Born: July 12th, 1985 (New York)
Died: August 23rd, 1960 (stomach cancer)
Marriages: Myra Finn (1917-1929), Dorothy Hammerstein (1929-His death)
Children: He had three children in all: William Hammerstein & Alice Hammerstein Mathias by first wife and James Hammerstein with Dorothy.
Interesting Fact: He would often write while standing on a bookkeepers desk given to him by his friend Jerome Kern to keep his creative juices flowing.
Successful Era: Though he began to have his lyrics in films as early as the 30's, it wasn't until the 50's and 60's that he became the legend he is known of today.
Awards: He has won two Oscars: Best Music for "Lady Be Good" (1941) & "State Fair" (1945). He was also nominated three other times for: "The Lady Objects" (1938), Centennial Summer" (1946) & "The Strip" (1951). He has also received five Tony Awards the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on "South Pacific" (1950).
My Favorite Film: "The Sound of Music" is my favorite of his work. Each song in the movie is still celebrated in our day and some of them have been redone. I can't express how much the song "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" made sense when I was that age.
Hammerstein is a true dreamer and it shows through his lyrics. He was very proper in giving credit where it was due and would often request that the ending credits be changed if he was not the sole author of the lyrics. He was also often frustrated by the talents of his collaborators who could write music to a lyric in a matter of hours that took him many weeks to prepare. He, with his composers, gave us some of the best music of the 50's & 60's.
The song "Edelweiss" would be the last song he would write before he died of cancer in 1960. Can you imagine writing the last words you would be remembered by, and pondering on what message to give the world. Can you imagine the trust he had in his friend Rogers to give it justice when put to music. The result is one of the sweetest and most tender lullaby's written in our day. A song of hope, a song of piece, a song to remind us of the small and beautiful things in life. The most notable lyric in the song is the last word "forever."
Here is his last song "Edelweiss."
The applause at the end goes to Hammersein himself.
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