6/28/1902 - 12/30/1979

Richard Rodgers, the world renowned composer and lyricist, died at his East Side home in Manhattan at 10:28 P.M. last night after a long illness. He was 77 years old. A spokesman for the family said funeral services would be private.

“The Garrick Gaieties,” “A Connecticut Yankee,” “Babes in Arms,” “The Boys From Syracuse,” “Pal Joey,” “Oklahoma!” “Carousel,” “South Pacific,” “Flower Drum Song,” “The King and I,” “The Sound of Music.” What binds together these disparate musical comedies is a single phrase spanning 55 years of Broadway: “Music by Richard Rodgers.”

The phrase connoted the seemingly endless flow of wonderfully singable, danceable melodies that poured out of Mr. Rodgers. And coupled with the names of his two principal lyricists, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein 2d, the phrase also symbolized the evolution of American musical comedy into an art form of stature, in which plot, music and dancing were closely integrated and frequently employed to explore serious, even tragic, themes.

Remarkably, too, “Music by Richard Rodgers,” which was totally professional and businesslike, climbed virtually uninterrupted from triumph to triumph for decades. It was the stuff of which legends are nurtured.

These successes brought Mr. Rodgers, his musicals and films a cascade of awards, prizes and honorary degrees. “Oklahoma!” won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1944 and “South Pacific” earned the Pulitzer Drama Prize in 1950. That musical also gained Mr. Rodgers an Antoinette Perry Award, one of seven “Tony” awards given to him; and the music for “Carousel” received the Donaldson Award.

Moreover, he won an Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1946 for “It Might as Sell Be Spring,” from “State Fair.” Last year, he was honored by President Carter at a White House reception and, with Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine and Arthur Rubinstein, was among the first recipients of the annual Kennedy Center Honors. Last June, at the “Tony” Awards ceremony, he received the Lawrence Langner Award for a “lifetime of distinguished achievement in the American theater.”

The Rodgers career spanned more than 60 years and unfolded in three phrases–his collaboration with Mr. Hart from 1918 until shortly before Mr. Hart’s death in 1943; his collaboration with Mr. Hammerstein from 1942 until Mr. Hammerstein’s death in 1960, and his less notable collaborations after 1960.

Source: NY Times