Word: hammersteins
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Carousel. Charming, touching musical play made from Molnar's Liliom by Okla homa's Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II (TIME, April...
What Goes Up ... In the 30s Hammerstein went into a tail spin. Called to Hollywood when sound pictures started up, he helped turn out some very unsound ones. Back on Broadway, he had one or two mild successes and a string of flops. And then came Oklahoma...
...lyric writer, Hammerstein has never equaled Lorenz Hart for inventiveness or Cole Porter for sophistication. But he is always serviceable, often scintillating. He gets more meaning, character and humanity into his book-writing than most of his rivals. One reason may be that many of his librettos were discerningly adapted from fairly full-blooded material. Another likely reason: Hammerstein lacks the typical Tin Pan Alley taste and the blatantly Broadway mind. He is ruefully conscious that the librettist is the whipping boy of musicomedy, the first to be blamed for a failure, the last to get credit for a success...
...Mention Opera. Hammerstein was born 49 years ago into a great theatrical tribe. His father, William, produced vaudeville; his Uncle Arthur produced musicals; his cousin Elaine became a screen star in silent days. But it was his grandfather, bearded, cigar-mauling, top-hatted Oscar I, the most spectacular impresario of his time, who made the name Hammerstein a near-synonym for Broadway. Oscar I was said to have occupied more newspaper space during his heyday than any other American except Theodore Roosevelt. A reckless and rambunctious man, Oscar I made millions in vaudeville and operetta, lost them on grand opera...
Beyond being Hammerstein's biggest plum, Oklahoma! may have started his greatest partnership. He and Composer Rodgers have a second smash in Carousel; as Broadway producers, they are cleaning up on John van Druten's I Remember Mama; under the title of Williamson Music Inc. (both their fathers were named William), they are highly successful music publishers; Hollywood is excited over the forthcoming cinemusical they have made of State Fair; and they have plans afoot for another Broadway show...