Word: hartness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Rodgers and Hart collaborated once more: five new songs for a revival of their 1927 hit "A Connecticut Yankee." The last lyric Hart wrote was for "To Keep My Love Alive," sung by a noble lady of who tires easily of men - 15 husbands, 15 early funerals. "Sir Philip played the harp; I cussed the thing./ I crowned him with his harp to bust the thing./ And now he plays where harps are just the thing,/ To keep my love alive." Hart's blithe wickedness is indebted to Cole Porter's "list" songs like...
...Words and Music" legendizes Hart's final opening night - November 17, 1943. Left alone in his hospital death bed, Larry staggers to his feet, puts a jacket and trousers over his pajamas (the risible jammies in "Melody Makers" now a shroud for the walking dead) and somehow makes it to the Martin Beck Theatre, unseen by the preoccupied Rodgers. Furiously kneading his throbbing temples (he apparently has a brain tumor), Larry listens distractedly to a few bars of his and Dick's music, then goes outside, collapses and dies on the street...
...least played it, while Rodgers was around and his brother-in-law Ben Feiner Jr. was helping to write the movie's screenplay. (Another scenarist, by the way, was Guy Bolton - the book writer 30 years earlier of the Princess Theatre shows that had inspired Rodgers and Hart to try musical comedy.) Just before the opening, Hart had been on one of his suicidal toots, and when he arrived at the theater an exasperated Rodgers forbade him entrance. Two days later, ill with pneumonia, he was taken to Doctors' Hospital where, three days after that, he died...
...turned out that Hart was bankrupt. The chronic spendthrift had entrusted much of his income to William Kron, a money manager recommended by Rodgers. Oddly, the money could not be found. Further, according to a new will that magically materialized, 30% of the money Hart's estate might earn from royalties was earmarked for Kron and his heirs. Another 20% would go to Hart's actor brother Teddy; but upon Teddy's death this portion would devolve to the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, a favorite charity of Kron's. Teddy's son Larry, Hart's namesake...
...Hart, he plays where harps are just the thing. A new version of "The Boys from Syracuse," which opens on 42nd Street next month, is Broadway's first R&Hart revival since "On Your Toes" in 1983-84. Why has no producer brought back "Babes in Arms," the original let's-put-the-show-on-right-here musical whose score contains "Where or When," "I Wish I Were in Love Again," "My Funny Valentine," "Johnny One-Note" and "The Lady Is a Tramp"? Why has no canny director secured the rights to a couple dozen R&Hart hits, slapped...