PERSON TO PERSON {RICHARD RODGERS, ELSA MAXWELL}
(TV)
Summary
One in this series of live interview programs. Host Edward R. Murrow begins this installment with a visit to Richard Rodgers and the composer's wife Dorothy in their Manhattan home. First, Murrow recaps the fifty-one-year-old songwriter's numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for "Oklahoma!" Asked whether he has ever written a "sleeper," Rodgers explains that the song "Bewitched" from "Pal Joey" did not become a hit until the musical's Broadway revival thirteen years after its premiere. The composer also discusses his musical education as a child and his parents' influence. Murrow asks whether song composition requires inspiration or happens easily, and Rodgers explains the process of gestation needed for his compositions; he shows a photo of the moment in which he composed the song "Bali Ha'i" to Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics. Rodgers also discusses his first meeting with Hammerstein at a Columbia University Varsity Show and his collaboration with Hammerstein. He notes that when working with lyricist Lorenz Hart he wrote the music first, adding that with Hammerstein he has reversed the process. Rodgers then displays his original pencil manuscript for the song "It Might as Well Be Spring," describing the way in which Hammerstein's lyrics helped shape the music; he plays a few bars of the song on the piano and recites the lyrics. Rodgers and the cameras then join Dorothy Rodgers, who discusses her work with volunteer organizations, a projected theater school at Barnard College, and her invention of the Johnny-Mop. In the second segment of the program, Murrow and his cameras join legendary hostess Elsa Maxwell in her suite at New York's Waldorf Towers. Just home from a European trip, Maxwell discusses her contributions to the practice of entertaining on that continent. At Murrow's prompting, she talks briefly about her meetings with numerous celebrities, including Presidents Eisenhower and Truman, Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth, King Peter of Yugoslavia, Henry Ford, Jawaharlal Nehru, Charles De Gaulle, Fritz Kreisler, Darryl Zanuck, Irene Dunne, Sam Goldwyn, Hildegarde, Andrei Gromyko, Molotov, and Albert Einstein. She admits that she knows few figures in the world of sports and expresses her desire to meet Albert Schweitzer some day. Maxwell goes on to discuss her ease in entertaining and the philosophy of life she inherited from her father. She shows the cameras a sixty-six-year-old photograph of her brief career as a child beauty queen in San Francisco, and she concludes by expressing her overall optimism. Includes commercials and a promo.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: November 6, 1953 10:30 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:29:53
- COLOR/B&W: B&W
- CATALOG ID: T:66501
- GENRE: Talk/Interviews
- SUBJECT HEADING: Composers; Music, popular (songs, etc.)
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 1953-1961
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV - Commercials - Amoco petroleum products
- TV - Promos - "Two for the Money"
CREDITS
- John A. Aaron … Producer
- Jesse Zousmer … Producer
- Aaron Ehrlich … Production (Misc.)
- Charles N. Hill … Production (Misc.)
- John Horn … Production (Misc.)
- David Moore … Production (Misc.)
- Robert Sammon … Production (Misc.)
- Franklin Schaffner … Production (Misc.)
- Edward R. Murrow … Host, Interviewer
- Bob Dixon … Announcer
- Elsa Maxwell … Guest
- Dorothy Rodgers … Guest
- Richard Rodgers … Guest
- Winston Churchill
- De Gaulle, Charles
- Irene Dunne
- Albert Einstein
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain
- Henry Ford
- Samuel Goldwyn
- Andrei Gromyko
- Hammerstein, Oscar, II
- Lorenz Hart
- Hildegarde
- Fritz Kreisler
- Molotov (Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skriabin)
- Jawaharlal Nehru
- Peter, King of Yugoslavia
- Albert Schweitzer
- Harry S. Truman
- Darryl F. Zanuck