Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Fine biography of a musical genius July 27, 2008
Secrest, a fine biographer (I enjoyed her book on Stephen Sondheim), now tackles Richard Rodgers, one of the greatest American composers ever and certainly a musical genius. The book is quite informative and paints vivid portraits of the dark, often cruel and (although stable) often drunk Rodgers, his homophobic and cruel horror of a wife Dorothy, his troubled early lyricist and friend Larry Hart, his second lyricist, the warm and wise Oscar Hammerstein ("Ockie" as friends and family called him), his two confused and rather neglected children, Mary and Linda, who simply wanted his love and attention and the other lyricists he worked less successfuly with- Martin Charnin, Sheldon Harnick and Stephen Sondheim.
Rodgers was a deeply complex man and is thoroughly analyzed in this book. Despite his rather strange and dark personality, he did indeed give much joy to the world with his superb music. Secrest certainly makes note of this as wlel. Worth reading for music fans, theatre fans and anyone intersted in a fascinating story!
 Great Composer, Lousy Person February 21, 2008
Book was quite in-depth, maybe too much so. The author hits you over the head time and time again about Rodgers' infidelities, his alcoholism, his aloofness. And it is a boring book for the most part. Relatively little on the collaborative part of writing for the theater, little on what went on creating many of the shows.
Rodgers' wife is seen as a shrew and the less about her, the better.
This rating would have been just one-star except for the huge amount of pictures all throughout the book. That aspect was quite well done.
Capturing a Complex Man June 21, 2006
This is a thorough and detailed biography of one of the three or four greatest composers of popular music of the 20th century. We will not see his like again.
Of course, one can not expect a book to capture a life. Especially a life as complex as was Richard Rodgers. But this book comes closest to lifting up the "curtain" and seeing behind the scenes. It obviously will not please everyone. But since it is a life of a particular person (not merely a composer) the focus is where it should be, on the man first and the music second. In his autobiography Mr. Rodgers explains that he can not account for his musical talents. But just a few pages earlier he describes how his older brother was closer to his father and that at the age of four he climbed up on the piano bench to try to please his operetta-loving mother. No wonder he wrote such beautiful waltzes. This book shines an unbiased light on Rodgers complexities and captures many of them.
There's No Business--- April 6, 2003
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
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
 Get a life February 17, 2003
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was thoroughly disappointed in this book, which I found to be a dull recitation of facts. The author has little interest in the artistic side of Rodgers, which is--I presume--the reason why we would want to know more about him in the first place. I have a huge shelf of musical theater books, but this one isn't going to end up there.
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