James Hammerstein James Hammerstein Hammerstein was the son of Oscar Hammerstein II, and his Australian-born second wife, Dorothy Kiaora Blanchard. He had four half-siblings, two through each of his parents' earlier marriages: William and Alice Hammerstein, and Henry and Susan Jacobson. The best known of these was Susan, whose husbands included Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark. Hammerstein attended George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania, where he met fellow student Stephen Sondheim. He began his Broadway career as a stage manager, notably for shows such as "South Pacific", "Me and Juliet", and "Flower Drum Song", all co-written by his father Oscar Hammerstein II and
Rodgers and Hammerstein Kern and Hammerstein's best-loved songs, "All the Things You Are". By the early 1940s, Hart had sunk deeper into alcoholism and emotional turmoil, and he became unreliable, prompting Rodgers to approach Hammerstein to ask if he would consider working with him. Independently of each other, Rodgers and Hammerstein had been attracted to making a musical based on Lynn Riggs' stage play "Green Grow the Lilacs". When Jerome Kern declined Hammerstein's offer to work on such a project and Hart refused Rodgers' offer to do the same, Rodgers and Hammerstein began their first collaboration. The result, "Oklahoma!" (1943), marked a revolution