Mary Rodgers | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1931-01-11)January 11, 1931 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | June 26, 2014(2014-06-26) (aged 83) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Wellesley College |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, screenwriter, children's fiction writer |
| Years active | 1959–2014 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 6, includingAdam Guettel |
| Parents |
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Mary Rodgers (January 11, 1931 – June 26, 2014) was an American composer, screenwriter, and author. She wrote the novelFreaky Friday, which served as the basis of a1976 film starringJodie Foster, for which she wrote the screenplay, as well as three other versions. Her best-known musicals wereOnce Upon a Mattress andThe Mad Show, and she contributed songs toMarlo Thomas' successful children's albumFree to Be... You and Me.
Rodgers was born in New York City. She was a daughter of composerRichard Rodgers and his wife,Dorothy Belle (née Feiner). She had a sister, Mrs. Linda Emory. She attended theBrearley School in Manhattan, and majored in music atWellesley College.[1]
She began writing music at the age of 16 and her professional career began with writing songs forLittle Golden Records, which were albums for children with three-minute songs.[2] One of these recordings, "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves", which was released in 1957, featured performances byBing Crosby of songs Mary Rodgers wrote with lyricistSammy Cahn. She also composed music for television, including the jingle for the Prince Spaghetti commercial.[3]
Her first full-length musical,Once Upon a Mattress, which was also her first collaboration with lyricist Marshall Barer (with whom she continued to write songs for nearly a decade), opened Off Broadway in May 1959 and moved to Broadway later in the year. Following the show's initial run of 244 performances,[4] there were a US tour (in 1960), a production in London's West End (also 1960), three televised productions (in 1964, 1972, and 2005), and a Broadway revival (1996). Cast albums were released for the original Broadway production, the original London production, and the Broadway revival. To this day, the show is frequently performed by community and school groups across the United States.[5]
Another significant compositional project for her wasThe Mad Show, a musical revue based onMad magazine which opened Off Broadway in January 1966 and ran for a total of 871 performances. An original cast album, produced byGoddard Lieberson, was released on Columbia Masterworks. Although the show also began as a collaboration with Marshall Barer, he quit before the project was completed and the show's remaining songs feature lyrics by Larry Siegel (co-author of the show's book), Steven Vinaver, andStephen Sondheim, who contributed the lyrics to a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema" called "The Boy From..." under the pseudonym Esteban Ria Nido.[6]
None of her other shows had the same level of success, but she also wrote music formusicals andrevues, the first on Broadway beingDavy Jones' Locker withBil Baird's marionettes, which had a two-week run at theMorosco Theatre from March 28 to April 11, 1959. (She also wrote the lyrics.)[7][8][9] Others includedFrom A to Z (1960),Hot Spot (1963),Working (1978), andPhyllis Newman's one-woman showThe Madwoman of Central Park West (1979). A revue of Rodgers's music titledHey, Love, conceived and directed byRichard Maltby Jr. ran in June 1993 at Eighty-Eight's in New York City.[10][11]
She later wrote children's books, most notably the popularFreaky Friday (1972), which was made into a feature film (released 1976), for which she wrote the screenplay, and was remade for television in 1995, and again for cinemas in 2003, screenplay by Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon "based on the book by Mary Rodgers".[12][13]
One of the inspirations forFreaky Friday was a novel byThorne Smith calledTurnabout. As she was considering a new children’s book, following several picture books for young children, she remembered "that when I was fourteen, I’d read and loved a novel calledTurnabout, by Thorne Smith. Vicious and hilarious, it was something I thought I could emulate in children’s fiction ... for teens."[14]
Rodgers' other children's books includeThe Rotten Book (1969),A Billion for Boris (1974, later republished under the titleESP TV), andSummer Switch (1982), and she contributed songs to the landmark children's albumFree to Be... You and Me.[15] She made a few brief forays back into writing for musical theater, including an adaptation of her bookFreaky Friday (featuring music and lyrics byJohn Forster), which was presented by Theatreworks/USA in 1991, andThe Griffin and the Minor Canon, which was produced by Music Theatre Group, but after the latter show she never composed another note of music and never even played the piano again.[3] She later explained, "I had a pleasant talent but not an incredible talent ... I was not my father or my son. And you have to abandon all kinds of things."[16]
In 2022, 8 years after she died, Rodgers' memoirs were published inShy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, co-authored by Jesse Green.[17]
Her first husband, whom she married in December 1951, was lawyer Julian B. Beaty, Jr.; they had three children.[18] This marriage ended in 1957. She and her second husband, film executive Henry Guettel, had three sons, includingAdam, aTony Award-winning musical theater composer. Henry died in October 2013 at the age of 85.[19]
Mary Rodgers was a director of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization and a board member ofASCAP. She also served for several years as chairman of theJuilliard School.[1]
She died fromheart failure at her home inManhattan on June 26, 2014.[20]
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