''Roberta'' is a musical from 1933 with music by
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in ove ...
, and lyrics and book by
Otto Harbach
Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach (August 18, 1873 – January 24, 1963) was an American lyricist and librettist of nearly 50 musical comedies and operettas. Harbach collaborated as lyricist or librettist with many of the leading B ...
. The musical is based on the novel ''Gowns by Roberta'' by
Alice Duer Miller
Alice Duer Miller (July 28, 1874 – August 22, 1942) was an American writer whose poetry actively influenced political opinion. Her feminist verses influenced political opinion during the American suffrage movement, and her verse novel ''The W ...
. It features the songs "
Yesterdays", "
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is a show tune written by American composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for the 1933 musical '' Roberta''. The song was sung in the Broadway show by Tamara Drasin. Its first recorded performance was by Ge ...
", "
Let's Begin", "You're Devastating", "Something Had To Happen", "The Touch of Your Hand" and "
I'll Be Hard to Handle "I'll Be Hard to Handle" is a 1932 song composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics written by Bernard Dougall.
It was written for the musical ''Roberta'', where it was introduced by Lyda Roberti. ''Roberta'' opened on Broadway in November 1933.< ...
".
Productions
The original
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
production opened at the
New Amsterdam Theatre
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a Broadway theater on 214 West 42nd Street, at the southern end of Times Square, in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City. One of the oldest surviving Broadway venues, the New Amsterdam was built fro ...
on November 18, 1933, and ran for 295 performances closing on 21 July 1934. It starred
Tamara Drasin
Tamara Drasin (c. 1905 – 22 February 1943), often credited as simply Tamara, was a singer and actress who introduced the song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" in the 1933 Broadway musical ''Roberta''.
Tamara Drasin is sometimes confused with two ...
(billed as Tamara),
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in Bob Hope filmography, more than 70 short and ...
,
George Murphy
George Lloyd Murphy (July 4, 1902 – May 3, 1992) was an American dancer, actor, and politician. Murphy was a song-and-dance leading man in many big-budget Hollywood musicals from 1930 to 1952. He was the president of the Screen Actors Guild fro ...
,
Lyda Roberti
Lyda Roberti (née Pecjak; May 20, 1906 – March 12, 1938) was an American singer and stage and film actress.
Early years
Born in Warsaw, then part of Imperial Russia, Lyda Roberti was the daughter of a German father (a professional clown surn ...
,
Fred MacMurray,
Fay Templeton
Fay Templeton (December 25, 1865 – October 3, 1939) was an American actress, singer, songwriter, and comedian.
Her parents were actors/vaudevillians and she followed in their footsteps, making her Broadway debut in 1900. Templeton excelled ...
,
Ray Middleton (billed as Raymond E. Middleton),
Allan Jones, and
Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (December 27, 1879 – January 18, 1954) was a British-American actor. While he did not begin his career in films until the age of 61, he had a run of significant motion pictures in a Hollywood career lasting throu ...
. Hope, Murphy, MacMurray and Greenstreet were not yet the
Hollywood stars they would soon be, and Middleton was not the Broadway leading man he would become after ''
Annie Get Your Gun''.
An Australian production opened at
His Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne on December 22, 1934. The cast featured Madge Elliot and
Cyril Richard.
Original Broadway cast
![Jerome-Kern-1934-Stage](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Jerome-Kern-1934-Stage.jpg)
*
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in Bob Hope filmography, more than 70 short and ...
as Huckleberry Haines
*
Tamara Drasin
Tamara Drasin (c. 1905 – 22 February 1943), often credited as simply Tamara, was a singer and actress who introduced the song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" in the 1933 Broadway musical ''Roberta''.
Tamara Drasin is sometimes confused with two ...
as Princess Stephanie
*
Ray Middleton as John Kent
*
Fay Templeton
Fay Templeton (December 25, 1865 – October 3, 1939) was an American actress, singer, songwriter, and comedian.
Her parents were actors/vaudevillians and she followed in their footsteps, making her Broadway debut in 1900. Templeton excelled ...
as Aunt Minnie / Roberta
*
George Murphy
George Lloyd Murphy (July 4, 1902 – May 3, 1992) was an American dancer, actor, and politician. Murphy was a song-and-dance leading man in many big-budget Hollywood musicals from 1930 to 1952. He was the president of the Screen Actors Guild fro ...
as Billy Boyden
*
Lyda Roberti
Lyda Roberti (née Pecjak; May 20, 1906 – March 12, 1938) was an American singer and stage and film actress.
Early years
Born in Warsaw, then part of Imperial Russia, Lyda Roberti was the daughter of a German father (a professional clown surn ...
as Madame Nunez / Clementina Scharwenka
*
Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (December 27, 1879 – January 18, 1954) was a British-American actor. While he did not begin his career in films until the age of 61, he had a run of significant motion pictures in a Hollywood career lasting throu ...
as Lord Henry Delves
*
Fred MacMurray as California Collegian
*
Allan Jones as California Collegian
*
Helen Gray as Sophie Teale
* Jane Evans as Mrs. Teale
*
Bobette Christine as Angele
*
William Hain
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Eng ...
as Ladislaw
*
Nayan Pearce Nayan may refer to:
* Nayanthara (born 1984), Indian actress
* Nayan Desai (born 1946), Indian poet
* Nayan Mongia (born 1969), Indian cricketer
* Nayan Ghosh (born 1956), Indian musician
* Nayan Doshi (born 1978), British cricketer
* Nayan Sh ...
as Luella Laverne
*
Mavis Walsh
Mavis is a female given name, derived from a name for the common Old World song thrush. Its first modern usage was in Marie Corelli's 1895 novel ''The Sorrows of Satan'', which featured a character named Mavis Clare (whose name was said to be "rat ...
as Marie
*
Ed Jerome
Ed, ed or ED may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Ed'' (film), a 1996 film starring Matt LeBlanc
* Ed (''Fullmetal Alchemist'') or Edward Elric, a character in ''Fullmetal Alchemist'' media
* ''Ed'' (TV series), a TV series that ran fro ...
as Monsieur Leroux
*
Berenice Alaire as Sidonie
*
Gretchen Sherman as The Buyer
*
Virginia Whitmore as The Flower Girl
Other versions
The play was made into a
1935 film by
RKO
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheu ...
starring
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne (born Irene Marie Dunn; December 20, 1898 – September 4, 1990) was an American actress who appeared in films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She is best known for her comedic roles, though she performed in films of other gen ...
,
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American dancer, choreographer, actor, and singer. He is often called the greatest dancer in Hollywood film history.
Astaire's career in stage, film, and tele ...
,
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starri ...
, and
Randolph Scott. The film omitted "The Touch of Your Hand" (sung by a minor character), "Something Had To Happen", and "You're Devastating" (originally Middleton's big song in the show), but added the Kern songs "
I Won't Dance
"I Won't Dance" is a song with music by Jerome Kern that has become a jazz standard. The song has two different sets of lyrics: the first written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach in 1934, and second written by Dorothy Fields (though Jimmy ...
" (lifted from the flop Kern show ''
Three Sisters'')
and "Lovely to Look At" (written for the 1935 film and nominated for an
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
). These two additions became so popular that they are now frequently included in revivals and recordings of ''Roberta''.
A radio adaptation of ''Roberta'' was presented on ''
Philip Morris Playhouse
''Philip Morris Playhouse'' is a 30-minute old-time radio dramatic anthology series.Terrace, Vincent (1981), ''Radio's Golden Years: The Encyclopedia of Radio Programs 1930–1960''. A.S. Barnes & Company, Inc. . P. 214.
The program " nerally .. ...
'' on
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
May 14, 1943.
Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990) was an American actress and singer. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles on stage over her career, including Nellie Forbush in '' South Pacific'' (194 ...
and
William Gargan
William Dennis Gargan (July 17, 1905February 17, 1979) was an American film, television and radio actor. He was the 5th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1967, and in 1941, was nominated for the Academy Award for Be ...
starred in the program.
[ ]
In
1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
* February 6
** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...
,
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
remade ''Roberta'' under the title ''
Lovely to Look At
''Lovely to Look At'' is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Mervyn LeRoy, based on the 1933 Broadway musical '' Roberta''.
Plot
Broadway producers Al Marsh, Tony Naylor, and Jerry Ralby are desperately searching for invest ...
''. This remake also included the two songs added to the 1935 film. It starred
Kathryn Grayson
Kathryn Grayson (born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick; February 9, 1922 – February 17, 2010) was an American actress and coloratura soprano. Ronald Berganbr>Obituary '' London Guardian'', February 19, 2010.
From the age of twelve, Grayson trai ...
,
Howard Keel
Harold Clifford Keel (April 13, 1919November 7, 2004), known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer, known for his rich bass-baritone singing voice. He starred in a number of MGM musicals in the 1950s and in the CBS te ...
,
Red Skelton
Richard Red Skelton (July 18, 1913September 17, 1997) was an American entertainer best known for his national radio and television shows between 1937 and 1971, especially as host of the television program '' The Red Skelton Show''. He has stars ...
,
Ann Miller,
Gower Champion
Gower Carlyle Champion (June 22, 1919 – August 25, 1980) was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer.
Early years
Champion was born on June 22, 1919, in Geneva, Illinois, as the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Car ...
,
Marge Champion
Marjorie Celeste Champion ( Belcher; September 2, 1919October 21, 2020) was an American dancer and actress. At fourteen, she was hired as a dance model for Walt Disney Studios animated films. Later, she performed as an actress and dancer in film ...
, and
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor (, ; born Sári Gábor ; February 6, 1917 – December 18, 2016) was a Hungarian-American socialite and actress. Her sisters were actresses Eva and Magda Gabor.
Gabor competed in the 1933 Miss Hungary pageant, where she ...
, was made in
Technicolor
Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades.
Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
and reuniting four members of the previous year's ''
Show Boat
''Show Boat'' is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock worke ...
'' (Grayson, Keel and the two Champions).
In 1958, it was made into a
made-for-TV-movie starring
Bob Hope
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer and dancer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in Bob Hope filmography, more than 70 short and ...
,
Anna Maria Alberghetti
Anna Maria Alberghetti (; born May 15, 1936) is an Italian-American actress and soprano.
Biography
Born May 15, 1936, in Pesaro, Marche, in central Italy, she starred on Broadway and won a Tony Award in 1962 as Best Actress (Musical) for ''Ca ...
,
Howard Keel
Harold Clifford Keel (April 13, 1919November 7, 2004), known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer, known for his rich bass-baritone singing voice. He starred in a number of MGM musicals in the 1950s and in the CBS te ...
and
Janis Paige
Janis Paige (born Donna Mae Tjaden; September 16, 1922) is an American retired actress and singer. Born in Tacoma, Washington, she began singing in local amateur shows at the age of five. After high school, she moved to Los Angeles, where she b ...
.
The show was also presented on television in a highly adapted, modernized 1969
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
color telecast. This production was presented by Bob Hope, who reprised his original stage role, inserting many new, then-topical jokes about current events. Others in the cast included
Michele Lee
Michele Lee is an American actress, singer, dancer, producer, and director. She is known for her role as Karen Fairgate MacKenzie on the prime-time soap opera ''Knots Landing'' (1979–1993), for which she was nominated for a 1982 Emmy Awar ...
,
John Davidson,
Eve McVeagh
Eva Elizabeth "Eve" McVeagh (July 15, 1919 – December 10, 1997) was an American actress of film, television, stage, and radio. Her career spanned 52 years from her first stage role through her last stage appearance. Her roles included leading ...
, and Janis Paige (who sang "
I Won't Dance
"I Won't Dance" is a song with music by Jerome Kern that has become a jazz standard. The song has two different sets of lyrics: the first written by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach in 1934, and second written by Dorothy Fields (though Jimmy ...
" with a male chorus).
In 2014, New World Records released a complete recording of the score, reconstructed by Larry Moore, with Rob Berman conducting the Orchestra of Ireland and a cast of American, British, and Irish performers, including
Jason Graae
Jason Graae (pronounced "grah" or "graw", but not "gray") (born 15 May 1958) is an American musical theater actor, best known for his musical theater performances but with a varied career spanning Broadway, opera, television and film. He has ...
, Annalene Beechey,
Kim Criswell
Kim Criswell (born July 19, 1957) is an American musical entertainer and actress.
Life and career
Criswell was born in Hampton, Virginia, United States, and grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After she graduated from Hixson High School in subur ...
, Patrick Cummings, Tally Sessions, Diana Montague, Laura Daniel, Jeanne Lehman, John Molloy, and Eamonn Mulhall.
References
Sources
*
External links
*
{{Authority control
1933 musicals
Broadway musicals
Musicals based on novels
Musicals by Jerome Kern
Musicals by Otto Harbach