Hammerstein, Oscar II (Greeley Clendenning)

Hammerstein, Oscar II (Greeley Clendenning), homespun American lyricist and librettist; b.N.Y., July 12, 1895; d. Doylestown, Pa., Aug. 23, 1960. Unlike such peers as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Lorenz Hart, Hammerstein was known more for the musicals he wrote than for the individual songs featured in those shows. When collaborating with operetta composers such as Rudolf Friml (Rose-Marie) and Sigmund Romberg (The Desert Song), Hammerstein’s work represented a throwback tothe comic opera style of Victor Herbert, but his forward-looking shows with Jerome Kern (notably Show Boat) and Richard Rodgers (Oklahoma! and its successors) established the style of the integrated musical that became the dominant trend of the second half of the 20th century. His work largely rejected the sophistication of his peers in favor of a direct, emotional expression of romantic and family themes. Despite his focus on Broadway shows, he also wrote many popular songs, among them “Indian Love Call,” “Who?,” “Ol’ Man River,” “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” “All the Things You Are,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” and “No Other Love.”

Hammerstein was born into a theatrical family. His grandfather, Oscar HammersteinI, was an opera impresario; his father, William Hammerstein, managed the Victoria Theatre; his uncle, Arthur Hammerstein, was a theatrical producer. Nevertheless, Hammerstein was not encouraged to enter the profession himself. His first contact with the theater came in 1915, during his junior year at Columbia Coll., when he appeared in the varsity show On Your Way. He combined his senior year with his first year at Columbia Univ. Law School, earning his undergraduate degree in the spring of 1916, after appearing in the next varsity show, The Peace Pirates. During his second year at law school he collaborated with Rodgers on the songs “Can It,” “There’s Always Room for One More,” and “Weaknesses,” used in the amateur production Up Stage and Down (N.Y., March 8, 1917), a benefit for the Infants Relief Society, and he cowrote the lyrics and libretto and appeared in the Columbia varsity show Home, James (N.Y., March 28, 1917). (Rodgers went on to a long-term songwriting partnership with Lorenz Hart.)

Hammerstein quit law school after his second year and took a job in his uncle’s theatrical production company in June 1917, initially working as assistant stagemanager on You’re in Love, a show composed by Friml. On Aug. 22, 1917, he married Myra Finn; they had two children. He had his first song performed in a Broadway show with “Make Yourselves at Home” (music by Silvio Hein), used in Furs and Frills (N.Y., Oct. 9, 1917).

Hammerstein wrote The Light, a play without music, which closed out of town in May 1919. His first Broadway musical, for which he wrote the book and lyrics, with music by Herbert Stothart, was Always You, which ran for 66 performances. For Tickle Me he cowrote the lyrics with Otto Harbach and the libretto with Harbach and Frank Mandel; the show ran 207 performances, making it Hammerstein’sfirst real professional success. His first real hit came in 1923 with Wildflower, another collaboration on libretto and lyrics with Harbach and with music by Vincent Youmans. It ran 477 performances and generated two hit songs: “Bambalina,” which became a best-seller for Paul Whiteman and His Orch. in June 1923, and the title song, a hit for Ben Bernie and His Orch. in July. Both recordings, however, were instrumentais. Hammerstein was joined by William Cary Duncan for book and lyrics; Youmans was joined by Stothart for music, on Mary Jane McKane, a modest success at the end of the year.

Hammerstein’s biggest hit yet came with the 581-performance run of the Frimloperetta Rose-Marie, on which he again collaborated for the book and lyrics with Harbach. Whiteman scored hits with instrumental versions of the title song and “Indian Love Call” (a sheet-music million-seller) in the winter of 1925. That year Hammerstein had two more Broadway successes, both in collaboration with Harbach though with different composers. Sunny marked his first work with Kern;it had a 517-performance run and brought hits to George Olsen and His Orch. (who appeared in the show) with instrumental treatments of the title song and “Who?,” a best-seller in February 1926 that reportedly went on to sell a million copies. Song of the Flame had music by Stothart and George Gershwin. It ran for more than 200 performances; the title song was a hit for Vincent Lopez and His Orch., and “Cossack Love Song” scored for The Ipana Troubadors in June 1926. Again, both were instrumental recordings.

In 1926, Hammerstein and Harbach (with Mandel contributing to the book) next teamed up with Romberg for The Desert Song, which ran 471 performances and produced two hits for Nat Shilkret and His Orch. in the winter of 1927: “One Alone” (an instrumental) and “The Riff Song” (with vocals by The Revelers). Golden Dawn, on which Hammerstein and Harbach worked with composers Stothart and Emmerich Kalman, was a moderate success with a run of 184 performances and included the hit song “Dawn” (music by Stothart and Robert Stolz), recorded by Shilkret.

But the most important work of Hammerstein’s early career was Show Boat, based on the sprawling Edna Ferber novel, for which he wrote the book and lyricsalone, and which he codirected. With a run of 575 performances, it was a smash hit. It also included four hit songs with lyrics by Hammerstein. “Ol’ Man River” was recorded by several artists but became a bestseller in April 1928 for Whiteman, with Bing Crosby on vocals. Whiteman quickly rerecorded the song with Paul Robeson for another hit version; the song was associated with Robeson for the rest of his career. “Make Believe” also became a hit for Whiteman with Crosby singing. “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” was a hit for Helen Morgan, who sang it in the show. And Shilkret scored a hit with “Why Do I Love You?” The score also featured “Life upon the Wicked Stage,” “YouAre Love” (finally made into a record hit in November 1932 by opera singer andmovie actor James Melton), and “Bill,” a hit interpolation with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse. Even more significant than its initial success, however, Show Boat marked a coming-of-age for the Broadway musical, a move toward seriousness and stronger plots that Hammerstein would pursue further with Rodgers in the 1940s and 1950s.

Hammerstein returned to Romberg and to operetta with The New Moon in 1928, collaborating on the libretto with Mandel and Laurence Schwab. The result was another enormous success, as the show ran 519 performances and four of its songs became hits: “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” and “One Kiss” for Shilkret, “Marianne” for the Arden-Ohman Orch., and “Lover, Come Backto Me” for Whiteman among others. The show also included the stirring march song “Stouthearted Men.”

Hammer stein and his wife divorced in 1929; he married Dorothy Blanchard Jacobson on May 14. They had one son, and the marriage lasted until Hammerstein’s death 31 years later. His next show was Sweet Adeline, composed by Kern. A moderate success at 233 performances, it produced the hit “Why Was I Born?” recorded by Helen Morgan, for whom the show had been written. Hammerstein then signed a contract with Warner Bros, to write songs and screenplays for films and wentto Hollywood.

The Desert Song and Show Boat had been made into movies in 1929, and film versions of Song of the Flame, Golden Dawn, Sunny, and (minus the definite article) New Moon followed in 1930. (The perennially popular New Moon also generated a hit recording in 1930 for Perry Askam pairing “Lover, Come Back to Me” and “Stouthearted Men,”) Hammerstein’s first effort for Warner, for which he wrote the screenplay and the lyrics to songs by Romberg, was Viennese Nights, released in November 1930. It was not a success. Back in N.Y., his presence was felt with several interpolations into Ballyhoo (N.Y., Dec. 22, 1930), among them “I’m One of God’s Children (Who Hasn’t Got Wings)” (music by Louis Alter, lyrics also by Harry Ruskin), which became a hit for Libby Holman in February 1931.

When Children of Dreams, Hammerstein’s second screenplay for Warner, again with songs by him and Romberg, became a box office failure upon release in July 1931, the studio bought him out of his contract. Unfortunately, his next Broadway efforts, Free for All (with composer Richard A. Whiting) and East Wind (with Romberg), were no more successful.

Music in the Air, for which Hammerstein wrote book and lyrics (to Kern’s music), and which he directed, was a substantial hit, running 342 performances in the depth of the Depression and featuring two hits that became standards: “I’ve Told Ev’ry Little Star” and “The Song Is You,” both recorded by Jack Denny and His Orch.

Music in the Air was Hammerstein’s last successful musical for more than 10 years, though several songs he wrote became popular hits. Three Sisters, a British musical he wrote and directed with Kern, was a flop, running only 45 performances, but it included “I Won’t Dance,” which became a hit after its lyric was revised by Dorothy Fields and it was used in the film Roberta (1935). The Night Is Young, an MGM film for which Hammerstein and Romberg wrote the songs, included “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” which was on the newly established hit parade for Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orch. in the spring of 1935.

The release of a film version of Rose Marie (Hollywood having eliminated the hyphen in the title) in 1936 led to a recording of “Indian Love Call”by its stars, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, that reportedly sold a million copies. “A Mist over the Moon,” one of the songs Hammerstein wrote with composer Ben Oakland for The Lady Objects, earned a 1938 Academy Award nomination. Hammerstein wrote the book and lyrics for and codirected Very Warm for May, which marked Kern’s return to Broadway and his final stage musical. It was another flop, running only 59 performances, but “All the Things You Are” from the score became a big hit for Tommy Dorsey and His Orch., topping the hit parade in January and February 1940.

Following the Nazi occupation of Paris in June 1940, Hammerstein wrote the lyric “The Last Time I Saw Paris” and sent it to Kern, who set it to music. The song was introduced on radio by Kate Smith and interpolated into the film version of Lady Be Good (1941). On Feb. 26, 1942, it won the 1941 Academy Award for Best Song.

During 1942, Hammerstein worked on Carmen Jones, an English adaptation of Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, to be set in contemporary times with an African American cast. He was also approached by the Theatre Guild to write a musical version of Lynn Riggs’s play Green Grow the Lilacs. He agreed to work with Richard Rodgers, because Lorenz Hart was not interested in the project. The resultwas Oklahoma!, for which Hammerstein wrote both lyrics and libretto. Its plotand characters integrated with its music and dance, the show fulfilled the promise of Show Boat and influenced everything that came after it in the musical theater. (It won a special Pulitzer citation in 1944.) With a run of 2, 212 performances, it was the most successful musical ever up to that time.

Though it opened during a musicians’ strike that prevented recordings for nearly six months, Oklahoma! revolutionized the recording industry. Two of its songs, “People Will Say We’re in Love” and “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” became Top Ten hits for Bing Crosby and Trudy Erwin, but more significant was the success of Decca’s original cast album, the first such recording to become broadly popular. (After the introduction of the LP at the end of the 1940s, the reissued album reportedly sold several million copies.) Before Oklahoma!, record companies rarely recorded cast albums from Broadway shows; after it (at least for the next 25 years), they rarely failed to do so. The Oklahoma! album also spawned a hit single in Alfred Drake’s performance of “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” Hammerstein’s return to success on Broadway in 1943 was capped by the opening of Carmen Jones, which ran 502 performances.

The success of Oklahoma! and the death of Lorenz Hart on Nov. 22, 1943, made the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein permanent. They next adapted the Ferenc Molnâr play Liliom into the musical Carousel Despite its dark tone, the show was another success, running 890 performances. The lengthy “Soliloquy” became a standard, and the other hits included “If I Loved You,” a million-seller recorded by Perry Corno among others, “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over,” recorded by Hildegarde, and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” recorded by Frank Sinatra. As with Oklahoma!, however, the most popular recording was the cast album, which topped the charts in August 1945.

That same month Rodgers and Hammerstein’s next work, the movie musical State Fair, was released. The biggest hits from the film were “That’s for Me,” recorded by Jo Stafford, and “It Might as Well Be Spring,”by Sammy Kaye and His Orch., the latter capturing the 1945 Academy Award. Original soundtrack albums were virtually unknown at the time, but Dick Haymes, the film’s star, recorded a State Fair album that topped the charts in February 1946.

Jerome Kern’s final film project before his death on Nov. 11, 1945, was Centennial Summer, which included his last collaboration with Hammerstein, “All Through the Day.” Upon the film’s release in the spring of 1946, several artists recorded the song, the most successful being Sinatra, who scored a Top Ten hit. The song also earned an Academy Award nomination.

Eschewing adaptation, Hammerstein wrote a new, original libretto for his and Rodgers’s next show, the experimental Allegro. Though the show was a failure, it is remembered for “The Gentleman Is a Dope” and “So Far,” which Sinatra recorded for a Top Ten hit.

South Pacific, based on a book of short stories by James Michener, was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s biggest hit since Oklahoma!, running 1, 925 performances and winning the Pulitzer Prize for Best Play and the Tony Award for Best Musical. Perry Corno had a #1 hit with “Some Enchanted Evening” and a Top Ten hit with “Bali Ha’i”; Margaret Whiting had a hit with “A Wonderful Guy”; the score also included “A Cockeyed Optimist,” “Happy Talk,” “Honey Bun,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame,” “This Nearly Was Mine,” the socially conscious “YouVe Got to Be Carefully Taught,” and “Younger than Springtime”; and the biggest record hit was the original cast album, featuring stars Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, which became the longest running #1 recording in the history of the Billboard magazine album chart—a remarkable 69 weeks. Belatedly certified gold in 1966, the album reportedly sold about three million copies.

Originally intended as a star vehicle for stage veteran Gertrude Lawrence but subsequently more identified with Yul Brynner, The King and I was another enormous hit, running 1, 246 performances and winning the Tony Award for Best Musical. From its score, only “We Kiss in a Shadow” became a minor hit for Sinatra, but the cast album—which also featured “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” “Hello, Young Lovers,” “Getting to Know You,” “Something Wonderful,” “I Have Dreamed,” and “Shall We Dance?”—reached the Top Ten and stayed in the charts for over a year.

The year 1951 also saw the third film version of Show Boat, starring Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner (whose singing voice was dubbed by Annette Warren), and Howard Keel. The film became one of the year’s top moneymakers, and the soundtrack album topped the charts during the summer and fall.

Hammerstein had rewritten the lyrics to a Harry Ruby Bert Kalmar song, “Moonlight on the Meadow,” in the mid-1930s to create “A Kiss to Build a Dream On.” Intended for the 1935 Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera, the song was not used and had to wait until 1951 to turn up in the motion picture The Strip, where it was performed by Louis Armstrong. Armstrong recorded a hit version of the song, but the most popular recording was by Hugo Winterhalter and His Orch. and Chorus, which made the Top Ten in February 1952. In September country singer Slim Whitman reached the Top Ten with a revival of “Indian Love Call” that earned a gold record.

Me and Juliet, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s next musical, was only a modest success, though it featured “No Other Love,” which became a #1 hit for Perry Como in August 1953; the cast album reached the Top Ten. Hammerstein was also represented in the charts by a revival of “Lover, Come Back to Me” by Nat “King” Cole in the fall.

Released Oct. 11, 1955, the film version of Oklahoma!, which benefited froma heavy involvement by Rodgers and Hammerstein, was a box office smash, becoming one of the most popular movies of the year and generating a soundtrack album that topped the charts and sold over two million copies. Pipe Dream, their next show, was a flop, however, with the shortest run of any Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Nevertheless, four of its songs reached the charts, the last not until 1962: “All at Once” (Perry Corno) and “Everybody’s Got a Home but Me” (Eddie Fisher), both of which made the Top 40, “The Next Time It Happens” (Carmen McRae), and “Sweet Thursday” (Johnny Mathis).

The success of Oklahoma! on film led to movie versions of Carousel and The King and I in 1956, resulting in hit soundtracks. The King and I went to #1 and earned a gold record; Carousel missed the top of the charts but sold a million copies.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s next effort was a musical version of Cinderella for television. The program starred Julie Andrews and produced a chart record in Vic Damone’s version of “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?” (A second television production in 1965 starred Leslie Ann Warren.)

The year 1958 brought the film version of South Pacific, which became the biggest box office success of the year, while the gold-selling soundtrack album became the best-selling LP of the year. Flower Drum Song, the next new Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, was solid if not a spectacular success. Only “You Are Beautiful” from the score generated a chart record, by Johnny Mathis, but the cast album reached #1 in February 1959 and went gold.

The last of the gigantic Rodgers and Hammerstein hits was The Sound of Music, which ran 1, 443 performances and won the Tony Award. The score generated chart records for Mitch Miller and His Orch. and Chorus (“Do-Re-Mi,” Rodgers and Hammerstein’s biggest sheet-music-seller), Tony Bennett (“Climb Every Mountain”), and Patti Page (the title song), while the cast album, which also featured such songs as “My Favorite Things,” topped the charts, went gold, and became the best-selling album of 1960. It also won the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.

Doubtless, Rodgers and Hammerstein would have continued to produce successful work had Hammer-stein not succumbed to stomach cancer in 1960 at age 65. During the 1960s his songs were revived frequently: Paul Anka had a Top 40 hit with “Hello, Young Lovers” in 1960; Linda Scott reached the Top Ten with “I’veTold Ev’ry Little Star” in 1961; in 1965, “If I Loved You”was in the Top 40 for Chad and Jeremy, and Jay and the Americans had a Top 40 hitwith “Some Enchanted Evening”; and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass had an instrumental chart record with “My Favorite Things” (which had become a Christmas standard) in 1969. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” enjoyed four chart revivals during the decade, by Patti LaBelle and Her Blue Belles in 1964, Gerry and the Pacemakers in 1965, Elvis Presley in 1968, and the Brooklyn Bridgein 1969. Flower Drum Song was made into a film in 1961, resulting in a successful soundtrack album. State Fair was given a second film treatment in 1962, also accompaniedby a charting soundtrack LP. In 1965 the film version of The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews, became the biggest box office success ever up to that time, while the soundtrack record topped the charts and went gold.

But Hammerstein’s work is best remembered in the numerous and ongoing performances of his shows around the world. There have also been frequent Broadway revivals. In August 1995 a stage version of State Fair, co- directed by Hammerstein’s son James and featuring interpolations of songs from some of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s less-successful shows, began a national tour, appropriately in Des Moines, Iowa. The production enjoyed a successful run on Broadway in 1996.

Works

(only works for which Hammerstein was one of the primary, credited lyricists are listed): musicals/ revues (dates are for N.Y. openings unless otherwise indicated): Always You (Jan. 5, 1920); Tickle Me (Aug. 17, 1920); Jimmie (Nov. 17, 1920); Daffy Dill (Aug. 22, 1922); Queen o’ Hearts (Oct. 10, 1922); Wildflower (Feb. 7, 1923); MaryJane McKane (Dec. 25, 1923); Rose-Marie (Sept. 2, 1924); Sunny (Sept. 22, 1925); Song of the Flame (Dec. 30, 1925); The Wild Rose (Oct. 20, 1926); The Desert Song (Nov. 30, 1926); Golden Dawn (Nov. 30, 1927); Show Boat (Dec. 27, 1927); The New Moon (Sept. 19, 1928); Rainbow (Nov. 21, 1928); Sweet Adeline (Sept. 3, 1929); Free for All (Sept. 8, 1931); East Wind (Oct. 27, 1931); Music in the Air (Nov. 8, 1932); Ball at the Savoy (London, Sept. 8, 1933); Three Sisters (London, April 9, 1934); May Wine (Dec. 5, 1935); Very Warm for May (Nov. 17, 1939); American Jubilee (May 12, 1940); Sunny River (Dec. 4, 1941); Oklahoma! (March 31, 1943); Carmen Jones (Dec. 2, 1943); Carousel (April 19, 1945); Allegro (Oct. 10, 1947); South Pacific (April 7, 1949); The King and I (March 29, 1951); Me and Juliet (May 28, 1953); Pipe Dream (Nov. 30, 1955); Flower Drum Song (Dec. 1, 1958); The Sound of Music (Nov. 16, 1959); State Fair (March 27, 1996). films:The Desert Song (1929); Song of the West (1930); Viennese Nights (1930); Sunny (1930); New Moon (1930); Children of Dreams (1931); Music in the Air (1934); Sweet Adeline (1935); The Night Is Young (1935); Rose Marie (1936); Give Us This Night (1936); Show Boat (1936); High, Wide and Handsome (1937); The Lady Objects (1938); The Great Waltz (1938); New Moon (1940); Sunny (1941); State Fair (1945); Show Boat (1951); The Desert Song (1953); Rose Marie (1954); Carmen Jones (1954); Oklahoma! (1955); Carousel (1956); The King and I (1956); South Pacific (1958); Flower Drum Song (1961); State Fair (1962); The Sound of Music (1965).

Writings

Lyrics (N.Y., 1949); with R. Rodgers, eds., The Rodgers and Hart Songbook (1951); Jerome Kern Song Book (1955); The Rodgers and H. Song Book (N.Y., 1958).

Bibliography

D. Taylor, Some Enchanted Evenings (N.Y., 1952); S. Green, The Rodgers and H Story (N.Y, 1963); H. Fordin, Getting to Know Him: A Biography of O. H (N.Y, 1977); F Nolan, The Sound of Their Music (N.Y, 1978); S. Green, ed., Rodgers and H. Fact Book (N.Y, 1980); Berlin, Kern, Rodgers, Hart, and H.: A Complete Song Catalogue (Jefferson, N.C., 1990); E. Morden, Rodgers and H. (N.Y, 1992); S. Citron, The Wordsmiths: O. H 2nd and Alan Jay Lerner (N.Y, 1995).

—William Ruhlmann