Milton Hart, born in 1895 to Jewish immigrant parents, met the 16 year-old Richard Rodgers through a mutual friend in 1918. Rodgers played his music for the 23 year-old Hart; Hart read his lyrics aloud. By the end of the meeting, both felt they had found a partner. Together, they would create some of the greatest musicals of the first half of the 20th Century.
The two men were diametrically opposed in temperament, but never in artistic spirit. Rodgers was reserved, disciplined and stern, rarely showering praise. Hart was emotional and earthy, quick with a sexual or scatological joke and effusively warm. Hart suffered from a mild dwarfism that tended to make his head look too big for his small 4'9" frame. He was a Jewish homosexual alcoholic who was fiercely antiauthoritarian - in many ways a subversive character to write musical comedies in the '20s and '30s. Most who knew him often described him as an outsider in spite of the large groups that constantly surrounded him.
Unlike Hammerstein, who experimented with the structure of musical comedy by adding the old fashioned formula of recitative and aria of opera to the musical comedy, Hart experimented within a more radical form that he called rhythmic dialogue. Hart was not interested in psychological depth. Not for him the well-defined characters of Rodgers and Hammerstein. He was more interested in exploring a single moment of pure emotion. As in most popular songs Rodgers and Hart's were written to work on two levels. One, they had to function within the plotline of the show; two, they had to transcend the show so that people could listen at home and appreciate the music.
The interesting thing about Hart is that his songs often worked on a third level. A homosexual in a time of great social repression, he also suffered rejection because of his appearance. For Hart, sexual attraction was power and he was miserably self-aware of his own lack. It is a power that blasts its way through the Rodgers and Hart canon. Unable to find a mate, Hart rarely wrote a requited love song. His entire ouvre is dominated by dreams and fantasies, lovers dancing on the ceiling, cheerful blue boys, funny valentines.
His songs became his therapy; by transmuting his personal feelings into the conventions of the popular song, he could universalize his emotions. If listeners could relate to his situation, Hart himself might not feel so alone. His idealized self and real one would never meet. His tragic addition to alcohol, welcomed as an escape from his personal problems, would eventually destroy him.
Richard Rodgers was driven into fits of despair over their partnership. Despite his glum situation, Hart had a brilliant wit and love of life that prevented him from sinking into soap opera. He hid his discontent from his friends through humor and nervous affectations, such as rubbing his hands together constantly when excited and smoking large cigars. He was generous to a fault.
It is difficult to find anyone with a negative thing to say about Hart. Hart lived with his mother until her death and showered great affection upon her and others, throwing wild, late night parties where anyone was welcome.
In the 1920s, Rodgers and Hart wrote such classic shows as Dearest Enemy, Peggy-Ann, A Connecticut Yankee - all made major strides in the development of the musical theater.
They moved to Hollywood at the advent of talking pictures but with the exception of "Love Me Tonight," found themselves dissatisfied and returned to Broadway in 1935. Sadly, Hart's personal problems and alcoholism had created an intolerable strain on their relationship. In a time period that viewed alcoholism and homosexuality as moral illnesses, Richard Rodgers was at a loss to help Hart. It was an area of Hart's life, possibly exacerbated by unspoken romantic feelings on the part of Hart, that Rodgers could never acknowledge openly beyond lectures on unprofessional behavior. The situation became worse as the 1930's rolled along.
Despite such hits as "On Your Toes", "Babes in Arms", "I Married an Angel", "I'd Rather be "Right", "Too Many Girls", "Pal Joey" and "By Jupiter", Hart's loneliness and drinking binges dramatically increased; he began to lose interest in the theater and life itself. Hart never did find the mate he so desperately wanted. He asked the actress Viviene Segal, among others, to marry him but he was turned down. The breakup of Rodgers and Hart was dramatic and messy, with Hart retreating to Mexico and Richard Rodgers creating a new partnership with Oscar Hammerstein. Hart was present at the premiere of Oklahoma! He died six months later of pneumonia brought on by an alcoholic binge after the revival of their 1920s hit, "A Connecticut Yankee".
His songs deserve a new reading at the close of his centennial year. The musicals of the '20s and '30s may seem simplistic, but in terms of form and inner content, we are just beginning to catch up with them. The lyrics are the code; the life is the key.
by Kathleen Phillis Lorenz
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