Customer Reviews

Somewhere for Me - A Biography of Richard Rodgers

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Secrest is an outstanding biographer. Once again she has brought her research skills, integrity, knowledge and compassion to the story of the life of an American musical genius. She presents a straightforward and unblinking account of a composer whose works are classics, whose productivity was astounding, and whose sadness as a person belied the upbeat and joyous tunes he bequeathed to us. I grew up with Rodgers' songs and have enjoyed many of his musicals over the years, on stage as well as in the movies. I feel grateful for the beauty he brought - and brings - into my life. I wish he had had a happier life. Secrest does a superb job in bringing the complexity of this man to the reader. Highly recommended!

Meryle Secrest has written what was hoped to be the definitive bio of Richard Rodgers. Her research and her interviews with Rodgers' daughters, Mary Rodgers Guettel and Linda Rodgers Emery, should have produced a great book, but such is, regrettably, not the case.

Secrest is long on information and very short indeed on conclusions, a serious shortcoming in a book dealing with the impact of supressed emotions, alcoholism, infidelity, and displaced anger on the lives of Richard Rodgers and his wife, Dorothy . The author relates anecdotes, lists achievements, and tells tales, but then makes very little effort to weave her material into anything that might help us understand this complicated man and his even more complicated wife. We are told that Rodgers was remarkably unfaithful to his wife for nearly half a century, and we are told that she had her disagreeable side, but what effect, if any, did the unfaithfulness have on the disagreeableness? Secrest doesn't go there; what few conclusions that are drawn about the Rodgerses' behaviour are in the interview material.

Early in the book, Secrest promises to say as much about Dorothy Rodgers as her husband. Not only does that not happen, the references to Mrs. Rodgers are largely negative. She is painted as insecure, greedy, addicted to Demerol, and with shallow interests in decorating and design. The author trivialises the famed Rodgers art collection as canned 'Christmas gifts' that the husband and wife could exchange; she failed to discover, or perhaps merely to relate, that major pieces from the collection (particularly the Toulouse-Lautrec gouache of Mme. Natanson) delight thousands of visitors to the Metropolitan Museum, to whom they were willed. Not only is Dorothy Rodgers' incredible eye for art thus diminished by Secrest, Mrs. Rodgers' philanthropic and charitable efforts also get short shrift. Worst of all, Secrest tells us that Mrs. Rodgers' father committed suicide, and then does nothing to relate that to the pain of her husband's serial infidelities. Might not a woman who has lost one significant male in her life need stability from the remaining one? Might not every infidelity feel like a fresh loss to someone thus wounded?

There is also a bothersome error when the author describes the couple's summer house in Fairfield (the famous "House In My Head" of Dorothy Rodgers' book of the same name) as "completely walled in glass". The barest look at the illustrations in Mrs. Rodgers' book shows clearly that the house was glass-walled on only one elevation, with large windows elsewhere. Such an easily avoided error casts doubt on other assertions.

The wealth of information presented in this work could have made a wonderful book that spoke volumes about the pain of depression and addiction, the trauma of living in a hollow marriage, and the futility of trying to keep family secrets. And surely, something could have been made of the tendency of both husband and wife to create beauty professionally, when they had very little in their emotional lives. Instead, Secrest chooses much the same road the Rodgerses did: Entertain without going down messy psychic paths. Perhaps biographers who do not learn from the mistakes of their subjects are doomed to repeat them.

We can be grateful to Secrest for toiling on Rodgers with her usual thorougness and objectivity, and for doing so when many of Rodgers's friends and colleagues, not to mention his thoughtful daughters, are still here to contribute. If the result is not quite as good a read as her works on Bernstein and Sondheim, we have to blame the subject, not the author. Rodgers was not an easy man to get to know, and while his music was often original and sophisticated, his life was marked by a dull and distant anger. A lesser biographer might have added a larger dose of amateur psychoanalysis and squeezed more dramatic juice out of alcohol and infidelity, but Secrest knows that her job is to depict a life, not to make a sport of it. Given the scope of Rodgers's influence on 20th century culture, Secrest's book will no doubt be invaluable when this fascinating musical era is approached by future writers.

My knowledge of Richard Rodgers was limited to the fact that he wrote the music and Lorenz Hart wrote the words to a favorite song of mine entitled Manhattan. I wanted to learn more about the partnership of Rodgers and Hart and found them to be an odd couple of sorts. Hart was a genius in writing lyrics, but was a difficult man to work with due to his problem with alcohol. Rodgers finally had to find a new partner when Hart's health failed him and he could no longer be depended upon. Rodgers then hooked up with Oscar Hammerstein and the two of them gave the world Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music, and other treasured musicals. Rodgers also had an alcohol problem at this time when drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes was common in society. I suppose it still is. Rodgers and his lifelong wife, Dorothy, did not have a very happy marriage although they did their best to keep their marital problems hidden from the public. One of their children, a daughter Mary, was often ridiculed by her father for being what he considered to be fat. Retirement was not something Richard Rodgers would consider for himself. He always wanted to write the next musical. Irving Berlin lived in fear that he would never be able to write another hit song. Rodgers lived in fear of not be able to come up with another musical. Both showed their insecurities in their line of work. I feel the author does an excellent job in researching her subject. I rate the book four stars, not because I feel the book is lacking in any respect, but because it is a subject I had no knowledge of and my interest was held to about a four star level.

Meryrle Secrest's previous book, "Stephen Sondheim: A Life" was fantastic; every word was perfectly placed, every nuance was properly shaded (much like Sondheim himself). Unfortunately, this biography of one of the most complex and dissonant men to come out of the American Musical Theatre, Richard Rodgers, loses steam almost halfway through the narrative. It's as if the author lost interest in her subject between "Carousel" and "The King and I."
To give Secrest proper credit, her chapters concerning Rodgers' collaboration with the tempestuous Larry Hart are truly engrossing and very lively. However, the Hammerstein and Post-Hammerstein years seem to be written in haste, or with no care at all.
This book should be read by all devotees of the stage musical, just for its chapters on Rodgers and Hart. Otherwise, I strongly encourage that you read Ethan Mordden's book "Rodgers and Hammerstein" for a better view of the latter collaboration.

"Somewhere For Me" is one of the better biographies of Richard Rodgers, focusing heavily on the personal life of the composer. It's all here, warts and all. From his battles with the bottle, to his roving eye, his depression, hypochondria, and so on. The book does focus heavily on his relationship with Dorothy Rodgers, but doesn't really attempt to explain why he strayed in their marriage. Also, the book at times does focus a little bit too much on Dorothy, and Lorenz Hart, but Oscar Hammerstein, with whom Rodgers did his most significant writing, is almost pushed to the background. For example, the famous rift between the two after Hammerstein strived for some time to write "Hello, Young Lovers," only for Rodgers to call the song "adequate," is not even mentioned except in passing. And Hammerstein's ire over it is never mentioned. As another reviewer writes, the film versions of the major Rodgers and Hammerstein films "South Pacific" and "Oklahoma!" were ones in which Rodgers was heavily involved. The author also erronously states that the film of "Oklahoma!" was viewed as unsuccessful in its initial release; and the immensely popular and heavily panned film of "South Pacific" only gets minimal mention. Both deserve more attention in any Rodgers biography, because the films of these plays (and "The King and I" and, of course "The Sound of Music") are probably the most accessible Rodgers works available to the reader. Nonetheless, this book does shed more light on Richard Rodgers the person than any volume I've read on him. For as lengthy a book it is, you'd like to think the above areas received more attention. Still, even though his works may not get quite as much attention, you'll learn more about Richard Rodgers the man in this book. Perhaps a good complement to it would be Rodgers' biography "Musical Stages" and Hugh Fordin's biography of Oscar Hammerstein, "Getting to Know Him."

Richard Rogers is a hard nut to crack. Author Secrest does a workmanlike job of peeling back the layers, but can't quite reach the inner core that made Rogers the composer-genius he was. Rogers was urbane, witty, hypochondriacal, magnetizing, petty, alcoholic, competitive, gloomy, secretive, philandering and funny. How do all of these traits combine to bring about some of the most beautiful songs of the 20th century? Reading about Richard Rogers and then hearing -- say "You'll Never Walk Alone" from "Carousel" makes you exclaim (like Oprah), "How'd he DO that?"

Richard Rogers was born to a moderately wealthy Jewish family in New York City. He was composing music for the stage by the time he was seventeen. He had his first Broadway hit by the time he was 24, and after he partnered with Lorenz Hart produced one hit after another. In the meantime, he married the fragile beauty Dorothy, had two daughters and became increasingly wealthy. Sounds like a trip to the pinnacle, a stairway to the stars, doesn't it? Well, not exactly. Rogers and Hart broke up mainly because of Hart's alcoholism and mental fragility. But Rogers got the rap for "deserting" him and banning him from the theatre. This wasn't quite fair to Rogers, but it wasn't untrue either. Rogers' storybook marriage was complex also. Dorothy was a perfectionist and emotionally needy. Rogers' response was a parade of infidelity. And yet. I believe Rogers loved her all his life as much as he was able to love anyone, and she fulfilled some deep-seated need in him. As parents, they both were failures. The daughters were marginally fonder of Richard who they considered distant and savagely critical. Dorothy was seen as a selfish tyrant. The daughters' recollections are not kind. His last years were a combination of poor health, increasing alcoholism, and being out of touch with modern day musicals. Yet honors were heaped upon him and the money kept pouring in.

Ms. Secrest did a mountain of research, and it shows. She not only had the full cooperation of his daughters; they commissioned her to do the work. The book is well notated and indexed, and has a bibliography. She gives a fair and balanced accounting of a many-sided man. There are not many lighthearted moments, but Richard Rogers was not a lighthearted man.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

An oddly cold biography. The author apparently has no particular love for her subject, his music, or for the musical theatre. She describes all three dispassionately, most likely getting her facts right and offering us occasional quotes from people who knew Rodgers. But the book itself never catches fire. I stayed with it to the end because I'm interested in the subject and not horrified by the fact that he may have been rather cold. But the book itself left me cold, which was a disappointment.

Rather far cry from Dorothy Rodgers books of life together. I totally enjoyed her decorating books that had a few great ideas but this is about a man not very nice who wrote very good music.

This is a very dull biography of a man who has yet to receive a good one. It's full of familiar stories and no new insights. The character of Rodgers himself never once comes alive; he remains a cypher. If you know anything at all about the history of musical theater, this is all very familier. Even the title is dull, drawn from Rodgers own clumsy lyrics for "No Strings". I could very easily put this book down, and in fact I did and never picked it up again.