SOME ENCHANTED EVENINGS

SOME ENCHANTED EVENINGS: The Glittering Life and Times of MARY MARTIN. David Kaufman. St. Martin's; 2016.

Mary Martin went to Hollywood early in her career, but although she appeared and even starred in a few movies, she was dissatisfied with her film work and had much greater success on Broadway. Like many artists, this very talented woman lived for her work, and had a problematic, but ultimately loving, relationship with at least one child, her son Larry Hagman, famous as "J. R" on Dallas. Martin's marriage to her son's father did not last long, but she had a much longer union to her second husband, the mostly gay Richard Halliday, who guided her career when he wasn't alienating people with his temper and his alcoholism. Her shows included One Touch of Venus, South Pacific, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, and for my money made the best Annie Oakley when she did Annie Get Your Gun on the road and for television. Some Enchanted Evenings also looks at Martin's work in less successful shows, such as the musical Jennie, and the play Legends, in which Martin was teamed with Carol Channing. The book hints at a "special relationship" between Martin and Janet Gaynor (Gaynor's husband, interestingly enough, is the only person quoted in the book who knocks Martin), as well as Jean Arthur, without ever really elaborating.When a reporter spoke to Martin about Larry Hagman, and asked what it's like having an icon for a son, she responded, "My dear, my son is a star. I am an icon." Although the author mentions his husband in the acknowledgments, the book does on occasion betray a kind of amusingly old-fashioned take on LGBT issues.

Verdict: Exhaustive, well-researched, imperfect, but very readable bio of the venerable entertainer. ***1/2.

THE FILMS OF RODGERS AND HART

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart 

THE FILMS OF RODGERS AND HART.

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart were one of the greatest song-writing duos in history, with one hit show after another, and together they created a host of wonderful songs that have become standards. Unfortunately, in general they were badly treated by Hollywood, who made adaptations of their shows with watered down or completely altered plots and lyrics, and worse, sometimes most of the songs were dropped and even replaced by the work of other songwriters. However, they did do the songs for the film Love Me Tonight -- which introduced 'Isn't It Romantic?," among others -- and other songs they wrote managed to make it to the screen in one way or another.

This week we look at a variety of films that were either loosely based on Rodgers and Hart's Broadway hits, or featured music by the famous duo. Many of the writings about the team go on about how handsome Rodgers was, and how ugly and gnome-like Hart was, but actually Rodgers was not that handsome and Hart was not especially ugly. Rodgers was perhaps more even-featured than Hart, whose face was a little more interesting. In any case, who cares? -- all these decades later both men remain giants of the musical theater and people still admire, sing, and appreciate their work. Their shows include Pal Joey, Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, I Married an Angel, Too Many Girls, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, On Your Toes, and many others. NOTE: Reviews of the film versions of Pal Joey and Too Many Girls will be posted in future weeks. 

Rodgers worked with Hart nearly until Hart's death, but Hart lived to congratulate Rodgers on his first collaboration with his new partner, Oscar Hammerstein II, Oklahoma. Rodgers and Hammerstein would etch their own impressive resume after Hart's too-early death.

RODGERS AND HART: BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BEDEVILED

RODGERS AND HART: Bewitched, Bothered, and Bedeviled. Samuel Marx and Jan Clayton. Putman's; 1976.

This duel biography looks at the lives and careers of the great songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Together the two were responsible for numerous great songs, many now standards, in such shows as Babes in Arms, On Your Toes, I Married an Angel, The Boys from Syracuse, I Married an Angel, Pal Joey, and others, several of which were made into films. The book details how the two men met, their childhoods and early lives, the way they worked together, their sojourns to Hollywood and their work in the film industry, and the eventual discontent that settled in due to Rodger's exasperation with Hart's habit of getting drunk and/or disappearing for days. Written in a post-Stonewall period, Rodgers and Hart doesn't gloss over the probability that, despite his having proposed marriage once to a female friend (actress Vivienne Segal of Pal Joey and The Cat and the Fiddle) whom he'd never even kissed, he was essentially a gay man, although some of his intimates try to deny this. It is typical for people to describe gay men in a pre-Stonewall period as "tormented," but Hart seems to have enjoyed his life to the fullest even if he never found ideal love. (The authors do suggest that Hart would have been much better off if he had taken an insouciant, more positive attitude toward his sexuality a la Noel Coward.) Hart was the lovable prankster while the colder Rodgers was in comparison, a stern, more conventional taskmaster, although he was certainly not any kind of monster and was as kind and forbearing with Hart as he could be. Hart was devastated by being replaced as Rodgers' lyricist by Oscar Hammerstein and the success of Oklahoma, but Dick had not given up on Larry and worked with him on six new tunes for a revival of one of their earlier hits, but he died shortly after, probably due to cirrhosis of the liver. Rodgers and Hart is a good look at the team, but it isn't always well-edited, as instead of inserting comments from those they interviewed throughout the rambling manuscript in a more judicious approach, they simply let certain individuals drone on (often more about themselves than their subjects) for pages with no real context. Samuel Marx [Deadly Illusions: Jean Harlow and the Murder of Paul Bern] was a Broadway reporter and Jan Clayton [The Snake Pit] was in the original cast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel.

Verdict: Not the last word on the team, not always well put together, but a good enough introduction, and the authors' refusal to "straighten out" Hart is admirable. **1/2.