Oscar Hammerstein II Mathias by his first wife, and James Hammerstein by his second wife, with whom he also had a stepdaughter, Susan Blanchard. Hammerstein was one of the most important "book writers" in Broadway history – he made the story, not the songs or the stars, central to the musical and brought musical theater to full maturity as an art form. According to Stephen Sondheim, "What few people understand is that Oscar's big contribution to the theater was as a theoretician, as a Peter Brook, as an innovator. People don't understand how experimental "Show Boat" and "Oklahoma!" felt at the time they
Elaine Hammerstein were traveling at high speed up a curving hillside road when they struck an oncoming car. The six occupants of the Mexican vehicle all survived with minor injuries, but Hammerstein and her companions were trapped when their car skidded off the embankment and tumbled down the hill. Hammerstein, Kays and their three passengers – Los Angeles residents Jane Shafer Richards, Gladys Goldie Hall, and Richard Garvey Jr. – were all killed. At her death Elaine Hammerstein Kays was 51 years old and her husband was 66. They are interred at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles. More than half of