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Oscar Hammerstein II |
| Oscar Hammerstein II | |
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 Oscar Hammerstein II, right
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein |
| Born | July 12, 1895 New York City, New York |
| Died | August 23, 1960 (aged 65) Doylestown, Pennsylvania |
| Occupation(s) | songwriter, producer, director |
Oscar Hammerstein II (IPA: /ˈhæmərstaɪn/) (born Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein) (July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960) was an American writer, producer, and (usually uncredited) director of musicals for almost forty years, collaborating on many of the most important pieces of musical theatre of the twentieth century.
Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song", and much of his work is considered to be part of the unofficial Great American Songbook. He wrote an estimated 850 songs, dozens of which have become standards. Hammerstein was the lyricist and playwright in his partnerships; his collaborators wrote the music. Hammerstein collaborated with a number of famous composers, including Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg, but his most famous collaboration was with Richard Rogers.
Hammerstein's name is often mispronounced as "HAM-err-steen" (IPA: [ˈhæmɚstiːn]). Hammerstein himself, however, pronounced it as "HAM-err-styne" (IPA: [ˈhæmɚstaɪn]).
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He was born in New York City to William Hammerstein, whose father was the German-born Jewish theater impresario Oscar Hammerstein I; his mother Alice, née Nimmo, was the daughter of Scottish and English parents,1 and their children were raised in the Episcopalian religion.
Although Hammerstein's father managed the Victoria Theatre for his father and was an innovative producer of vaudeville shows (he is generally credited with inventing the "pie-in-the-face" routine), he was opposed to his son's desire to participate in the arts.2 Hammerstein attended Columbia University from 1912-1916 and studied at Columbia Law School until 1917. 3It was not until his father's death on June 10, 1914 that he participated in his first play with the Varsity Show entitled On Your Way.
Throughout the rest of his college career, Hammerstein wrote and performed in several Varsity Shows. After quitting law school to pursue theater, Hammerstein began his first professional collaboration, with Herbert Stothart, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel.4 He began as an apprentice and went on to form a 20 year collaboration with Harbach. Out of this collaboration came his first musical, Always You, for which he wrote the book and lyrics. It opened on Broadway in 1921.
Throughout the next forty years of his life, Hammerstein teamed with many other composers, including Jerome Kern, with whom Hammerstein enjoyed a highly successful collaboration. In 1927, Kern and Hammerstein had their biggest hit, Show Boat, which is often revived and is still considered one of the masterpieces of the American musical theatre. Other Kern-Hammerstein musicals include Sweet Adeline, Music In the Air, Three Sisters, and Very Warm for May. Hammerstein also collaborated with Vincent Youmans (Wildflower), Rudolf Friml (Rose Marie), and Sigmund Romberg (The Desert Song and The New Moon).5
Hammerstein's most successful and sustained collaboration came in 1943 when he teamed up with Richard Rodgers to write a musical adaptation of the play Green Grow the Lilacs.6 Rodgers' first partner, Lorenz Hart, was originally going to collaborate with Rodgers on this piece, but his alcoholism had gotten out of control, and he was unable to write. The adaptation became the first Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration, titled Oklahoma!, a show which furthered the revolution begun by Show Boat, by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with the songs and dances arising out of the plot and characters. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this was a "show, that, like "Show Boat", became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to "Oklahoma."7
The partnership went on to produce such classic Broadway musicals as Carousel, Allegro, South Pacific, The King and I, Me & Juliet, Pipe Dream, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music as well as the musical film State Fair (and its stage adaptation of the same name) and the television musical Cinderella, all of which were featured in the revue A Grand Night for Singing. Hammerstein also wrote the book and lyrics for Carmen Jones, an adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen with an all-black cast.
Hammerstein is today considered one of the most important figures in the history of American musical theater. He was probably the best "book writer" in Broadway history - he made the story, not the songs or the stars, central to the musical and brought it to full maturity as an art form. According to Stephen Sondheim, "What few people understand is that Oscar's big contribution to the theater was as a theoretician, as a Peter Brook, as an innovator. People don't understand how experimental 'Show Boat' and 'Oklahoma!' felt at the time they were done. Oscar is not about the 'lark that is learning to pray' -- that's easy to make fun of. He's about 'Allegro."8
His reputation for being "sentimental", is based largely on the movie versions of the musicals, especially The Sound of Music, in which a song sung by those in favor of pacification with the Nazis, "No Way to Stop It", was cut. As recent revivals of Show Boat, Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The King and I in London and New York show, Hammerstein was one of the more tough-minded and socially conscious American musical theater artists. According to Richard Kislan, "The shows of Rodgers and Hammerstein were the product of sincerity. In the light of criticism directed against them and their universe of sweetness and light, it is important to understand that they believed sincerely in what they wrote."9 According to Mark Bauch, "The Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals are romantic musical plays. Love is important."10 Hammerstein believed in love; he did not believe that it would always end happily.
Hamerstein contributed the lyrics to some 850 songs, according to The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II, edited by Amy Asch.11 Dozens of these have become standards. Some of his best-known songs are "Ol' Man River" from Show Boat, "Indian Love Call" from Rose Marie, "People Will Say We're in Love" and "Oklahoma" (which has been the official State song of Oklahoma since 1953) from Oklahoma!, "Some Enchanted Evening", from South Pacifiic, "Getting to Know You" from The King and I, and the title song, "The Sound of Music".
Hammerstein died of stomach cancer in his home in Doylestown, Pennsylvania at the age of 65,12 shortly after the opening of The Sound of Music on Broadway, thus ending one of the most productive collaborations in the history of the American musical theatre. The final song he wrote was "Edelweiss", which was added during rehearsals near the end of the second act.13 To this day, many think it is an Austrian folk song. After his death, The Sound of Music was made into the hit 1965 film adaptation, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and became perhaps his best-known legacy.
In mourning, the lights of Times Square14 and London's West End15 were dimmed in recognition of his contribution to the musical. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.16 A memorial plaque was unveiled at Southwark Cathedral, England, on May 24, 1961. 17 He was survived by his second wife Dorothy (Blanchard) Jacobson and his three children, William Hammerstein and Alice Hammerstein Mathias by first wife Myra Finn, and James Hammerstein by Blanchard.
Hammerstein won two Oscars for best original song—in 1941 for "The Last Time I Saw Paris" in the film Lady Be Good, and in 1945 for "It Might As Well Be Spring" in State Fair. He is the only person named Oscar ever to win an Oscar. In 1950, the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York."
Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards, six for lyrics and/or book, and two as producer of the Best Musical (South Pacific and The Sound of Music). Rodgers and Hammerstein began writing together before the era of the Tonys: Oklahoma! opened in 1943 and Carousel in 1945, and the Tony Awards were not awarded until 1947. Rodgers and Hammerstein received a special Pulitzer Prize award for Oklahoma! in 1944.18 The Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theater Studies at Columbia University was established in 1981 with a $1 million gift from his family.19
His advice and work influenced Sondheim, a close friend of the Hammerstein family from childhood. Sondheim has attributed his success in theater directly to Hammerstein's influence and guidance.20
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