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Jerry Herman was one of the most successful songwriters for the musical theater in his generation, providing music and lyrics to three long-running Broadway shows -- Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles -- as well as four other Broadway productions between 1961 and 1983. Unlike such contemporaries as Stephen Sondheim and the team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, Herman was not much interested in developing the art of the musical theater in new, more serious, or avant-garde directions. On the contrary, he was quoted as saying that he wished he had been born 30 years earlier, so that he could have worked in the era of light musical comedy as purveyed by predecessors like Irving Berlin. He wanted to write optimistic, entertaining shows with catchy tunes and happy endings. Accordingly, while his lyrics could be witty, they were usually light-hearted, and his music simple. His biographer, Stephen Citron (Jerry Herman: Poet of the Showtune) claimed that simplicity could be deceptive, however, noting Herman's "ability to hone sharp, original-sounding melodies out of harmonic clichés." "
Herman's melodic gift depends not on complex chord relationships," Citron says, "
but rather on taking a harmonic cliché and infusing it with life and color." In an era when some in the musical theater were exploring dark themes and looking for original ways to express them, Herman's approach was sometimes derided as old-fashioned. He persevered, nevertheless. "There's been a rumor," he told the audience at the 1984 Tony Awards in accepting his statue for best score, "that the simple hummable show tune is dead on Broadway. Well, it's alive and well at the Palace [where his show, La Cage aux Folles, was playing]!"
Herman was born Gerald Sheldon Herman in New York City on July 10, 1931. (He legally changed his name to Jerry Herman in 1961.) He grew up in Jersey City, NJ, the only child of Harry Herman, a high school gym teacher, and Ruth (Sachs) Herman, a high school English teacher. Both parents were amateur musicians, and he began playing piano by ear at the age of six. He never took lessons, and did not learn to read music. Also when he was six, his parents began running Stissing Lake Camp, a summer camp in Pine Plains, NY, where they had worked as counselors. Herman spent his summers at the camp, and in his teens, staged musicals there. Initially, he attended college at Parsons School of Design to study interior decorating, but after he showed some of his songs to songwriter Frank Loesser and was encouraged to pursue composing, he transferred to the University of Miami, where he majored in drama and wrote the school shows. The last of these was a revue called I Feel Wonderful, and after he graduated in 1954, his father produced a revised version of it Off-Broadway that opened in October and ran nearly 50 performances.
To support himself, Herman took jobs as a cocktail pianist, working up to writing special material for such nightclub entertainers as Tallulah Bankhead, Jane Froman, and Hermione Gingold. While employed at the Showplace club, he wrote another revue, Nightcap, that opened in May 1958 and ran for two years. Parade, a revised version of the show, opened in an Off-Broadway theater in January 1960 and ran 90 performances, resulting in a cast album. Herman was next hired to write his first Broadway musical, Milk and Honey, an original story about Americans touring Israel and finding romance. It opened October 10, 1961, for a run of 543 performances, and it was recorded for a cast album. That led producer David Merrick to hire him to write the songs for a musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker. The show was called Dolly: A Damned Exasperating Woman until Kapp Records hired Louis Armstrong to record a song from it called "Hello, Dolly!" It opened on January 16, 1964, and Armstrong's single was on the charts within a month, where it rose to number one, leading to a Song of the Year Grammy Award for Herman. The cast album also hit number one, as did Armstrong's Hello, Dolly! LP. The show won Herman the Tony Award for best score, and it went on to run 2,844 performances, which made it the longest-running Broadway musical in history up to that time. It was made into a movie in 1969, with a soundtrack album that charted. Hello, Dolly! was revived on Broadway in 1975, 1978, and 1995.
Herman next turned to another musical with a strong female character, an adaptation of Patrick Dennis' novel Auntie Mame. Again, it was led by a title song, as Al Hirt, Bobby Darin, and Louis Armstrong all charted with cover versions of "Mame" prior to the show's May 24, 1966, opening; Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass had the most popular version at the end of the year, reaching the Top 20. (Eydie Gorme also reached the charts with her recording of "If He Walked into My Life" from the score.) The Mame cast album reached the Top 40 and won Herman the 1966 Grammy Award for Best Score from an Original Cast Show. The musical ran 1,508 performances, and was adapted into a film that opened in 1974 with a charting soundtrack album. It was revived on Broadway in 1983.
Although Dear World, Herman's next musical, again featured a strong female lead, it was a more experimental effort based on Jean Giraudoux's allegorical fantasy play The Madwoman of Chaillot. Opening on May 31, 1969, it was a commercial failure, running only 132 performances, although the cast album reached the charts. Involved with the movie versions of Hello, Dolly! and Mame, Herman did not mount another new musical until 1974, when he returned to Broadway with Mack & Mabel, a dual stage biography of silent-film director Mack Sennett and silent-film star Mabel Normand. Running only 66 performances after its October 6, 1974, it was a discouraging failure that led Herman to suppose that his style of musical comedy was out of fashion. He abandoned songwriting and used his interior decorating skills to launch a business buying, renovating, and re-selling houses. (Before that happened, however, he stopped into the Lyrics & Lyricists program at the 92nd Street YMHA in New York on November 24, 1974, for "An Evening with Jerry Herman," resulting in an album of that title released in 1978.) When he did return to Broadway with The Grand Tour on January 11, 1979, he suffered another 61-performance failure.
In 1981, Jerry's Girls, an Off-Off-Broadway revue of Herman's songs, opened in a night club in New York for a run of two years. It undertook a national tour in February 1984, and finally got to Broadway for a run of 139 performances on December 18, 1985. Meanwhile, Herman had scored a major comeback with La Cage aux Folles, based on the French comedy film about a gay couple running a club for female impersonators in St. Tropez. Opening on August 21, 1983, it went on to run 1,761 performances. The cast album went gold, and Gloria Gaynor's recording of the defiant song of gay empowerment "I Am What I Am" was a Top Five hit in the Dance/Disco charts. Herman triumphed at the Tony Awards, taking home the award for best score. La Cage aux Folles was revived on Broadway in 2004 and 2010.
Herman did not write another musical for Broadway after La Cage aux Folles, but he remained active. In 1988, he participated in a concert performance of Mack & Mabel at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London, that was recorded for an album. (The show was revived in London in 1995.) In March 1989, he launched a night club act in which he sang his songs and played piano, also accompanying other singers. Eventually, as An Evening with Jerry Herman, it opened on Broadway for a short run in 1998. There was also another album called An Evening with Jerry Herman, recorded in 1989. In 1996, he wrote the music for a television musical, Mrs. Santa Claus, broadcast during the holiday season. After being commissioned by hotel owner Steve Wynn to write a musical specifically to play in Las Vegas, Herman came up with Miss Spectacular, which was recorded for a concept album released in July 2002. But without warning, Wynn divested himself of his Las Vegas holdings, and his successors canceled the project.
Wikipedia:
Jerry Herman (born July 10, 1931) is an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway musical theater. He composed the scores for the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles. He has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles. In 2009, Herman received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. He is a recipient of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors.
Early life
Raised in Jersey City by musically inclined parents, Herman learned to play piano at an early age, and the three frequently attended Broadway musicals. His father, Harry, was a gym teacher and in the summer worked in the Catskill Mountains hotels. His mother, Ruth, also worked in the hotels as a singer, pianist, and children's teacher, and eventually became an English teacher. After marrying, they lived in Jersey City, New Jersey and continued to work in the summers in various camps until they became head counselors and finally ran Stissing Lake Camp in the Berkshire Mountains. Herman spent all of his summers there, from age 6 to 23. It was at camp that he first became involved in theatrical productions, as director of Oklahoma!, Finian's Rainbow and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. At the age of 17, Herman was introduced to Frank Loesser who, after hearing material he had written, urged him to continue composing. He left the Parsons School of Design to attend the University of Miami, which has one of the nation's most avant garde theater departments. While an undergraduate student at the University of Mimai Herman produced, wrote and directed a college musical called "Sketchbook". It was scheduled to run for three pereformances, but the show created an instant massive patron demand. Herman's Sketchbook attracted packed houses for an additional 17 performances before it was finally canccelled. It was the longest running show in the history of University on Miani theater. He was also a member of the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity.
Early career
After graduation from the University of Miami, Herman moved to New York City, where he produced the Off-Broadway revue I Feel Wonderful, which was made up of material he had written at the University. It opened at the Theatre de Lys in Greenwich Village on October 18, 1954 and ran for 48 performances. It was his only show his mother was able to see; shortly after it opened, she died of cancer at the age of forty-four, and Herman spent the next year in deep mourning.
In 1957, while playing piano at a New York City jazz club called the Showplace he was asked to write a show to replace one that had transferred (that show was Little Mary Sunshine). As well as supplying the music, Herman wrote the book and directed the one-hour revue, called Nightcap. He asked his friend, Phyllis Newman, to do movement and dance and it featured Charles Nelson Reilly (who later co-starred in Hello, Dolly!). The show opened in May 1958 and ran for two years.
Herman next collected enough original material to put together a revue called Parade in 1960. Herman directed with choreography by Richard Tone. The cast included Charles Nelson Reilly and Dody Goodman. It first opened at the Showplace and, expanded, moved to the Players Theatre in January 1960.
During 1960, Herman also met playwright Tad Mosel and the two men collaborated on an Off-Broadway musical adaptation of Mosel's 1953 television play, Madame Aphrodite. The musical of the same name, which starred Nancy Andrews in the title role, opened at the Orpheum Theatre on December 29, 1961, but closed after only 13 performances. No cast album was recorded, and the show has never been performed since.
Broadway career
In 1960, Herman made his Broadway debut with the revue From A to Z, which featured contributions from newcomers Woody Allen and Fred Ebb as well. That same year producer Gerard Oestreicher approached him after seeing a performance of Parade, and asked if he would be interested in composing the score for a show about the founding of the state of Israel. The result was his first full-fledged Broadway musical, Milk and Honey (starring Molly Picon), in 1961. It received respectable reviews and ran for 543 performances.
In 1964, producer David Merrick united Herman with Carol Channing for a project that was to become one of his more successful, Hello, Dolly!. The original production ran for 2,844 performances, the longest running musical for its time, and was later revived three times. Although facing stiff competition from Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly! swept the Tony Awards that season, winning 10, a record that remained unbroken for 37 years, until The Producers won 12 Tonys in 2001.
In 1966, Herman's next musical was the smash hit Mame starring Angela Lansbury, which introduced a string of Herman standards, most notably the ballad "If He Walked Into My Life", the holiday favorite "We Need a Little Christmas", and the title tune.
Although not commercial successes, Dear World (1969) starring Angela Lansbury, Mack & Mabel (1974) starring Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters, and The Grand Tour (1979) starring Joel Grey are noted for their interesting concepts and their melodic, memorable scores. Herman considers Mack & Mabel his personal favorite score, with later composition La Cage aux Folles in a close second. Both Dear World and Mack & Mabel have developed a cult following among Broadway aficionados.
In 1983, Herman had his third mega-hit with La Cage aux Folles starring George Hearn and Gene Barry, which broke box-office records at the Palace Theatre and earned Herman yet another Tony Award for Best Musical. From its score came the gay anthem "I Am What I Am" and the rousing sing-a-long "The Best of Times." La Cage aux Folles won the Tony Award for Best Musical (1983), is the only musical to win the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical twice (2005 & 2010), and therefore is the only show to win a Best Musical award for every staged Broadway production.
Impact and recognition
Many of Herman's show tunes have become pop standards. His most famous composition, "Hello, Dolly!", is one of the most popular tunes to have originated in a Broadway musical, and was a #1 hit in the United States for Louis Armstrong, knocking The Beatles from #1 in 1964. A French recording by Petula Clark charted in the Top Ten in both Canada and France. "If He Walked into My Life" from Mame was recorded by Eydie Gormé, winning her a Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Female in 1967. "I Am What I Am" from La Cage aux Folles was recorded by Gloria Gaynor and became a disco favorite. Other well known Herman showtunes include "Shalom" from Milk and Honey; "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", and "It Only Takes a Moment" from Hello, Dolly!; "It's Today!", "Open a New Window", "We Need a Little Christmas," and "Bosom Buddies" from Mame; and "I Won't Send Roses" and "Time Heals Everything" from Mack & Mabel.
Herman is one of only two composers/lyricists to have three musicals run more than 1500 consecutive performances on Broadway (the other being Stephen Schwartz): Hello, Dolly! (2,844), Mame (1,508), and La Cage aux Folles (1,761). He is honored by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 7090 Hollywood Boulevard. Other honors include the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre, named after him by his alma mater. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1982.
Herman's work has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (1984) conceived by Larry Alford, and Showtune (2003) conceived by Paul Gilger.
A 90 minute documentary about his life and career, "Words and Music by Jerry Herman," by filmmaker Amber Edwards, was broadcast on PBS in 2008. In 1989, American-playwright Natalie Gaupp wrote a short play titled "The Jerry Herman Center." The play is a comedy which portrays the lives of several patients in "The Jerry Herman Center for Musical Theatre Addiction." In the 2008 film WALL-E, Herman's music from Hello, Dolly! influences WALL-E and gives him emotions.
In 2011 Magnormos is celebrating his career in in Australia with a triptych of his works including "Milk and Honey", "Dear World" and "Hello, Dolly!".
Personal life
Herman was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1985. As noted in the "Words and Music" PBS documentary, "He is one of the fortunate ones who survived to see experimental drug therapies take hold and is still, as one of his lyrics proclaims, 'alive and well and thriving' over quarter of a century later."
Herman lives in the Los Angeles area and is completing designing his apartment there. He has been "buying, renovating and restoring properties around the country", and this apartment is the "38th home he has designed and decorated".