No American composer has been more widely celebrated, nor so consistently misunderstood as Richard Rodgers. Although he was one of America's most brilliant and prolific composers, whose credits include more than 900 published songs, 40 Broadway musicals and numerous films, Rodgers is widely believed to be the almost stolid opposite of who he really was. Meryle Secrest shows us for the first time his complex nature and the inspiration for his art. Looking intensely at Rodger's unparalleled career, Secrest follows his close and fruitful working relationship with Lorenz Hart, a collaboration that resulted in more than thirty musicals but was ultimately undone by Hart's alcoholism. Moving on to Rodger's second collaborator, Secrest records the triumphs with the gifted and more stable Oscar Hammerstein, including Carousel , South Pacific and The King and I , along with many more. Rodgers' personal life is explored, as well. Secrest writes about the composer's childhood, and how, from an early age, he used music to escape. And she explores Rodgers' own battle with alcohol, as well as the deep tensions in his 49-year marriage to Dorothy Feiner. Somewhere for Me is both a vivid portrait of American musical theatre, and an illuminating examination of one of its greatest artists. Somewhere for Me A Biography of Richard Rodgers By Meryle Secrest Applause Theatre & Cinema Book Publishers Copyright © 2002 Meryle Secrest All right reserved. ISBN: 9781557835819 Chapter One BLUE ROOM Here comes Jacob Levy trotting along the street, a tiny little man in a neatblack suit and fussy bow tie, carrying a cane and sporting a white panama with asurprisingly rakish brim. It is 1926, and Richard Rodgers's grandfather on hismother's side is spending the summer in Long Beach, New York, walking down anexpanse of sidewalk bordered by identical lawns, a single Model T Ford parkedbehind him on that ramrod-straight, deserted street. Now here is Will, Dick'sphysician father, in the home movies Richard Rodgers began to take with hisfancy new film camera, the one you wound up by hand. Will, too, is spending hissummer in Long Beach, and stands on the steps of their cottage, red-haired,handsome, and blue-eyed, a smudge of moustache on his upper lip, in hisstarched-collar shirt and his suit with matching waistcoat, laughinguproariously at some forgotten joke. And here is Mamie, Dick's mother, with herflat, blunt nose, close-set eyes, pince-nez, and distinct gap between her frontteeth. Even in those days of blurry and faded film one somehow knows it is adusty afternoon in high summer, and only city folk get dressed up in hats andgloves to have their pictures taken. Now the golden boy himself appears, towering (even though of modest height) overhis tiny mother, his hair glistening in the sunlight, his lips parted in acurving smile, with his beautifully modeled forehead and the slight cleft in hischin, the kind of face to be found in magazine illustrations of the periodadvertising cigars, cognacs, Cadillacs, and crossings on the Cunard Line. Hissuit is something formal and dark and the shirt collar is fashionably stiff andconfining, but his tie tells another story: it is daringly patterned with dotsand can only be bright red. He leans solicitously over his mother and the treeunder which they are posing throws a pattern of light on his cheekbones and theedge of his lapel. Soon they are on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, whither they have come for thetryout of a new show. Here is Dick, the brim of his hat pulled down snappilyover one eye, with his mother on his arm. She is in mourning for her father,lately dead, and looks, in her mountainous black hat, as solemn as an owl. Nextto them, in a line advancing toward the camera, are Lew Fields, the famouscomedian-turned-producer who backed so many of Rodgers's first shows, and Lew'sson Herbert, Rodgers's collaborator on the books. At the far right is theimpeccably dressed Lorenz Hart, Rodgers's brilliant lyricist, whose Homburg hatand perfectly tailored double-breasted coat only serve to underline the contrastbetween his manly head and stunted body. Now we are at the tennis courts, wherethe agile form of Richard Rodgers, in faultless white flannels, can be seenserving and volleying with the rapidity of a dragonfly. Next we are on a lakeand he is lounging in a canoe, wearing a fashionable two-piece swimsuit(striped, sleeveless top, white belt, dark trunks), with his half-smile, hiswidow's peak of immaculate dark hair parted just off-center, the ever-presentcigarette between his fingers. Or he is standing on the dock beside BobbiePerkins, who sang "Mountain Greenery" in the Garrick Gaieties of 1926, his arm around her waist, a charming scene disrupted by his handsomeolder brother Mortimer. Morty interposes himself between them and triumphantlycarries off the girl. Next he is on a picnic in Canada, wearing a beret, eating sandwiches anddrinking from a thermos flask, then proudl