Richard Rodgers
b. 28 June 1902, Hammells Station, Arverne, Long Island, USA, d. 30 December 1979. Raised in a comfortable middle-class family, Rodgers developed an early love for the musical theatre. He first attempted songwriting at the age of 14 and within two years he had composed several dozen songs. In 1918, a family friend, aware of Rodgers's potential but realizing that he needed a collaborator, introduced him to Lorenz Hart. Together, Rodgers and Hart wrote many songs in their first year as partners, some of which were taken up for current Broadway shows. However, it was not until 1925 and the appearance of Manhattan and Sentimental Me, both written for The Garrick Gaieties, that the public became aware of this new songwriting team. That same year their first complete Broadway show, Dearest Enemy, was staged. Included in this show was Here In My Arms. The following year they brought The Girl Friend to Broadway, with hits in the title song and Blue Room and wrote Mountain Greenery and for Peggy-Ann, A Tree In The Park. In 1927 came Thou Swell for A Connecticut Yankee, a show which also featured My Heart Stood Still, a song written originally for an earlier show. In the late '20s and early '30s, although their shows met with only moderate success, the songs from them were exceptional and became independently successful. Among these hit songs were You Took Advantage Of Me, With A Song In My Heart, A Ship Without A Sail, Ten Cents A Dance and Dancing On The Ceiling. 
In the early '30s Rodgers and Hart worked together in Hollywood, their songs including Isn't It Romantic, Love Me Tonight, Lover and It's Easy To Remember. Back on Broadway, in 1935 they wrote Jumbo, which included My Romance, Little Girl Blue and The Most Beautiful Girl In The World. On Your Toes(1936) followed, which included There's A Small Hotel, then Babes In Arms(1937) with Where Or When, My Funny Valentine and The Lady Is A Tramp and I'D RATHER BE RIGHT (1937), which had Have You Met Miss Jones?. Their two shows of 1938 were I Married An Angel, with hits in the title song and Spring Is Here, and The Boys From Syracuse, which featured Falling In Love With Love and This Can't Be Love. The partnership's song successes continued with I Didn't Know What Time It Was, from Too Many Girls(1939), It Never Entered My Mind, from HIGHER AND HIGHER (1940) and Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered and I Could Write A Book from Pal Joey(1940). Their last show together was By Jupiter(1942), from which came Careless Rhapsody. The seamless nature of their work together belied the fact that Rodgers and Hart were very different characters. Unlike Hart, who was undisciplined, casual, unpunctual, unreliable and irresponsible, Rodgers was a dedicated individual who set for himself and maintained strict working habits. Despite the problems he experienced in working with the mercurial Hart, Rodgers was fully aware how much they needed one another and was distressed when, in 1942, Hart indicated that he no longer wished to continue writing. 
Fortunately, Rodgers's practical nature took over and he set about finding a new collaborator. He found a kindred spirit in Oscar Hammerstein II. Utterly different, both musically and in his personal characteristics, from Hart, Hammerstein brought to the new partnership an appreciation of an earlier kind of musical show (he was seven years older than Rodgers). Structurally, the shows Rodgers and Hammerstein created owed much to the formalities of operetta, while maintaining a sprightly contemporary approach to music and lyrics. Significantly for the development of the American musical, the songs were integral to the libretto, furthering plot and character development. Their first show together was Oklahoma!, which opened on Broadway on 31 March 1943 and ran for 2,248 performances. The songs from the show included Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin', The Surrey With A Fringe On Top and People Will Say We're In Love. Rodgers and Hammerstein followed the success of OKLAHOMA! by collaborating on a musical film. This was STATE FAIR (1945), which featured It Might As Well Be Spring, That's For Me and It's A Grand Night For Singing. Before the film was released the pair were already working on a new Broadway show, CAROUSEL, which opened in April 1945. The show's 890 performances made it a huge hit helped by such songs as If I Loved You, June Is Bustin' Out All Over and You'll Never Walk Alone. The partnership's next Broadway show was strikingly less successful but Allegro included some fine songs, among them A Fellow Needs A Girl and The Gentleman Is A Dope. The comparative failure of ALLEGRO was probably due to the abstract sets and the unusual staging. If that was the case, then Rodgers and Hammerstein clearly learned from their mistakes, returning to more orthodox ways with their next production. This was South Pacific (1949), which ran for almost 2,000 performances and followed the example of OKLAHOMA! by becoming a hugely successful film. The songs from the show included several hits: Some Enchanted Evening, Younger Than Springtime, A Wonderful Guy, Bali Ha'i, I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair and There Is Nothing Like A Dame. Rodgers and Hammerstein began the '50s with The King And I, another major success both on stage and as a film and, like its predecessors, the subject of numerous revivals. Songs included Shall We Dance, Hello, Young Lovers and We Kiss In A Shadow. 
Other '50s' shows were less successful but there were still good songs to be heard, among them No Other Love, from Me And Juliet. During this same period Rodgers developed a long-suppressed interest in writing music of a quasi-symphonic kind. Most successful of these ventures were his scores for the television series VICTORY AT SEA (1952) and THE VALIANT YEARS (1960). Another collaboration of Rodgers and Hammerstein, the musical, Cinderella(1957), was also for television. In 1958 the pair returned to Broadway with The Flower Drum Song, from which came the hit I Enjoy Being A Girl. The following year the partners ended their Broadway career with the opening of one of their greatest successes, The Sound Of Music. In addition to the title song the score included Do Re Mi, Edelweiss, My Favourite Things and Climb Ev'ry Mountain. Hammerstein's death in 1960 was a serious blow to Rodgers and thereafter his work lost some of its sparkle. Nevertheless, he continued to write, creating the score and writing the lyrics for No Strings (1962), from which came The Sweetest Sounds. He followed this with collaborations with Stephen Sondheim on Do I Hear A Waltz ?(1965) and Martin Charnin on TWO BY TWO (1970). Although he continued working into the '70s, Rodgers was by now a sick man. His last shows, REX (1976) and I REMEMBER MAMA (1979), were box office failures. Rodgers was a marvellously adaptable composer. In his collaboration with Hart, he wrote the music first, to which his partner fitted his sophisticated and witty lyrics. Contrastingly, with Hammerstein, Rodgers wrote the music to suit the completed lyrics, which were necessarily structured to forward the tale being unfolded on stage. Much honoured during the closing years of his life, including a special Tony Award, Rodgers died in December 1979. In 1993, on the 50th anniversary of the birth of his second momentous partnership, a celebratory revue, A GRAND NIGHT FOR SINGING, which was crammed with Rodgers and Hammerstein's songs, played on Broadway. 
Further reading: Musical Stages : His Autobiography, Richard Rodgers. Some Enchanted Evening : The Story Of Rodgers And Hammerstein, J.D. Taylor. With A Song In His Heart, David Ewen. The Rodgers And Hammerstein Story, Stanley Green. Rodgers And Hart : Bewitched, Bothered And Bedevilled, S. Marx and J. Clayton. The Sound Of Their Music : The Story Of Rodgers And Hammerstein, Frederick Nolan.