Arthur Hammerstein Spy" (1951). In 1924 Hammerstein was married to silent film actress and stage personality Dorothy Dalton. His daughter Elaine Hammerstein, from his first marriage was a well-known stage and film actress. Hammerstein died on October 12, 1955, from a heart attack at age 82. Arthur Hammerstein Arthur Hammerstein (December 21, 1872 – October 12, 1955) was an American songwriter, dramatist, playwright and theater manager Born and educated to a Jewish family in New York City, Hammerstein was the son of the theater impresario and composer Oscar Hammerstein I. Arthur started out as a bricklayer and plasterer, working on projects with
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