Rodgers and Hart - History

History

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart were introduced in 1919, when both attended Columbia University, when asked to write an amateur club show. After writing together for several years, they produced their first successful Broadway musical, The Garrick Gaieties, in 1925, which introduced their hit song, "Manhattan" and led to a series of successful musicals and films. They quickly became among the most popular songwriters in America, and from 1925 to 1931 had fifteen scores featured on Broadway. In the early 1930s they moved to Hollywood, where they created several popular songs for film, such as "Isn't It Romantic?" and "Lover", before returning to Broadway in 1935 with Billy Rose's Jumbo. From 1935 to Hart's death in 1943, they wrote a string of highly-regarded Broadway musicals, most of which were hits.

Many of their stage musicals from the late 1930s were made into films, such as On Your Toes (1936) and Babes in Arms (1937), though rarely with their scores intact. Pal Joey (1940), termed their "masterpiece", has a book by The New Yorker writer John O'Hara. O'Hara adapted his own short stories for the show, which featured a title character who is a heel. So unflinching was the portrait that critic Brooks Atkinson famously asked in his review "Although it is expertly done, how can you draw sweet water from a foul well?" When the show was revived in 1952, audiences had learned to accept darker material (thanks in large part to Rodgers' work with Oscar Hammerstein II). The new production had a considerably longer run than the original and was now considered a classic by critics. Atkinson, reviewing the revival, wrote that "it renews confidence in the professionalism of the theatre."