Rodgers and Hammerstein Go to the Movies

As a kid who adored musicals, whether on stage or screen, I grew up with a special affection for the 1956 movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. I loved it all: the rousing choral singing by the whalers and their gals; the romantic duet between Billy Bigelow (Gordon MacRae) and Julie Jordan (Shirley Jones); young Louise’s poignant dance on the shore. That uplifting final reprise of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” never failed to reduce me to tears.

Given my love for Carousel, I was surprised to find the film version dissed in Todd Purdum’s authoritative Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution. According to Purdum, critics were universally scornful, and Carousel became the only one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s major films not to be nominated for a single Oscar. The story of Carousel -- the tale of a ne’er-do-well carnival barker lured into a criminal act for the sake of his unborn child --  is at base a dark one, and it didn’t help that the Hollywood bosses insisted on blunting its edgy appeal in the name of propriety. Even the mildest oaths (like “what the hell”) had to be removed from the script, and the powerful moment of Billy killing himself to avoid arrest was changed in the film version into a deadly accident. Moreover, audiences were apparently not taken with the romantic duo of MacRae and Jones, because the two had already been paired the year before in the hit Todd-AO adaptation of Oklahoma! that had been nominated for four Oscars and won two.

What would Carousel have been like with Frank Sinatra in the leading role? Riding high after his dramatic tour-de-force in From Here to Eternity, Sinatra had actually signed to play Billy Bigelow, but then backed out at the very last moment. Purdum gives two possible explanations for his behavior, and I’ve heard Shirley Jones insist on a third. In her telling, Sinatra changed his mind because he lost his nerve, intimidated by the challenges of the Rodgers and Hammerstein score. Sinatra could sing, of course. But it’s surprising to learn how often Hollywood was comfortable about the idea of dubbing a star’s singing voice. For the role of Julie, producer Darryl Zanuck urged the hiring of the very lovely, very British, very non-singing Jean Simmons. And the casting process for Oklahoma! produced such unlikely ideas as Paul Newman as Curley, Richard Burton as Jud Fry, Elsa Lanchester as Aunt Eller, and Rosemary Clooney as Ado Annie. The leading lady, Laurey, could have been played by Piper Laurie, June Allyson, or Doris Day.

The King and I (also 1956) starred a non-singer, Deborah Kerr, who was nevertheless ideally suited to her role in terms of both her nationality and her image. (Marni Nixon, uncredited, provided the perfect singing voice.) But this film – for my money the best Rodgers and Hammerstein translation from stage to screen – also boasted the talents of Yul Brynner, who had burst onto the Broadway stage in the unforgettable role of the King of Siam. The beloved South Pacific should have been equally successful on film: for one thing, it was directed by Joshua Logan, who had made both Oklahoma! and Carousel into Broadway triumphs. Alas, stage directors sometimes get carried away with the possibilities of the film medium. Logan had the bright idea of using color filters in front of the camera to tint the negative in evocative colors. So when nurse Nellie Forbush  (Mitzi Gaynor) sang about being a cockeyed optimist, the sky really WAS a bright canary yellow. And Bali H’ai looked positively psychedelic. What the hell?  

Rance and Ron Howard: Oklahoma’s Resilient Native Sons

Oscar Hammerstein had it right: Oklahoma’s a place where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain. We’ve all seen the photos coming out of Moore, Oklahoma. It was flattened last week by a EF5 tornado, which sent winds of 210 mph barreling across a stretch of prairie three miles wide and seventeen miles long. Twenty-four people died, including ten children.

But we’ve also been hearing about the resilient folk who make Oklahoma their home. They’re hard-working and plain-spoken. They may not be as picturesque as the farmers and the cowhands in Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical, but their can-do spirit helps them survive disasters without hysteria. Which makes it fitting indeed that Ron Howard is Oklahoma-born.

Ron Howard seems to have led a charmed life. He made his professional acting debut at age five. When he was six, The Andy Griffith Show made him a star. He passed through his awkward teen years without much harm done, and at twenty he starred in his second hit TV series, Happy Days. When he was twenty-three he fulfilled a lifelong dream by directing his first film, Grand Theft Auto. Quickly leaving B-movies behind, he helmed such Hollywood hits as Splash, Cocoon¸ and Parenthood. Apollo 13 brought him critical respect, and A Beautiful Mind brought him two Oscars. Today, as both director and producer, he has a full slate. Most recently, he’s continued his involvement with Arrested Development, for which he serves as executive producer, while also reprising his deadpan narrator’s role and playing himself on-camera. Great careers don’t just happen. Sure, there’s luck involved, but also hard work, as well as an ability to shrug off disappointments and keep moving forward.  

Everyone who has worked with Ron Howard speaks of his common sense and his ability to remain down-to-earth while wielding serious show biz clout. And everyone credits his parents, Rance and Jean, for molding him into the man he has become. The effervescent Jean Speegle was a star in Duncan, Oklahoma, population 22,000. She served as editor-in-chief of her high school yearbook and was elected student council president. After graduating, she was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. On February 10, 1947, Jean left a dance class and stepped into the path of a speeding truck. The result: a brain concussion, a broken arm and shoulder, and a pelvis shattered in three places. She lay unconscious for ten days in a New York hospital. At last she was put on a train for Oklahoma, where doctors warned her worried family she might never walk again. But Jean, always a fighter, beat the odds.

Studying drama at the University of Oklahoma, she met a country boy who had walked off the family farm with the dream of becoming an actor. Their courtship took place during a bus-and-truck tour with a children’s theatre troupe. (Rance would get down on his knees and add a fake beard to play one of Snow White’s dwarves.) Not long after the birth of Ronald William Howard, they moved to New York and then Southern California, in pursuit of acting careers. Their young son would far outstrip them both in terms of Hollywood fame and fortune. But they lived on Rance’s earnings as a character actor and worked hard to keep their small star a regular boy. Heart disease claimed Jean far too soon, but Rance continues to take on small but meaty roles at age eighty-five. He’s a survivor, and a credit to his Oklahoma roots, those roots that hold fast even when life seems to be blowing in the wind.