Rodgers and Hammerstein Rodgers and Hammerstein Rodgers and Hammerstein refers to composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together were an influential, innovative and successful American musical theatre writing team. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, initiating what is considered the "golden age" of musical theatre. Five of their Broadway shows, "Oklahoma!", "Carousel", "South Pacific", "The King and I" and "The Sound of Music", were outstanding successes, as was the television broadcast of "Cinderella" (1957). Of the other four that the team produced on Broadway during their lifetimes, "Flower Drum Song" was
Gertrude Lawrence shelves for a copy of the play. ... I cannot remember how Cinders looked, what she wore, far less what she said." Du Maurier's contribution to the Morley biography of Lawrence consists of little more than that. Nothing about a personal connection between Gertrude Lawrence and Daphne du Maurier was published during Lawrence's lifetime. Two years after Lawrence's death, her widower Richard Aldrich had this to say in a best-selling biography of his late wife, "Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A.":All her ingenuous traits, which could be annoying as well as endearing, would be swept away by her courage, her clear