Trivia about this writer
Hammerstein's first school was P.S. 9 in New York City on eighty-first street and West End avenue.
Oscar Hammerstein I, the grandfather of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, built ten theaters in New York City. Two of these still stand today: the New Victory on Forty-second street, and the Hammerstein Ballroom on Thirty-fourth street.
Oscar Hammerstein I, the grandfather of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, built ten theaters in New York City. Two of these still stand today: the New Victory on Forty-second street, and the Hammerstein Ballroom on Thirty-fourth street.
If all performances of Oscar Hammerstein II's stage works to date were brought together into an unbroken run, on the basis of eight performances per week, this run would last over 39 years.
Both Rodgers and Hammerstein hailed from alma mater Columbia University in New York City. Hammerstein attended 1912 - 1917, and Rodgers followed him from 1919 - 1921.
Oscar Hammerstein II came from a family of theater veterans, including father William Hammerstein, manager of the Victoria Theatre, uncle Arthur Hammerstein, Broadway producer, and of course grandfather Oscar Hammerstein for whom he was named, theater builder and impresario of the Manhattan Opera House.
Oscar Hammerstein II came from a family of theater veterans, including father William Hammerstein, manager of the Victoria Theatre, uncle Arthur Hammerstein, Broadway producer, and of course grandfather Oscar Hammerstein for whom he was named, theater builder and impresario of the Manhattan Opera House.
Both Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II married women named Dorothy, and both had fathers named William. This last fact lead Rodgers & Hammerstein to name their music publishing company Williamson Music Company when they founded it in 1945. Williamson Music Company continues to represent their musicals to this day, as a division of Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals in New York.
Hammerstein passed away in 1960. Sadly, Rodgers needed a new writing partner, and for the first time in his career, he turned to himself for words. In 1962, Rodgers crafted new songs for the re-make of STATE FAIR and wrote both music and lyrics for the musical NO STRINGS. When the film version THE SOUND OF MUSIC needed new numbers, Rodgers wrote and composed the songs I Have Confidence and Something Good.
"Getting to Know You" from THE KING AND I begins with the lines, "It's a very ancient saying, / But a true and honest thought, / That if you become a teacher / By your pupils you'll be taught." When Oscar Hammerstein II was later questioned about the verse, he admitted, "As far as I know it is not a very ancient saying, I just said it was."
Hammerstein wrote of his lyrics to the song "A Wonderful Guy" in SOUTH PACIFIC, "The emotion expressed in this song is so simple that it can afford to wear the decorations and embroidery of more ingenious rhyming. There is no subtle philosophy involved. A girl is in love and hear heart is sailing. She is sentimental and exuberant and triumphant in the discovery. The job of the lyric is to capture her spirit."
When the original production of SOUTH PACIFIC was being staged, Oscar Hammerstein II taught star Mary Martin a clog dance for the number Honey Bun, which her character Nellie performs at the troops Thanksgiving Follies.
Oscar Hammerstein II had scant success in the decade between his groundbreaking collaborations with Jerome Kern on SHOW BOAT (1927) and with Richard Rodgers on OKLAHOMA! (1943). Reflecting on this period during his later triumph, Hammerstein filled a "Seasons Greetings" advertisement in Variety with a list of his flop shows, titled "I've done it before and I can do it again."
In OKLAHOMA!, the Dream Ballet was originally choreographed by Agnes de Mille. The Ballet begins when Laurey falls into a reverie. Hammerstein's lyrics for the first draft of the song "Out of My Dreams" ended with the stage direction that a wispy figure of a bride would glide in from the shadows. Hammerstein then wrote: "Take it, Agnes!"
Writing OKLAHOMA!, Rodgers & Hammerstein struggled to find the right way of portraying menacing farmhand Jud Fry. "The question was how to make him acceptable," wrote Hammerstein, "not too much a deep-dyed villainWe didn't want to resort to the boring device of having two other characters discuss him and give the audience a psychological analysis. Even if this were dramatically desirable, there are no characters in this story who are bright enough or well-educated enough to do this. So we solved the problem with two songs, "Pore Jud" and "Lonely Room"...Jud becomes then, for a while, not just wicked..."
Hammerstein wrote about the difficulty of finding a suitable love song for the quarrelsome couple Laurey and Curly in OKLAHOMA! "Since this mood was to dominate their scenes down into the second act, it seemed impossible for us to write a song that said "I love you," and remain consistent with the attitude they had adopted toward each other. After talking this over for a long time, Dick [Richard Rodgers] and I hit upon the idea of having the lovers warn each other against any show of tenderness...of course, while they say all those things, they are obliquely confessing their mutual affection."
Searching for a way to begin what would become the musical OKLAHOMA! Oscar Hammerstein II turned to playwright Lynn Rigg's stage directions for GREEN GROW THE LILACS, on which OKLAHOMA! would be based: "It is a radiant summer morning several years ago, the kind of morning which, enveloping the shapes of earth - men, cattle in the meadow, blades of the young corn, streams - makes them seem to exist now for the first time, their images giving off a visible golden emanation that is partly true and partly a trick of imagination, focusing to keep alive a loveliness that may pass away." From this inspiration, Hammerstein drew his lyrics for "Oh What A Beautiful Mornin'."
According to Richard Rodgers in his autobiography "Musical Stages," Oscar was so moved by [Surrey With A Fringe On Top] that just listening to it made him cry. He once explained that he never cried at sadness in the theatre, only at nave happiness, and the idea of two bone-headed young people looking forward to nothing more than a ride in a surrey struck an emotional chord that affected him deeply.
When the original film of CAROUSEL was being made, certain lines in the song "June is Bustin' Out All Over" were deemed inappropriate by the Production Code Administration. Hammerstein had to replace the stanza "From Penobscot to Augusty / All the boys are feelin' lusty / And the girls ain't even puttin' up a fight," by writing the new lyrics, "And the girls who were contrary / With the boys in January / Aren't nearly so contrary any more."
In CAROUSEL, Billy meets the Starkeeper after his death. The Starkeeper gives Billy an opportunity to return to earth for one day to see his daughter. It was director Rouben Mamoulian who suggested this character for Broadway, replacing Rodgers and Hammersteins own idea of a Mr. and Mrs. God that played only in the show's out of town tryout.
Hammerstein confessed, "Songwriters fall in love with the songs they write and try to put them into shows where they don't belong. I have done it myselfthe most recent one I remember, was in ALLEGRO. We liked the song very muchit was not suitable for any of the leading characters."
Hammerstein gave an interview explained how while working on lyrics for STATE FAIR, "I started to write a song about a girl having spring fever. And then, with a terrible shock, I realized no state fairs were held except in the autumn. Then I thought, well, maybe she just feels this way, although it is fall, and it gave me an even better theme: 'It Might As Well Be Spring'."
Hammerstein wrote "Hello, Young Lovers" for THE KING AND I in just forty-eight hours, after a month of fruitless attempts. He also had definite ideas about the song's performance. In 1953 he suggested to Connie Carpenter, then playing Anna, that "instead of imagining the young lovers being down at about where the horn section is...I think the lovers ought to be somewhere on the first balcony. They are all the young lovers in the world."
In the summer of 1953, the U.S. State Department put Hammerstein on a restricted passport because of concerns about alleged communist activity.
When SOUTH PACIFIC premiered in 1949, World War II was very much engraved in the public memory, and even some of the members of the original Broadway cast playing servicemen had fought in the war. When Oscar Hammerstein had trouble writing for military voices, he turned to his oldest son William, who served as a boatswain in the South Pacific, and director Josh Logan, who spent 4 years in the Army.
In 1946, Oscar Hammerstein II told The New York Times, "Writing comes darned hard to me. I do most of it on our farm in Doylestown. There I have a room with one of those tall old-fashioned desks you used to see in shipping offices. It takes me a long time to get started, and even then the words come slowly. I keep walking up and down the room and when I get what I want I go over to the desk and write in longhand with a soft pencil. I often wonder how many miles an act I walk."
In an early draft of CAROUSEL that anticipated the show's Boston opening, Hammerstein wrote the note, "There will probably be an encore. If not, the author and composer will probably jump in the Charles River."
In February 1945, one of CAROUSEL's financiers informed Hammerstein that contrary to a line in "June is Bustin' Out All Over," sheep actually mated in the fall - not in June. Hammerstein wrote back that he was "thrown into consternation by the unwelcome news about the eccentrically frigid behavior of ewes in June." Yet he chose to keep the stanza about sheep in the song.
The fall of Paris to the Nazis inspires Oscar Hammerstein II to write his song "The Last Time I Saw Paris". Jerome Kern puts this to music. The song will inspire a1954 movie by the same title, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson.
In 1922, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II worked with Herbert Fields and Lorenz Hart on a never-produced musical called WINKLE TOWN. All four Columbia boys would go on to lasting musical theater fame.
Rodgers & Hammerstein collaborate on their first songs together, in the amateur production UP STAGE AND DOWN. Songs include "Weaknesses," "Can It," and "There's Always Room for One More."
Oscar Hammerstein II writes his first amateur score for the show HOME, JAMES in 1917, with music by Robert Lippmann and lyrics by Herman Axelrod.
December 29, 1952
Life magazine publishes Rodgers & Hammerstein's only Christmas song, "Happy Christmas Little Friend," commissioned by the magazine as a gift for its readers. In 1953 it is designated the official Christmas Seal sale song.
December 25, 1931
The year that Oscar Hammerstein II's daughter Alice began to write poems, he gave her an Oxford Book of Verse for Christmas. With it came a letter: "Let me give you a little tip about reading poetry," wrote father to daughter. "It can be awfully dull - if you read it fast. Read it slowly, and when the meaning of a line is obscured, read it over, and try and find out what the poet had in mind...understand them as deeply as you can."
December 13, 1979
With Governor George Nigh of Oklahoma among the dignitaries in attendance, a revival of OKLAHOMA! directed by Hammerstein's son, William, opens at Broadway's Palace Theatre. Preceded by a six-month tour, it plays on Broadway for 293 performances before going out on another national tour.
December 07, 1905
The world premiere of Ferenc Molnar's play LILIOM is presented at the Vigsznhz Theatre, Budapest. It is produced in New York several times with several different translations (one allegedly written by Lorenz Hart) before Rodgers & Hammerstein adapted the Benjamin Glazer text as their basis for CAROUSEL.
November 30, 1965
The Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound open to the public at the Performing Arts Research Center of the New York Public Library. Featured in this general collection are approximately 500,000 recordings from the late 19th century to the present.
November 25, 1946
The first performance of OKLAHOMA! in the state of Oklahoma is presented at the Municipal Auditorium in Oklahoma City. Governor Robert s. Kerr presides over several days of statewide celebrations, joined by Rodgers, Hammerstein, their wives, and members of the musical's creative team. Rodgers & Hammerstein are made honorary members of the Kiowa Indian tribe.
November 17, 1926
Novelist Edna Ferber signs a contract giving Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern "dramatico-musical rights" to her novel SHOW BOAT.
October 31, 1946
Anita Loo's comedy HAPPY BIRTHDAY, presented by Rodgers & Hammerstein and starring Helen Hayes, opens at the Broadhurst Theatre, New York, and runs for 564 performances. In the play Helen Hayes sings "I Haven't Got a Worry in the World," written especially for her by the producers.
October 20, 1947
Time magazine profiles Oscar Hammerstein II with a cover story entitled "The Careful Dreamer"
October 19, 1950
John Steinbeck's play BURNING BRIGHT, presented by Rodgers & Hammerstein, opens at the Broadhurst Theatre, New York, and runs for 13 performances.
October 19, 1944
John van Druten's play I REMEMBER MAMA presented by Rodgers & Hammerstein, opens at the Music Box Theatre, New York, and runs for 714 performances.
October 15, 1959
Oscar Hammerstein II begins work on "Edelweiss," his 1,589th and last lyric, written for THE SOUND OF MUSIC. It is completed on October 21 and goes into the show during its pre-Broadway tryout in Boston.
October 09, 1917
Oscar Hammerstein II writes his first professional song at the age of 22: "Make Yourself at Home" with music by Silvio Hein appears in the show FURS AND FRILLS, opening on Broadway October 9, 1917.
September 01, 1960
At the request of New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner, the lights in the Broadway theatre district are temporarily blacked out at 9:00 pm in memory of Oscar Hammerstein II.
August 31, 1953
The national tour of OKLAHOMA! begins a week of performances at the New York City Center, joining SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I, and ME AND JULIET, already running on Broadway, and prompting New York City Mayor Vincent R. Impelliteri to proclaim "Rodgers & Hammerstein Week."
August 23, 1960
Oscar Hammerstein II dies at his farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, at the age of 65.
August 22, 1917
Oscar Hammerstein II marries Myra Finn; they are divorced in 1929.
August 21, 1955
Eddie Fisher, Shirley Jones, Ed Sullivan, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and the governors of New York and Oklahoma lead an "Oklahoma Song-Fest" at the Central Park Mall in New York before a crowd of 15,000.
August 07, 1948
The New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra presents its first "Rodgers & Hammerstein Night" at Lewisohn Stadium in New York. A crowd of 20,000 attends and the R&H concerts become annual season finales at the stadium for more than a decade, with Richard Rodgers serving frequently as a guest conductor.
July 31, 1944
Williamson Music publishes "Dear Friend," a song by Rodgers & Hammerstein. All proceeds go to the 5th War Loan Drive.
July 29, 1953
MGM releases the movie MAIN STREET TO BROADWAY, featuring a host of Broadway celebrities in cameo appearances. In one sequence, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Joshua Logan, and Mary Martin play themselves "in rehearsal" for a new musical, during which Martin sings "There's Music in You," written by Rodgers & Hammerstein especially for the film.
July 23, 1942
In the first public announcement of a Rodgers & Hammerstein collaboration, The New York Times reports: "The Theatre Guild announced yesterday that Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II will soon begin work on a musical version of Lynn Rigg's folk-play GREEN GROW THE LILACS." This show would become their first hit, OKLAHOMA!
December 31, 1969
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II is born in New York City.
July 06, 1949
Oscar Hammerstein II wrote to book collaborator Josh Logan on their work SOUTH PACIFIC, "Last night, the audience behaved like a large group of people who had all met somewhere else and said, 'Let's all go over to the Majestic Theatre and get drunk.' In some way, we have combined all man's emotions into that play so that the reactions are somewhat like the combination of a big football game and a bull fight and grand opera and tragedy and comedy...Now I'm drunk!"
June 19, 1944
Williamson Music publishes "We're on Our Way," written by Rodgers & Hammerstein and dedicated to the U.S. Army Infantry.
June 05, 1951
Oscar Hammerstein II sent a report on the success of THE KING AND I to director John van Druten in June, 1951, after van Druten had returned to California. "I have never had such enthusiastic reactions for any play with which I have been connected," Hammerstein wrote. "Friends, and people I have never seen before, or heard of, come up to me and drool."
May 13, 1955
Edward R. Murrow interviews Oscar Hammerstein II at his townhouse in New York City on "Person to Person," live on CBS-TV.
April 29, 1947
OKLAHOMA! opens at the Theater Royal, Drury Lane. The theater will be continuously occupied by one Rodgers & Hammerstein musical after another for the next nine years.
April 12, 1915
Although guided by his father into a law degree at Columbia University, Oscar Hammerstein II had been bitten by the family's theatrical bug. From April 12 - 17 in 1915, he appeared as a performer in the Columbia varsity show ON YOUR WAY.
March 31, 1957
Rodgers & Hammerstein's only musical for television, CINDERELLA, is broadcast live on CBS-TV before an estimated audience of 107 million. Julie Andrews stars in the role of Cinderella.
March 29, 1943
Marlo Music Corp. publishes "The P.T. Boat Song (Steady As You Go)". Written by Rodgers & Hammerstein, the song is dedicated to the officers and men of the Motor Torpedo Boats, and all royalties go to the Navy Relief Society.
March 28, 1954
General Foods sponsors a 90-minute tribute to Rodgers & Hammerstein broadcast on the NBC, CBS, ABC, and DuMont networks simultaneously. Hosted by Mary Martin and featuring segments from OKLAHOMA!, STATE FAIR, CAROUSEL, ALLEGRO, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I and ME AND JULIET with many members of the original casts, it is also highlighted by special appearances from Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Ed Sullivan, and Rodgers & Hammerstein.
March 14, 1929
Oscar Hammerstein II marries Dorothy Blanchard Jacobson.
March 11, 1943
The world premiere of Rodgers & Hammerstein's first musical AWAY WE GO! Is presented at the Shubert Theatre, New Haven. Moving on to Boston, it acquires a new show-stopping number. This becomes the title song when the production opens on Broadway as the classic OKLAHOMA!
March 08, 1919
UP STAGE AND DOWN, an amateur musical comedy written to benefit the Infants Relief Society, features the first songs written together by 17-year-old composer Richard C. Rodgers and 24-year-old lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.
February 26, 1942
Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern win the Oscar for Best Song at the 14th Annual Academy Awards. They receive this prize for "The Last Time I Saw Paris," featured in the film LADY BE GOOD.
February 26, 1945
USO Camp Shows Inc., under the direction of Reginald and Ted Hammerstein (respectively, brother and cousin to lyricist Oscar), launches a nine-month tour of OKLAHOMA! for members of the U.S. Armed Forces stationed in the Pacific theater.
February 24, 1950
Graham Greene's drama THE HEART OF THE MATTER, presented by Rodgers & Hammerstein, opens at the Wilbur Theatre, Boston, where it closes two weeks later.
February 04, 1947
Norman Krasna's comedy JOHN LOVES MARY, presented by Rodgers & Hammerstein, opens at the Booth Theatre, New York, and runs for 421 performances.
January 24, 1950
Samuel Taylor's comedy THE HAPPY TIME, presented by Rodgers & Hammerstein, opens at the Plymouth Theatre, New York, and runs for 614 performances.
January 11, 1954
Richard Rodgers receives an honorary Doctorate in Music and Oscar Hammerstein II an honorary Doctorate in Letters from their alma mater, Columbia University.
January 05, 1920
Broadway opening of ALWAYS YOU, Hammerstein's first professional show as sole lyricist and librettist. The show runs for 66 performances.
