Music Monday ~ After the Weekend's Post - Guess What!

Here's a voice worthy of the song!




Ain't this the truth? This version from the 1958 film:

Muriel Smith sang this for Juanita Hall because she could not sing the high notes in the [1958] film and they decided to dub her with Muriel, even though she sang on Broadway herself for the play version in 1949.

This snip is from the film featured in the weekend's post:

South, In the Pacific with R & H - "Who can explain it, who can tell you why?"

Last week, in a thrift store, I found a DVD of South Pacific in a version I'd not had the pleasure of seeing - a film made for TV in 2001. In this version Glen Close plays Ensign Nellie Forbush, the part played in the original, 1958, film by Mitzi Gaynor. Another well-known name in the cast: Harry Connick Jnr playing Lt. Joe Cable (John Kerr's part in the 1958 film). The rest of the cast weren't well-known (to me, anyway).

I thoroughly enjoyed this version of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. It'd be hard to dislike anything by that well-matched pair of musical wonders! The themes of the film are based on parts of James Michener's book of linked short stories about South Pacific Island life during World War 2.

After reading reviews of this 2001 version at imdb HERE I suspect that I'm the only person with a good word to say about it - I'm easily pleased, I guess!

Glen Close, of course, was not quite right for Nellie, as originally written - but I found it easy to view the story from a slightly different perspective age-wise. It wasn't Glen Close's age that mattered to me, but I did find it hard to see her as an unsophisticated racist "hick" from Arkansas - we know her from so many other roles, just too well - and no amount of decent acting could erase our ingrained image of her. Harry Connick Jnr was a tad underwhelming, but perhaps that was how he interpreted Joe Cable. I'm waiting for the the book to arrive from e-bay find out how Mr Michener originally described him.

The singing and dancing in this newer version, while not up to the best stage musical level, were adequate. Rodgers and Hammerstein's words and music are of such high quality, and have magic enough to carry a less than top notch vocalist.

I liked the fact that more background detail of the war was included in this 2001 film - it kept things more real and properly oriented for me, rather than being completely swept away by the froth of the lighter side of the stories being told.

I read, on the net, that another re-make of the film version of South Pacific was in the works (but some five years ago). Names being thrown around, then, for starring roles were Michelle Williams, Hugh Jackman and Justin Timberlake. Hmm.

I was sure I'd done a post on Rodgers and Hammerstein in the past - they certainly had a magical bond - but on checking the archives - nope! That needs to be rectified. Below are their natal charts - I'm interested to see what astrological links there were. Richard Rodgers was the composer, and Oscar Hammerstein the lyricist, by the way. Their greatest successes include: Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music.

A snip from HERE

As businessmen, R&H revolutionized Broadway. Rodgers and Hammerstein fully understood that the show is just half of show business, wrote business historian John Steele Gordon in American Heritage (1990). They became the first men from the creative side of Broadway to establish a permanent organization to handle the business side of what they created. In doing so, they built a business empire that earned them the first great American fortune to be based on creative theatrical talent.

Like ASCAP [American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ], which had been established a generation before, R&H wanted to protect the writer; that they were writers themselves made the duo especially sensitive to the issues. They both detested Hollywood because there the writer was well paid but stuck at the bottom of the evolutionary scale; but on Broadway, on stage, they knew the writer could and should have control over his or her work. Producers held too many of the cards, they felt, and the best way to wrest some of that control was to become producers themselves.

Richard Rodgers born in New York City on 28 June 1902 at 2.3-AM. (Astrodatabank)

Oscar Hammerstein born in New York City on 12 July 1895 at 4.30 AM. (Astrodatabank)

Both men had natal Sun in Cancer and natal Moon in Pisces. Hammerstein had Cancer rising, with Mercury on the ascendant angle (excellent placement for a lyricist!). Rodgers had Taurus rising, with Venus, planet of the arts in Taurus, a sign ruled by Venus, and in First House.

There are helpful links between Uranus (innovation) and Jupiter (expansion, publication) in both charts, trine for Hammerstein, sextile for Rodgers.

In relation to the link above describing this duo's building of a business empire - I look to Saturn in their charts and find it well placed in both. Rodgers had a trine from Saturn in Capricorn (it's sign of rulership) to Venus in Taurus - linking business (Saturn in Capricorn) to the arts (Venus in Taurus). Hammerstein had Saturn in Scorpio in trine to...yes Mercury on the Cancer ascendant - linking business (Saturn) to sensitive word-smithing (Mercury in Cancer).

It's not hard to see, astrologically, why these two were such a successful pair!

Music Monday ~ Frederick Loewe & Alan Jay Lerner aka Lerner & Loewe

Loewe on left, Lerner, right.

Lerner and Loewe were the team of lyricist/librettist Alan Jay Lerner, and composer Frederick Loewe (he was born this week in 1901). They are known primarily for the music and lyrics of some of Broadway's most successful musical shows, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, Gigi, Paint your Wagon and Brigadoon.

Wiki's page on Lerner & Loewe tells that....

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, more commonly known as Fritz, met in 1942 at the Lambs Club in New York City where, according to Loewe, he mistakenly took a wrong turn to the men's room and walked past Lerner's table. Having recognized him, he asked if Lerner wrote lyrics and Lerner confirmed he did.

Lerner claimed to be the more dominant member of the partnership, which is supported by interviews with their close friends,[citation needed] saying that he would throw out the first two melodies that Loewe would write to any song even if they were both perfect. He said he always knew, with a little pushing, Loewe was capable of greater work. Loewe also worked perfectly with Lerner, who would agonize for weeks over a lyric. Unlike other collaborators Lerner would work with, Loewe was the most understanding of the time Lerner needed for his lyrics and would never pressure him to complete the work.

Their last collaboration came with the 1974 musical film The Little Prince, which received mixed reviews but was lauded as one of the team's most cerebral scores.

Regardless of their professional relationship, Lerner and Loewe were close friends and remained so until the end of their lives. Their final public appearance was in December 1985, when they received a Kennedy Center Honor, six months before Lerner's death.

Lerner said this of Loewe: "There will never be another Fritz...Writing will never again be as much fun. A collaboration as intense as ours inescapably had to be complex. But I loved him more than I understood or misunderstood him and I know he loved me more than he understood or misunderstood me."

From Lerner's Wiki page:

The Lerner-Loewe partnership cracked under the stress of producing the Arthurian Camelot in 1960, with Loewe resisting Lerner's desire to direct as well as write when original director Moss Hart suffered a heart attack in the last few months of rehearsals, and would die shortly after the show's premiere. Lerner was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers while Loewe continued to have heart troubles. Camelot was a hit nonetheless, with a poignant coda; immediately following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his widow told Life magazine that JFK's administration reminded her of the "one brief shining moment" of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot. To this day, Camelot is invoked to describe the idealism, romance, and tragedy of the Kennedy years.

Cue Richard Burton:



Robert Goulet with a medley of 3 Lerner and Loewe songs:



Julie Andrews with another medley of L & L songs:



Vic Damone with my personal favourite from My Fair Lady



ASTROLOGY

It'd be interesting to investigate whether their astrology tells the same tale of friendship and professional collaboration - with some challenges. I can find no times of birth for either of them, so 12 noon charts have to suffice. Moon positions will not be exact and ascendant remains unknown.

Frederick Loewe born in Berlin, Germany on 10 June 1901.

Alan Jay Lerner born in New York City on 31 August 1918.

Both men's natal Suns are in signs ruled by Mercury, planet of communication: Loewe, the composer, in Gemini, Lerner, the lyric writer, Virgo, and though the two signs have quite different attributes, they do often seem to work well together - depending on other chart placements.

It's possible (but can't be established without times of birth) that both had natal Moons in emotional Water signs; Pisces and Cancer - their Sun and Moon compatibility accounts, in part, for their longstanding friendship, and working relationship.

It's not surprising that, as stated in one of the quotes above, Lerner was the dominant personality in this partnership - his Venus, Saturn and Neptune in Leo gave him a goodly dose of confidence and ambition to take control and make his mark! The understanding and patience Loewe showed to his colleague might be represented by natal Mercury in gentle, sensitive Cancer; his Mercury has a conjunction of Jupiter/Saturn (excess and limitation) in opposition from Capricorn - some kind of balancing act?

Both men had Pluto conjunct a personal planet: in Loewe's case conjunct natal Sun; in Lerner's conjunct Jupiter - and possibly even Moon - depending on his time of birth. These conjunctions might reflect the strains and challenges the two faced from time to time, in some cases even affecting their health.