@Wikipedia : Born into a prosperous Jewish family, Richard Rodgers was the son of Mamie Levy and of Dr. William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed the family name from Abrahams. …. Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, and Rodgers’s later collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II all attended Columbia University.

@Real.com : If you are unsettled by Oklahoma’s singing ranch hands, check out their next work, the darkly beautiful Carousel. South Pacific dealt with racial intolerance, while the effervescent The King and I made a star out of Yul Brynner, who also ruled the screen version with his masculine “I can kick your jock butt” singing and dancing.

@W. W. Norton & Company : : Rodgers was mainly self-taught as a composer; His earliest influences were the operetta style of Victor Herbert and the songs of Jerome Kern. His early works, intended for amateur performance, were often little more than musical reviews in a popular style.

@Answers.com : One notable point was his steady return to the waltz at a time when many composers neglected it. Perhaps his most remarkable effort in this style was “The Carousel Waltz.”

@Voice of America : Richard Rodgers wrote both the words and the music for Broadway shows following Oscar Hammerstein’s death in nineteen sixty. Critics say the best of these is “No Strings.” It explored a romance between a black woman and a white man.

@The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization : On March 27, 1990, he was honored posthumously with Broadway’s highest accolade when the 46th Street Theatre was renamed The Richard Rodgers Theatre with a permanent exhibit in the lobby areas which honors the composer’s life and works.

@PBS : : The Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals earned 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes, two Grammy Awards and 2 Emmy Awards and in 1999 they were jointly commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp.

to be continued… probably