seeing how thoughtful and worthwhile this advice was, set off to accomplish his task as if he were a knight of the Round Table. “I learned more in that afternoon than most people learn about songwriting in a lifetime,” Sondheim said. Years later, the appreciative but prickly composer/lyricist would say in response to a reporter’s question about the partnership that Oscar Hammerstein was “a man of limited talent but infinite soul” and Richard Rodgers “a man of infinite talent and limited soul,” which says a great deal about all three men.

  Oscar took his pupil to previews for Carousel and let him work, for $25 a week, as the assistant vice president in charge of retyping and getting Danish and coffee. This occurred during the trying time of putting Allegro together. Sondheim was in New Haven and, before he went back to school at Williams, witnessed that disaster. It’s possible that the inordinately gifted Sondheim was aware, as his mentor was, that after Allegro, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s next play had better be a hit.

  Chapter 15

  AT THE TOP OF THEIR GAME

  South Pacific marks a great dividing line in the Rodgers and Hammerstein oeuvre between heroes and heroines who are more or less evenly matched in age and stories about powerful older men and the younger women who are attracted to them … Such a departure from the usual was praised at the time; it even seemed courageous … Yet the pattern of the older man marrying the younger woman was already a truism of American culture, reflected at every turn in its films, novels, advertisements, newspapers, and magazines … What might have made the story look especially attractive to the musical’s creators was the undeniable fact that they themselves were getting older. When South Pacific opened, Hammerstein was fifty-four and Rodgers, at forty-seven, too close to fifty for comfort.

  —MERYLE SECREST

  Stephen Sondheim: A Life

  “Some Enchanted Evening” sheet music from South Pacific, 1949

  First-time author James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947, a neat trick for a collection of short stories. Oscar was immediately drawn to the theme of interracial conflict and, after complicated maneuvering, secured the rights to make it into a play, including producing rights.

  Said Michener: “They were inwardly burning because of the reception accorded to Allegro. Those fellows were so mad I was fairly confident that they could make a great musical out of the Bronx telephone directory.”

  For the female lead, Oscar wanted his friend Mary Martin, who had taken over the title role from Ethel Merman and was touring in Annie Get Your Gun, to play Arkansas-born Navy nurse Nellie Forbush. This time there was no coin toss; Martin said yes right away. As the dashing older man she falls in love with, Oscar signed Metropolitan Opera star Ezio Pinza, who, as fate would have it, was shopping around for a role on Broadway.

  Oscar’s least favorite part of putting together a play was writing the book, and this time the task was even more onerous than usual. Oscar loathed the military to the point where he found writing about it difficult, and then impossible. He experienced writer’s block—or as close to it as a pro like him could come. Rodgers, seeing that there was a problem (which didn’t exactly make him happy), immediately asked director Joshua Logan to lend a hand, as Logan had extensive military experience. He went down to Bucks County and, over an intense ten-day period, worked with Oscar on the script. Afterward, Logan wanted coauthor credit, which was all right with Oscar but not with Dick. (Accounts vary here, but no one denies that there was a dispute.) Also, Logan wanted a percentage of the play’s revenue. In the end they gave in by half: yes to the credit, but not to the money. Logan would later get a percentage when he directed the movie.

  Rehearsals had, as they usually do, their ups and downs, with Pinza supplying most of the downs. He didn’t speak English very well and mispronounced the lyrics to “Some Enchanted Evening,” which drove both Dick and Oscar crazy. He spent his spare time trying to put the make on spunky and married Mary Martin, which drove pretty much everyone crazy. At one point Logan wanted to get rid of him but was outvoted.

  But there was inspiration as well as exasperation. Mary Martin cut her hair short and suggested at one appropriate point in the plot that she actually shampoo it onstage. Oscar knew a good idea when he heard it and that gave rise to “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.”

  When Michener’s friends objected to the song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” a bold and profound dissection of racism, and one of Oscar Hammerstein’s finest songs, Michener, who didn’t agree with them, went to speak with Oscar. Oscar, somewhat taken aback, stood his ground, saying quite rightly, “That is what the play is about.” Racism, he maintained, is something that you are not born with, but something you learn:

  You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,

  You’ve got to be taught from year to year,

  It’s got to be dru
mmed in your dear little ear—

  You’ve got to be carefully taught!

  You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

  Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

  And people whose skin is a different shade—

  You’ve got to be carefully taught.

  You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,

  Before you are six or seven or eight,

  To hate all the people your relatives hate—

  You’ve got to be carefully taught!

  You’ve got to be carefully taught!

  Advance sales for South Pacific set an all-time record, and on opening night, April 7, 1949, there were numerous curtain calls and, when the curtain finally fell, a standing ovation. Brooks Atkinson loved it, along with the rest, and singled out one song: “If the country still has the taste to appreciate a masterly love song, ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ ought to become reasonably immortal. For Mr. Rodgers’ music is romantic incantation; and as usual Mr. Hammerstein’s verses are both fervent and simple.”

  South Pacific’s 1,925 performances were second in number only to Oklahoma! and the show made more money: a net profit of $7 million at a time when that was a vast sum. It swept the Tonys and won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, beating out, among others, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Mary Martin appeared on the covers of Life, Look, and Newsweek. The cast album sold a million copies, and there was even more money rolling in from the sales of dolls, music boxes, clothing, fashion accessories, and even hairbrushes to be used right after washing “that man right out of your hair.”

  Oscar and Dick even appeared on Groucho Marx’s television show, You Bet Your Life. Groucho referred to them as “Roy Rodgers and Trigger,” which pleased Oscar not at all, and he corrected his host, who, in his usual unfazed fashion, said that Hammerstein was a funny name for a horse and, come to think of it, a funny name for a man. Oscar and Dick stayed on message, though, plugging their songs, which, after all, was why they were there.

  Ethan Mordden later described the success of South Pacific as such:

  South Pacific came into town a sure thing, and in some ways it was the biggest hit Rodgers and Hammerstein ever had. Oklahoma! ran longer. Carousel was the opera. The Sound of Music made more money. However, Oklahoma! was, in 1943, a novelty; Carousel is grim; and The Sound Of Music really broke its records as a movie. South Pacific was a vastly profitable, state-of-the-art joy. It ran for 1,925 performances—nearly five years—at a time when Broadway was filled with Rodgers and Hammerstein musical imitators. South Pacific was running against itself, for by 1949 major musicals were rationalized, choreographed thematically, and scored for character. Think of it this way: Oklahoma! was up against Something for the Boys. South Pacific was up against, well, Oklahoma!, whose national tour dropped in on the Broadway Theatre, eight blocks north of South Pacific, in the summer of 1951.

  Oscar and Dick at the piano

  The seed of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s next collaboration, The King and I, was planted by the woman who would become its star—Gertrude Lawrence. Her magnetic performance of “Someone to Watch Over Me” in the Gershwin brothers’ 1926 show Oh, Kay!; her rendition, three years later, of “Body and Soul”; and her performance in Lady in the Dark in 1941 boosted her from star to legend. But she put her songs over with acting, not vocal range—in fact, she was often flat. Said Ethan Mordden, “Her thin soprano was wayward, apt to flat; and her top notes, precarious a decade earlier when she could barely hit a top G … were now resting in peace.”

  The Majestic marquee featuring South Pacific

  Lawrence had a unique style, and when she was on her game, well, she was something special. And she knew a good thing when she read it. Margaret Landon’s 1943 best-selling novel Anna and the King of Siam was more than a good thing; it was the thing. In the story, set in the 1860s, a British widow comes to the court of King Mongkut, the king of Siam (now called Thailand), to teach his numerous children, from numerous wives, to speak English as part of his modernization program. This was the role that would allow Lawrence to triumphantly return to the stage. Wisely, she bought up the rights and went looking for help in turning the book into a play.

  “Hello, Young Lovers” sheet music from The King and I, 1951

  As fate would have it, Lawrence’s lawyer, agent, and friend Fanny Holtzman ran into Dorothy Hammerstein in Manhattan one day and urged her to read the book and perhaps mention it to her husband. Both Dorothys read and liked Anna’s story and recommended it to their husbands. At first the partners didn’t like it so much, but when they screened the 1946 dramatic film adaptation, starring Rex Harrison and Irene Dunne, they quickly changed their minds. There was much to work with: East versus West; tyranny versus democracy; wrong versus right; and best of all, boys versus girls.

  But—there’s always a but, especially when it comes to theatre—they were deeply concerned about Lawrence’s star status: they made stars; they didn’t write parts for them. Everyone knew that Lawrence could be temperamental, which was putting it mildly: “Turn your back on her for a moment and she’d sweep onstage from a totally unexpected entry, or improvise dance steps and throw the ensemble off, or turn up in a new costume. She was tough on fellow actors, hell on directors,” says Ethan Mordden.

  There was, however, too much potential here, and neither Oscar nor Dick was one to walk away from another hit. They wanted Rex Harrison to be the king in the movie, but he was tied up, and so was Noël Coward. Alfred Drake made too many contractual demands, and casting the king became a primary concern. Meanwhile, Mary Martin suggested that her costar in the 1946 production of Lute Song try for the role. “[Yul] Brynner came to audition. He was dressed casually and carried a guitar,” Rodgers later recalled. “He scowled in our direction, sat down on the stage, and crossed his legs, tailor-fashion, then plunked one whacking chord on his guitar and began to howl in a strange language…. He looked savage, he sounded savage, and there was no denying that he projected a feeling of controlled frenzy…. Oscar and I looked at each other and nodded.”

  Yul Brynner had perhaps the weirdest background in the history of theatre. Born in Russia, schooled in China, and brought up by Gypsies who taught him to play the seven-string guitar, he became an acrobat after a brief stint singing cabaret. Severe injuries curtailed his acrobatic career, and he became addicted to opium. He went to Switzerland for rehab, where he hung out with Jean Cocteau, Colette, and Marcel Marceau and decided to study acting. He worked for, of all things, the U.S. Office of War Information as a foreign-language radio broadcaster and directed some television, including the justifiably acclaimed Omnibus—all before he answered the Rodgers and Hammerstein casting call. Rodgers told Brynner not to bother reading the book because Oscar was planning to make serious alterations to his character; meaning that he would transform the king from the short, middle-aged, unpleasant ruler portrayed in the book to the charming guy in the film, and also would boldly have him die at the end.

  On opening night of The King and I, March 19, 1951, Gertrude Lawrence showed why she was a star, dazzling her audience with a radiant performance that was more than equaled by her costar.

  “Never does Mr. Brynner fall into the facile way of being a dashing leading man putting on a superficial Oriental masquerade. To an amazing extent he gets the depth, honesty, and complete credibility into an authentic characterization of a man whose awakening mind and emotions are at work,” said the New York Post’s Richard Watts, Jr.

  Jerome Robbins, who was supposed to have choreographed only one scene but ended up doing the entire play, was lauded, as was Hollywood designer Irene Sharaff, whose Tony Award–winning costumes were dazzling. These costumes gave rise to an equally fabulous quote from her: “The first-act finale of The King and I will feature Miss Lawrence, Mr. Brynner, and a pink satin ball gown.”

  Brynner won a Best Actor Oscar for The King and I movie, an unusual honor for a role in a musical. The King and I wa
s the very center of Brynner, it seems; he has haunted the role in every revival without him (for no one has figured out a way to play the king that isn’t a Brynner imitation), and in the end it is hard to know who made whom, the actor or the part.

  —Ethan Mordden

  In the summer of 1952, Gertrude Lawrence became ill and had to leave the show for a few weeks. When she returned, in late August, she assured Rodgers and Hammerstein that she was fine. However, her performances were so bad that they drafted a letter demanding that she quit, a letter they never mailed. Three weeks after her return she became ill during a performance, and three weeks after that died of leukemia. It was later discovered that she had been misdiagnosed as having hepatitis. She was buried wearing the ball gown she wore in the last act. The lights of all the theatres on Broadway and London’s West End were dimmed in her honor. But Gertrude Lawrence wasn’t the only casualty of The King and I.

  Dick and Oscar beaming under the marquee

  Chapter 16

  TRYING TO KEEP UP

  It’s the first of our plays in which nobody dies.

  —OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN

  The general rule—and rules are made to be broken—is that opera is all about love and death, whereas musical comedy is all about love and laughs. Richard Rodgers wanted to trade death for comedy in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s next collaboration. Oscar had had his chance to experiment with Allegro. It was Dick’s high-concept turn now. The public loved their big four—but they loved Guys and Dolls too. Dick felt he and Oscar needed to lighten up and get “with it.” The world had caught up.