Willie Hammerstein Nimmo. He never took part in Broadway night life, and he did not want his two sons to get involved in theater. However, Oscar Hammerstein II became famous as a lyricist and musical comedy writer. Willie Hammerstein suffered from a disease of the kidneys, and died in New York on 10 June 1914. He was aged 38. He had made the Victoria his own. His brother, Arthur, took over management but was unable to recapture the spirit. The theater soon had to be closed. The Victoria Theatre was pulled down two years after Willie Hammerstein died, and the Rialto was
Rodgers and Hammerstein Favorite Things", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "So Long, Farewell" and "Sixteen Going on Seventeen". "Edelweiss" was the last song that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote together. Rodgers and Hammerstein re-worked the musical theatre genre. Early 20th-century musicals, except for the Princess Theatre musicals and a few important examples like Hammerstein and Jerome Kern's "Show Boat", were usually whimsical or farcical, and typically built around a star. Because the efforts of Rodgers and Hammerstein were so successful, many musicals that followed contained thought-provoking plots with mature themes, and in which all the aspects of the play, dance, song, and drama, were combined in