Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II (; July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960) was an American lyricist, librettist, theatrical producer, and director in musical theater for nearly 40 years. He won eight Tony Awards and two Academy Awards for Best Original Song. Many of his songs are standard repertoire for vocalists and jazz musicians. He co-wrote 850 songs.
He is best known for his collaborations with composer Richard Rodgers, as the duo Rodgers and Hammerstein, whose musicals include Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music. Described by his protégé Stephen Sondheim as an "experimental playwright", Hammerstein helped bring the American musical to new maturity by popularizing musicals that focused on stories and character rather than the lighthearted entertainment that the musical had been known for beforehand.
He also collaborated with Jerome Kern (with whom he wrote the 1927 musical Show Boat), Vincent Youmans, Rudolf Friml, Richard A. Whiting, and Sigmund Romberg.
Early life Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was born on West 125th Street in Harlem, New York, the son of theatrical manager William Hammerstein and his wife Alice ( Nimmo). His grandfather was the German theater impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. His father was from a Jewish family, and his mother was the daughter of British parents. He attended the Church of the Divine Paternity, now the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York.
Although Hammerstein's father managed the Victoria Theatre and was a producer of vaudeville shows, he was opposed to his son's desire to participate in the arts.
Hammerstein attended Columbia University (1912–1916) and studied at Columbia Law School until 1917. As a student, he maintained high grades and engaged in numerous extracurricular activities, including playing first base on the baseball team, performing in the Varsity Show, and becoming an active member of Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.
After his father's death, in June 1914, when he was 19, he participated in his first play with the Varsity Show, entitled On Your Way. Throughout the rest of his college career, Hammerstein wrote and performed in several Varsity Shows. Following his graduation, he sat on the judging committee for the show and continued to contribute to several musicals, including Fly With Me, written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.
Early career After quitting law school to pursue theater, Hammerstein began his first professional collaboration, with Herbert Stothart, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. He began as an apprentice and went on to form a 20-year collaboration with Harbach. Out of this collaboration came his first musical, Always You, for which he wrote the book and lyrics. It opened on Broadway in 1920."Always You Is Amusing", The New York Times, January 6, 1920 In 1921 Hammerstein joined The Lambs club.
Throughout the next forty years, Hammerstein teamed up with many other composers, including Jerome Kern, with whom Hammerstein enjoyed a highly successful collaboration. In 1927, Kern and Hammerstein wrote their biggest hit based on Edna Ferber's bestselling eponymous novel, Show Boat, which is often revived, as it is considered one of the masterpieces of American musical theater. In the words of one theater historian, "Here we come to a completely new genre—the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... the play was the thing, and everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity.""American Musical Theatre: An Introduction" , theatrehistory.com, republished from Retrieved December 3, 2008. Many years later, Hammerstein's wife Dorothy bristled when she overheard someone remark that Jerome Kern had written "Ol' Man River". "Indeed not," she retorted. "Jerome Kern wrote 'dum, dum, dum-dum'. My husband wrote 'Ol' Man River'."Jones, Dylan, The Biographical Dictionary of Popular Music, Picador Press, 2012, p. 99
Other Kern–Hammerstein musicals include Sunny, Sweet Adeline, Music in the Air, Three Sisters, and Very Warm for May. Hammerstein also collaborated with Vincent Youmans (Wildflower), Rudolf Friml (Rose-Marie), and Sigmund Romberg (The Desert Song and The New Moon).Biography, Songwriters Hall of Fame songwritershalloffame.org
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Hammerstein's most successful and sustained collaboration began when he teamed up with Rodgers to write a musical adaptation of the play Green Grow the Lilacs. Rodgers' first partner, Lorenz Hart, originally planned to collaborate with Rodgers on this piece, but his alcoholism had spiraled out of control, rendering him incapacitated. Hart was also not certain that the idea had much merit, and the two therefore separated. The adaptation became the first Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration, titled Oklahoma!, which opened on Broadway in 1943. It furthered the revolution begun by Show Boat, by thoroughly integrating all the aspects of musical theater, with the songs and dances arising out of and further developing the plot and characters.
William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this was a "show, that, like Show Boat, became a milestone, such that subsequent historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theater began to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma!"Everett, William A. and Laird, Paul R. (2002), The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, Cambridge University Press, p. 124, After Oklahoma!, Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form—with such masterworks as Carousel, The King and I and South Pacific. As historian Mark Lubbock noted, "The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided the necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own".
The partnership went on to produce not only the aforementioned, but also other Broadway musicals such as Allegro, Me and Juliet, Pipe Dream, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music, as well as the musical film State Fair (and its stage adaptation of the same name), and the television musical Cinderella, all featured in the revue A Grand Night for Singing. Hammerstein also wrote the book and lyrics for Carmen Jones, an adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen, with an all-black cast that became a 1943 Broadway musical and a 1954 film, starring Dorothy Dandridge.
Advocacy An active advocate for writers' rights within the theater industry, Hammerstein was a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. In 1956, he was elected as the eleventh president of the nonprofit organization. He continued his presidency at the Guild until 1960; he was succeeded by Alan Jay Lerner.
Personal life
Hammerstein married his first wife, Myra Finn, in 1917; the couple divorced in 1929. He married his second wife, the Australian-born Dorothy (Blanchard) Jacobson (1899–1987), in 1929. He had three children: William Hammerstein (1918–2001) and Alice Hammerstein Mathias (1922–2015) by his first wife, and James Hammerstein (1931–1999) by his second wife, with whom he also had a stepson, Henry Jacobson, and a stepdaughter, Susan Blanchard. His son William married the screenwriter Jane-Howard Hammerstein.
Hammerstein was lifelong Unitarian Universalist.
Hammerstein died of stomach cancer on August 23, 1960, at his home Highland Farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, aged 65,"Oscar Hammerstein II Is Dead", The New York Times, p. 1, August 23, 1960 nine months after the opening of The Sound of Music on Broadway. The final song he wrote was "Edelweiss", which was added near the end of the second act during rehearsal.Maslon, Lawrence. The Sound of Music Companion (2007), p. 177, Simon and Schuster, "Oscar Hammerstein II" rnh.com, accessed November 2011 The lights of Times Square were turned off for one minute, and London's West End lights were dimmed in recognition of his contribution to the musical. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. A memorial plaque was unveiled at Southwark Cathedral, England, on May 24, 1961.
After Hammerstein's death, The Sound of Music was adapted as a 1965 film, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Political views and activism Oscar Hammerstein II was a prominent New Deal liberal, civil rights advocate, and anti-racist activist whose humanistic political philosophy profoundly influenced both his theatrical career and his personal life. Though best known for his landmark contributions to the American musical theater, Hammerstein devoted significant energy to social justice, anti-fascism, and progressive political campaigns.
Political philosophy and party alignment While Hammerstein maintained a close relationship with the Democratic Party, he did not view himself as a strict, lifelong partisan. In a 1958 televised interview with journalist Mike Wallace, Hammerstein explicitly rejected strict party labels, noting that he occasionally tried to vote Republican "just for the sake of switching—just for the sake of telling myself I'm not a party man".
However, he admitted that his core values inevitably guided his ballot, stating, "somehow or other I always wind up voting Democratic" because he believed the party's social and economic platforms were inherently healthier for the United States. Fundamentally, Hammerstein identified as a "small-'l' liberal" and a humanist, prioritizing civil liberties, internationalism, and social welfare over blind party loyalty. His alignment with the Democratic Party solidified during the 1930s and 1940s, driven by his strong support for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and his fierce opposition to totalitarianism.
Activism and anti-fascism During the buildup to World War II, Hammerstein became actively involved in the global fight against fascism. He co-founded the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League (HANL) to mobilize the entertainment industry and raise public awareness regarding the dangers of Nazi Germany.
His activism extended deep into the Civil Rights Movement. He was an ardent supporter of various racial equality organizations, including the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC). His outspoken liberalism and association with progressive civil rights groups drew the attention of federal authorities during the Red Scare. Under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened a file on Hammerstein, monitoring his loyalty and associations, though he was never a member of the Communist Party.
In mainstream electoral politics, Hammerstein put his professional talents to use for the Democratic Party. During the 1956 presidential election, he served as a political surrogate and speechwriter for Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson II, crafting arguments centered on progressive governance and intellectual diplomacy.
Social and political themes in theater Hammerstein intentionally used the stage as a vehicle for social commentary, embedding themes of tolerance, anti-imperialism, and equality into the librettos of his famous collaborations with Richard Rodgers:
South Pacific (1949): The musical tackled institutionalized racial prejudice directly. Hammerstein penned the controversial song "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught", which argues that racism is not inherent but learned. When the show toured, the song faced intense political backlash, including attempts at censorship by lawmakers in Georgia who claimed it promoted communist ideology. Rodgers and Hammerstein steadfastly refused to remove the song, threatening to pull the production entirely rather than compromise its message. The King and I (1951): The production explored complex ideas surrounding cultural understanding, women's equality, and the pitfalls of western imperialism, advocating for mutual respect between disparate societies.