“Hammerstein: “Words by Rodgers”

Abstract The New York Times Magazine published Rodgers’s panegyric two days before Hammerstein’s sixty-fifth birthday, one month before his death. On this poignant occasion Rodgers publicly shed his characteristic reserve and expressed his appreciation for the man with whom he shared close to eighteen productive and joyous years. Among the highlights of this tribute is Rodgers’s description, upon first hearing Show Boat, of being “shaken both by the beauty of Jerome Kern’s score and by the emotional and intellectual. He’s never been accused of being rude or dishonest or intolerant. His mind and his heart have given enormous pleasure and comfort to millions of people. There remains only one more thing to point out on Oscar’s sixty-fifth birthday and that is that for the last sixty-five years he’s been having an absolutely wonderful time himself. I congratulate him. Richard Rodgers has written eight Broadway musical plays with Oscar Hammerstein II since their first-and memorable-success, Oklahoma! was produced in r943. [Tagline by New York Times Magazine editor]