GetWiki

{{short description|American composer, author and screenwriter (1931–2014)}}{{Other people|Mary Rogers}}{{Use American English|date=December 2022}}{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2020}}

factoids

| birth_place = New York City, US2014261mf=yes}}| death_place = New York City, US| occupation = Composer, screenwriter, children's fiction writer| years_active = 1959–2014Richard Rodgers Dorothy Rodgers>Dorothy Feiner

• {{marriage|Julian B. Beaty Jr.|1951|1957|end = divorced}}
• {{marriage|Henry Guettel|1961|2013|end = died}}

}}| children = 6, including Adam Guettel| education = Wellesley College}}Mary Rodgers (January 11, 1931 – June 26, 2014) was an American composer, screenwriter, and author. She wrote the novel Freaky Friday, which served as the basis of a 1976 film starring Jodie Foster, for which she wrote the screenplay, as well as three other versions. Her best-known musicals were Once Upon a Mattress and The Mad Show, and she contributed songs to Marlo Thomas' successful children's album Free to Be... You and Me.

Early life

Rodgers was born in New York City. She was a daughter of composer Richard Rodgers and his wife, Dorothy Belle (née Feiner). She had a sister, Mrs. Linda Emory. She attended the Brearley School in Manhattan, and majored in music at Wellesley College.Eby, Douglas. "Mary Rodgers Guettel interview by Douglas Eby". TalentDevelop.com. Retrieved 2010-01-06. Quote: "At age 66, she is also a board member of ASCAP ..." [implies 1997].   This is not an interview transcript, but three paragraphs presumably by Eby over about 30 paragraphs in the first person by Rodgers Guettel.She began writing music at the age of 16 and her professional career began with writing songs for Little Golden Records, which were albums for children with three-minute songs.Leuzzi, Linda. "My interview with Mary Rodgers" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714135708weblink |date=July 14, 2014 }}. The Long Island Advance, July 3, 2014. Retrieved July 9, 2014. One of these recordings, "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves", which was released in 1957, featured performances by Bing Crosby of songs Mary Rodgers wrote with lyricist Sammy Cahn. She also composed music for television, including the jingle for the Prince Spaghetti commercial.Chapin, Ted. "Mary Rodgers (1931–2014): A Woman of Many Talents". NewMusicBox, July 8, 2014. Retrieved July 9, 2014.

Career

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,WEB,weblink Once Upon a Mattress, The Broadway League. Internet Broadway Database (IBDb.com)., December 5, 2011, 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.Productions: Once Upon a Mattress. The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (rnh.com). Retrieved July 9, 2014.Another significant compositional project for her was The Mad Show, a musical revue based on Mad magazine which opened on Off Broadway in January 1966 and ran for a total of 871 performances. An original cast album, produced by Goddard 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, and Stephen Sondheim, who contributed the lyrics to a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema" called "The Boy From..." under the pseudonym Esteban Ria Nido."'Mad Show'". Sondheim Guide. Retrieved July 3, 2011.None of her other shows had the same level of success, but she also wrote music for musicals and revues, the first on Broadway being Davy Jones' Locker with Bil Baird's marionettes, which had a two-week run at the Morosco Theatre from March 28 to April 11, 1959. (She also wrote the lyrics.)MAGAZINE, LIFE Magazine, Life, April 13, 1959, 55, Bairds' Busy Band of Puppets, NEWS, The New York Times, March 13, 1959, 24, Musical by Mary Rodgers, WEB,weblink Davy Jones' Locker Broadway @ Morosco Theatre, Playbill.com, September 25, 2016, Others included From A to Z (1960), Hot Spot (1963), Working (1978), and Phyllis Newman's one-woman show The Madwoman of Central Park West (1979). A revue of Rodgers's music titled Hey, Love, conceived and directed by Richard Maltby Jr. ran in June 1993 at Eighty-Eight's in New York City.Holden, Stephen. "Mary Rodgers's Songs In a Patchwork on Romance". The New York Times, June 11, 1993. Retrieved June 28, 2014."Mary Rodgers". IBDb.com.She eventually transitioned into writing children's books, most notably Freaky Friday (1972), which was made into a feature film (released 1976) for which Rodgers wrote the screenplay, and was remade for television in 1995, and again for cinemas in 2003."Mary Rodgers". Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com).Freaky Friday. IMDb.com. Retrieved January 6, 2010 Rodgers' other children's books include The Rotten Book (1969), A Billion for Boris (1974, later republished under the title ESP TV), and Summer Switch (1982), and she contributed songs to the landmark children's album Free to Be... You and Me."About Mary Rodgers". {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101207210249weblink |date=December 7, 2010 }} CharlotteZolotow.com. Retrieved January 6, 2010. She made a few brief forays back into writing for musical theater, including an adaptation of her book Freaky Friday (featuring music and lyrics by John Forster), which was presented by Theatreworks/USA in 1991, and The 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. 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."NEWS, Green, Jesse,weblink A Complicated Gift, The New York Times, July 6, 2003, March 28, 2008,

Personal life

Her first husband, whom she married in December 1951, was lawyer Julian B. Beaty, Jr.; they had three children.WEB, Newsday (Suffolk Edition) 18 May 1959, page 33,weblink 2022-11-05, Newspapers.com, en, This marriage ended in 1957. She and her second husband, film executive Henry Guettel, had three sons, including Adam, a Tony Award-winning musical theater composer. Henry died in October 2013 at the age of 85.WEB, Simonson, Robert, 2013-10-08, Henry Guettel, Former Director of Theatre Development Fund, Dies at 85,weblinkweblink 2021-07-31, 2024-03-31, Playbill, Mary Rodgers was a director of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization and a board member of ASCAP. She also served for several years as chairman of the Juilliard School.She died from heart failure at her home in Manhattan on June 26, 2014.NEWS,weblink Mary Rodgers, Author and Composer in a Musical Family, Dies at 83, The New York Times, Weber, Bruce, June 27, 2014, May 11, 2019,

Publications

• BOOK, Rodgers, Mary, Green, Jesse, Shy : the alarmingly outspoken memoirs of Mary Rodgers, New York, NY, 2022, 978-0-374-29862-3, 1313444633, NEWS, Okrent, Daniel, 2022-08-05, Broadway Baby: The Astonishing Autobiography of Mary Rodgers, en-US, The New York Times,weblink 2023-07-11, 0362-4331, NEWS, Lunden, Jeff, August 11, 2022, Published 8 years after her death, Mary Rodgers' memoir is a true tell-all book, NPR,weblink

References

{{reflist |25em}}

External links

• {{iobdb name|13431}}
• Mary Rodgers at the Internet Movie Database
• {{ISFDB name|7928}}
• {{LCAuth|n50048000|Mary Rodgers|44|}}

{{Mary Rodgers}}{{Freaky Friday}}{{Authority control}}