Oscar Hammerstein II

In the 1940s and 1950s, the most dominant songwriting partnership on Broadway belonged to lyricist and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II and composer Richard Rodgers, whose multiple extended-run productions later reached wider audiences through film adaptations. Hammerstein ranked as the twentieth century’s second-most productive lyricist, surpassed solely by Irving Berlin.

Born Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein on July 12, 1895, into a New York City theatrical family, he eventually discarded his middle names and assumed the Roman numeral “II.” His namesake grandfather had constructed theaters and directed opera companies, while his father managed a landmark vaudeville house in Manhattan. Hammerstein studied at Columbia University and law school, appearing in campus productions, before serving as stage manager for his uncle Arthur’s theater and making an unsuccessful attempt at Hollywood screenwriting.

During the 1920s he supplied lyrics for Broadway in tandem with Otto Harbach on titles such as Showboat (1928) and Sweet Adeline (1929). Over subsequent decades he worked with numerous composers, among them George Gershwin and Jerome Kern, yet his longest and most fruitful alliance was with Rodgers. The pair joined forces once Rodgers’ previous collaborator, Lorenz Hart, fell ill and died in 1943. From that point until the year preceding Hammerstein’s death in 1960, Rodgers and Hammerstein stood unrivaled as creators of blockbuster Broadway musicals. Their debut major success, Oklahoma! (1943), earned a Pulitzer Prize; a second Pulitzer followed for South Pacific (1949). Additional triumphs included The King & I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959).

Among Hammerstein’s most enduring songs are “Ol’ Man River,” “Lover, Come Back to Me” (1928), “Why Was I Born?” (1929), “All the Things You Are” (1939), “People Will Say We’re in Love” (1943), “Some Enchanted Evening” (1949), “Getting to Know You,” and “My Favorite Things.” He also produced many of the shows he wrote, and several others he did not, notably Annie Get Your Gun. In addition, he authored the volume Lyrics.