Rodgers and Hammerstein first met in 1916, when Hammerstein was writing variety shows at Columbia University. One of these was staged at a theatre owned by Hammerstein's father and Rodgers went backstage to meet the 21-year-old author. Thereafter, each went his separate way for almost 30 years.From the 1920s till the 1940s, Rodgers collaborated with the lyricist Lorenz Hart to create a series of outstanding Broadway musical comedies, beginning with Garrick Gaieties (1925). Other musical productions included The Girl Friend (1926), A Connecticut Yankee (1927), Babes in Arms (1937) and Pal Joey (1940). They were also responsible for such classic songs as My Heart Stood Still, The Lady Is a Tramp and Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.
Meanwhile Hammerstein, the librettist, breathed new life into the operetta art form with Rose Marie (1924), The Desert Song (1926) and Jerome Kern's Show Boat (1927). His last work before entering into the partnership with Rodgers was the famous all-black version of Bizet's Carmen, renamed Carmen Jones (film, 1954).
In the early 1940s, Rodgers tried unsuccessfully to interest Hart in doing a musical version of a play called Green Grow the Lilacs, while Hammerstein was trying to interest his partner, Jerome Kern, in the same play. Hart died in 1943 and Kern rejected the idea of a musical play set in the Wild West. Thus Rodgers and Hammerstein came together for their first collaboration, which was on its pre-Broadway run before it was renamed Oklahoma (the exclamation mark came even later) instead of Away We Go!
This was followed by the less successful Allegro, but in 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein hit the jackpot - and won another Pulitzer Prize - with South Pacific. Among other collaborations, The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959) stand out. Most of their stage musicals were made into highly successful films.
Hammerstein died in 1960, and Rodgers began to write lyrics as well as music, notably in Do I hear a Waltz (1965) and Rex (1976). He died in 1979, less than a year after the opening of his last musical on Broadway.
