BEFORE THEY BECAME R&H:
Rodgers and Hammerstein's Early Careers

Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers crossed paths several times over a period of 30 years before they collaborated on Oklahoma! (1943) and became R&H. Their pre-Oklahoma! careers sometimes paralleled each other, and sometimes moved in very different directions.

Each was already famous on Broadway, in London, and (to some degree) in Hollywood before they teamed up and wrote "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'." One might say that they were fated to work together; in another manner of thinking, they were the least likely of partners, judging by their previous works.

No one, including the two men themselves, could have imagined in 1943 how popular and successful this collaboration would become. And they remain so, over 40 years after their last musical together.

Hammerstein was born in Manhattan into a well-known theatrical family in 1895. His paternal grandfather was the colorful, eccentric theatre and opera impresario Oscar Hammerstein. His father was theatre manager William Hammerstein and his uncle, Arthur Hammerstein, was a successful Broadway producer.

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein was named after his grandfather, though they did not share the same middle names. Despite such theatrical bloodlines, the Hammersteins did not want Oscar to go into show business. Instead they carved out a legal career for him, and the prospective lawyer was sent to the Hamilton Institute, Columbia University, and Columbia Law School for his education.

But Hammerstein was fascinated with the theatre as a boy and always harbored ambitions to act or write for the stage. While an undergraduate at Columbia, he did both in the amateur theatricals on campus.

After graduation, he continued to submit librettos and lyrics for the college musical shows even as he halfheartedly studied at the Columbia Law School.

Returning in 1916 for one of these productions, Hammerstein was introduced to the teenage Richard Rodgers, the kid brother of classmate Morty Rodgers.

A few years later, when Richard was a student at Columbia, Hammerstein collaborated with him on a few songs for the 1919 and 1920 campus productions. They would not work together for another 23 years.

Notable productions, pre-R&H: Wildflower (1923), with Harbach/Stothart/Youmans; Show Boat (1927), with Jerome Kern

Rodgers was born into a middle-class Jewish family that was far from theatrical. The family name Rogazinsky had been changed to Rodgers some years before in an effort to assimilate into the middle class where William Rodgers was a successful physician.

Richard was the second son, four years younger than his sibling Mortimer, and was born in 1902 at a house on Long Island that the family had rented for the summer.

The Rodgers household in the Harlem section of Manhattan was not a happy one. William was a pious Orthodox Jew who was continually derided for his practices by an overbearing mother-in-law who lived with the family. His wife Mamie Rodgers was a frightened, reclusive hypochondriac whose nervousness added to the tension in the home.

The only thing close to open affection in the household was the two boys' admiration for their father. "Morty" followed in his footsteps and later became a renowned gynecologist.

Young Richard only found warmth in his father's appreciation for music. As a child, Richard was taken to see musicals and operettas on Broadway and before he even began school he had taught himself to play piano by ear.

As he attended Townsend Harris Hall and DeWitt Clinton High School, there was never any doubt in the boy's mind that his life would be music. When he saw the Princess Musicals by Jerome Kern in the 1910s he knew that he wanted to compose for the theatre.

Notable productions, pre-R&H: A Connecticut Yankee (1927), Pal Joey (1940), and many others with Lorenz Hart

- Excerpted from Thomas Hirschak's Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia