Willie Hammerstein big draw. Oscar Hammerstein went bankrupt in 1898. The Olympia theater was sold in an auction. Hammerstein managed to raise enough money to build the Victoria Theatre, which opened as a legitimate theater on 3 March 1899. On 26 June 1899 he opened a partially enclosed roof garden theater, the Venetian Terrace Garden, with an outdoor promenade that was attached to the roof garden of Hammerstein's Theatre Republic in 1900. Hammerstein enlarged the roof garden theater and reopened it in May 1901 as the Paradise Roof Garden. In February 1904 Willie Hammerstein took over management of his father's Victoria Theatre.
Oscar Hammerstein II Sound of Music", as well as the musical film "State Fair" (and its stage adaptation of the same name), and the television musical "Cinderella", all featured in the revue "A Grand Night for Singing". Hammerstein also wrote the book and lyrics for "Carmen Jones", an adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera "Carmen" with an all-black cast that became a 1943 Broadway musical and a 1954 film. An active advocate for writers's rights within the theatre industry, Hammerstein was a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. In 1956, he was elected as the eleventh president of the non-profit organization. He continued