Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Hello Dolly! by welcome to the only officially authorized website for Jerry Herman. the multi-Tony-award-winning composer and lyricist of the classic Broadway musicals: Hello, Dolly!, , La Cage Aux Folles, , Mack & Mabel, , Milk & Honey and much more.. Jerry Herman accepts his Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater from at the 63rd Annual in New York, Sunday, June 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Masterworks Broadway Podcast Theatre celebrates composer/lyricist Jerry Herman. In this podcast series Jerry talks about Hello Dolly, Mame, , Dear World and La Cage Aux Folles. Check out this CD, Jerry Herman's Broadway, which contains instrumental versions of many of Jerry’s most famous . All of the titles on this CD are available for concert performance; please inquire at [email protected] for more information. Available now. The Jerry Herman Masterworks Broadway Digital Collection For the first time ever, the legendary recordings of the exuberant, tune-filled musicals of Broadway composer/lyricist Jerry Herman available in a new digital-only collection More Info and How To Order. A GREAT GIFT ON DVD NOW. "Words and Music by JERRY HERMAN" A documentary by Amber Edwards This intimate and revealing look at the life and career of Jerry Herman was five years in the making and contains never before seen film of Jerry's shows with their original stars and casts. Funny and moving interviews with his friends, stars, and Broadway peers. "Unforgettable" -- Playbill. ‘Mame,’ ‘Hello, Dolly!’ composer Jerry Herman dies at 88. Tony Award-winning composer Jerry Herman, who wrote the cheerful, good-natured music and lyrics for such classic shows as "Mame," "Hello, Dolly!" and "La Cage aux Folles," died Thursday. He was 88. His goddaughter Jane Dorian confirmed his death to The Associated Press early Friday. He died of pulmonary complications in Miami, where he had been living with his partner, real estate broker Terry Marler. The creator of 10 Broadway shows and contributor to several more, Herman won two Tony Awards for best musical: “Hello, Dolly!” in 1964 and “La Cage aux Folles” in 1983. He also won two Grammys — for the “Mame” cast album and “Hello, Dolly!” as of the year — and was a Kennedy Center honoree. He had three original Broadway productions playing at the same time from February 1969 to May 1969. Tributes poured in Friday from Broadway royalty, including from Harvey Fierstein, who wrote the book of “La Cage aux Folles” alongside Herman's songs. “We lost one of the greats,” Fierstein tweeted. “A collaborator and friend for almost 40 years. I cannot thank him enough for his love, trust, encouragement, support and laughter.” Writer and host Seth Rudetsky honored Herman for writing “quintessential Broadway songs. Beautiful melodies and fantastic lyrics.” Herman wrote in the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition, an optimistic composer at a time when others in his profession were exploring darker feelings and material. Just a few of his song titles revealed his depth of hope: "I'll Be Here Tomorrow," "The Best of Times," "Tap Your Troubles Away," "It's Today," "We Need a Little Christmas" and "Before the Passes By." Even the title song to "Hello, Dolly!" is an advertisement to enjoy life. Herman also had a direct, simple sense of melody and his lyrics had a natural, unforced quality. Over the years, he told the AP in 1995, "critics have sort of tossed me off as the popular and not the cerebral writer, and that was fine with me. That was exactly what I aimed at.” In accepting the Tony in 1984 for “La Cage Aux Folles,” Herman said, "This award forever shatters a myth about the musical theater. There's been a rumor around for a couple of years that the simple, hummable was no longer welcome on Broadway. Well, it's alive and well at the Palace" Theatre. Some saw that phrase — “the simple, hummable show tune” — as a subtle dig at , known for challenging and complex songs and whose “Sunday in the Park with George” Herman had just bested. But Herman rejected any tension between the two musical theater giants. "Only a small group of 'showbiz gossips' have constantly tried to create a feud between Mr. Sondheim and myself. I am as much of a Sondheim fan as you and everybody else in the world, and I believe that my comments upon winning the Tony for ‘La Cage’ clearly came from my delight with the show business community's endorsement of the simple melodic which had been criticized by a few hard-nosed critics as being old fashioned,” he said in a 2004 Q&A session with readers of Broadway.com. Playwright Paul Rudnick on Friday praised Herman for providing “such joy.” And director and choreographer said Herman's “feel-good shows full of melody and joy will live forever.” Bernadette Peters, Elaine Paige and Carolee Carmello also mourned his passing, with Donna Murphy thanking the composer for “countless moments of explosive joy, deep poignancy, profound inspiration, humor and heartbreak.” Herman was born in New York in 1931 and raised in Jersey City. His parents ran a children's summer camp in the Catskills and he taught himself the piano. He noted that when he was born, his mother had a view of Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre marquee from her hospital bed. Herman dated his intention to write musicals to the time his parents took him to "Annie Get Your Gun" and he went home and played five of 's songs on the piano. "I thought what a gift this man has given a stranger. I wanted to give that gift to other people. That was my great inspiration, that night,” he told The Associated Press in 1996. After graduating from the University of Miami, Herman headed back to New York, writing and playing piano in a jazz club. He made his Broadway debut in 1960 contributing songs to the review “” — alongside material by and — and the next year tackled the entire score to a musical about the founding of the state of Israel, “Milk and Honey.” It earned him his first Tony nomination. “Hello, Dolly!” starring opened in 1964 and ran for 2,844 performances, becoming Broadway's longest-running musical at the time. It won 10 Tonys and has been revived many times, most recently in 2017 with Bette Midler in the title role, a 19th-century widowed matchmaker who learns to live again. “Mame” followed in 1966, starring Angela Lansbury, and went on to run for over 1,500 performances. She handed him his Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2009, saying he created songs like him: “bouncy, buoyant and optimistic.” In 1983 he had another hit with “La Cage aux Folles,” a sweetly radical musical of its age, decades before the fight for marriage equality. It was a lavish adaptation of the successful French film about two gay men who own a splashy, drag on the Riviera. It contained the gay anthem “I Am What I Am” and ran for some 1,760 performances. Three of his shows, "Dear World," "The Grand Tour" and "," failed on Broadway. Many of his songs have outlasted their vehicles: British ice skaters Torvill and Dean used the overture from "Mack and Mabel" to accompany a gold medal-winning routine in 1982. Writer-director Andrew Stanton used the Herman tunes “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” and “It Only Takes a Moment” to express the psyche of a love-starved, trash-compacting robot in the film “WALL-E.” Later in life, Herman composed a song for “Barney's Great Adventure,” contributed the score for the 1996 made-for-TV movie “Mrs. Santa Claus” — earning Herman an Emmy nomination — and wrote his autobiography, "Showtune," published by Donald I. Fine. “There has been no other music which took our breath away, that made us hum and cheer and respect ourselves more than a majestic Jerry Herman musical,” said Dorian. He is survived by his partner, Marler, and his goddaughters — Dorian and Dorian's own daughter, Sarah Haspel. Dorian said plans for a memorial service are still in the works for the man whose songs she said “are always on our lips and in our hearts.” AP reporters Lynn Elber in and Mallika Sen in New York contributed to this report. "Mame," "Hello, Dolly!" composer Jerry Herman has died at 88. Tony Award-winning composer Jerry Herman, who wrote the cheerful, good-natured music and lyrics for such classic shows as "Mame," "Hello, Dolly!" and "La Cage aux Folles," died Thursday. He was 88. His goddaughter Jane Dorian confirmed his death to The Associated Press early Friday. He died of pulmonary complications in Miami, where he had been living with his partner, real estate broker Terry Marler. The creator of 10 Broadway shows and contributor to several more, Herman won two Tony Awards for best musical: "Hello, Dolly!" in 1964 and "La Cage aux Folles" in 1983. He also won two Grammys – for the "Mame" cast album and "Hello, Dolly!" as song of the year – and was a Kennedy Center honoree. He had three original Broadway productions playing at the same time from February 1969 to May 1969. Tributes poured in Friday from Broadway royalty, including from Harvey Fierstein, who wrote the book of "La Cage aux Folles" alongside Herman's songs. "We lost one of the greats," Fierstein tweeted. Composer Jerry Herman, photographed in New York on November 19, 1996, displays his book "Showtune." AP/JIM COOPER. Herman wrote in the Rodgers and Hammerstein tradition, an optimistic composer at a time when others in his profession were exploring darker feelings and material. Just a few of his song titles revealed his depth of hope: "I'll Be Here Tomorrow," "The Best of Times," "Tap Your Troubles Away," "It's Today," "We Need a Little Christmas" and "Before the Parade Passes By." Even the title song to "Hello, Dolly!" is an advertisement to enjoy life. Herman also had a direct, simple sense of melody and his lyrics had a natural, unforced quality. Over the years, he told the AP in 1995, "critics have sort of tossed me off as the popular and not the cerebral writer, and that was fine with me. That was exactly what I aimed at." Trending News. In accepting the Tony in 1984 for "La Cage Aux Folles," Herman said, "This award forever shatters a myth about the musical theater. There's been a rumor around for a couple of years that the simple, hummable show tune was no longer welcome on Broadway. Well, it's alive and well at the Palace" Theatre. Herman was born in New York in 1931 and raised in Jersey City. His parents ran a children's summer camp in the Catskills and he taught himself the piano. He noted that when he was born, his mother had a view of Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre marquee from her hospital bed. Herman dated his intention to write musicals to the time his parents took him to "Annie Get Your Gun" and he went home and played five of Irving Berlin's songs on the piano. "I thought what a gift this man has given a stranger. I wanted to give that gift to other people. That was my great inspiration, that night," he told The Associated Press in 1996. After graduating from the University of Miami, Herman headed back to New York, writing and playing piano in a jazz club. He made his Broadway debut in 1960 contributing songs to the review "From A to Z" – alongside material by Fred Ebb and Woody Allen – and the next year tackled the entire score to a musical about the founding of the state of Israel, "Milk and Honey." It earned him his first Tony nomination. "Hello, Dolly!" starring Carol Channing opened in 1964 and ran for 2,844 performances, becoming Broadway's longest-running musical at the time. It won 10 Tonys and has been revived many times, most recently in 2017 with Bette Midler in the title role, a 19th-century widowed matchmaker who learns to live again. "Mame" followed in 1966, starring Angela Lansbury, and went on to run for over 1,500 performances. She handed him his Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2009, saying he created songs like him: "bouncy, buoyant and optimistic." In 1983 he had another hit with "La Cage aux Folles," a sweetly radical musical of its age, decades before the fight for marriage equality. It was a lavish adaptation of the successful French film about two gay men who own a splashy, drag nightclub on the Riviera. It contained the gay anthem "I Am What I Am" and ran for some 1,760 performances. Three of his shows, "Dear World," "The Grand Tour" and "Mack and Mabel," failed on Broadway. Later in life, Herman composed a song for "Barney's Great Adventure," contributed the score for the 1996 made-for-TV movie "Mrs. Santa Claus" – earning Herman an Emmy nomination – and wrote his autobiography, "Showtune," published by Donald I. Fine. First published on December 27, 2019 / 9:04 AM. © 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Hello, Dolly! Composer Jerry Herman Dead at 88: 'One of the Greats' Jerry Herman, the Broadway composer behind Hello, Dolly! , has died. He was 88. Herman’s goddaughter confirmed his death to The Associated Press on Friday. The renowned composer died of pulmonary complications in Miami, Florida, the AP reported. During his career, Herman worked on several iconic Broadway shows including Hello, Dolly! (1964) and La Cage aux Folles (1983) — both of which garnered him Tony Awards for best musical. He was nominated a total of five times. Herman also won two Grammy Awards for the cast album of Mame and song of the year for Hello, Dolly! The composer was born in in 1931. His parents owned a children’s summer camp in the Catskills where he taught himself to play the piano. He was inspired to write musicals after his parents took him to see Annie Get Your Gun . Herman spoke to the AP in 1996 about his inspiration, saying, “I thought what a gift this man has given a stranger. I wanted to give that gift to other people. That was my great inspiration, that night.” He is the only composer to have had three original Broadway productions running at the same time — Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and Dear World all ran from February to May in 1969. Several remembered Herman on social media, with Bernadette Peters tweeting, “How Sad. Jerry Herman has passed away . of course he made it to Christmas and left us the next day !! He was always so enthusiastic and uplifting about things and gave us the wonderful show Hello Dolly among others !!RIP Jerry Dearest.” Harvey Fierstein also tweeted, “Jerry Herman lost his hard fought battle last night and we lost one of the greats. A collaborator and friend for almost 40 years, I cannot thank him enough for his love, trust, encouragement, support and laughter. Well done, Mr Herman. Bravo!” Elaine Paige tweeted, “So sad and shocked to hear of the death of Jerry Herman ! One of #Broadway’s greatest composer/lyricist! RIP wonderful man.” Call on Dolly! Jerry Herman has been a part of the soundtrack of my life since I first stepped into the world of theatre. The very first show I ever did, with The Theatre of the Republic, in Conway, South Carolina, was Mame. I also discovered Carol Channing early and my life and the rest is history as they say. with two of Jerry’s Girls, Carol Channing and Angela Lansbury, and Colleen Dewhurst. I cannot imagine my life without the incredible music of Jerry Herman. This year, and for the last few, I have devoted a lot of my time celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Hello, Dolly! This landmark musical opened on Broadway January 16th, 1964. Check out my website celebrating Dolly at CallonDolly.com. The hope of this becoming a book is very strong but am holding out for a couple of interviews. They include Mary Jo Catlett, Jo Ann Worley, Sally Struthers, and Barbra Streisand. THEN, I will be ready! I was very lucky enough to sit down and chat with Jerry recently. The focus of the interview was Hello, Dolly! and especially to CELEBRATE Dolly ! If you are looking for dirt or inside gossip, this is not the blog for you. If you are looking for an upbeat look at this musical, I hope you enjoy what you are about to read. Thank you , Jerry! Jerry never woke up one morning and said, “I’m going to become a composer or lyricist.” It just happened. It was so natural to Jerry and to his life that he can’t imagine ever having done anything else even though he went to Parsons School of Design as a young man, thinking that he was going to do something in the field of design. That being said, Jerry spent most of his days at a piano. That urged him to know that there was nothing more that he wanted to do but write his own songs. He was bitten very early in life by the “Irving Berlin bug”. Jerry so admired everything that Berlin wrote and did, the way he thought and the way he understood the public’s need and appreciation for hummable music with sensible lyrics that perfectly rhyme and all the things “I have tried to emulate.” He certainly succeeded! Jerry says that he has had the most incredible life and the most thrilling thing for him is to be standing in the back of a theatre in which a show of his is playing and listening to the audience’s reaction. It is still the most exciting thing in the world to him. For the sake of this blog, we are going to focus on Hello, Dolly! Jerry had just written his first Broadway musical, Milk and Honey . He had a nice success with that. One day, he got a call from Michael Stewart. Michael told Jerry that he admired his work and if he could suggest that Jerry meet with him and to discuss a new project that they were interested in Jerry to do. Jerry said, “Of course.” He was honored and thrilled to even be asked that question. Jerry and Michael met and got along instantly as friends and as collaborators. It was “so natural and so meant to be.” It became inevitable that they would meet and work together. They were of the same mind on every aspect of how to put a musical together. Jerry loved Michael Stewart very dearly and was so fortunate to have him as a collaborator. Unless a collaborator is of the same mind you are, it won’t work. It has to be ONE thought and one vision. They found that they had that. They then went to Mr. Merrick’s office. Mr. Merrick presented the idea of turning The Matchmaker, a very successful play with Ruth Gordon that he produced, into a musical. Jerry loved the idea, he loved writing about larger than life women. “I think they are much more exciting to spend an evening with than a man in a brown suit.” There you have how it all started: a call to Jerry from Michael Stewart and a meeting with Mr. Merrick, who presented the idea to Jerry. He then went home and, in three days, wrote several songs that have never changed. They were Put On Your Sunday Clothes , the opening number ( Call on Dolly into I Put My Hand In ), and It Only Takes a Moment . It all fell together as if it was inevitable, meant to be. Once Jerry got the job, he began to write the show with Ethel Merman in mind. Jerry did have some contractual say in casting. Once they went to see Carol Channing in The Millionairess in Mineola, Long Island where she was appearing. In that entourage was Marge and. and David Merrick. Jerry met her and adored her. He realized instantly that this would be a most interesting take on the woman they were writing about. It was not actually “on the nose.” It was not Ruth Gordon’s interpretation of the character. Carol made it her own and continues to own it. Although Ethel Merman initially turned them down, Jerry always tried to convince her to do another show. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in the material, which she had never heard; it was that she had decided she had, in her own words, “spent my life in a dressing room and wanted to get out and live a little.” No one could not not understand that logic. After time, Jerry’s lobbying for Ethel turned into an excitement and a totally different interpretation by Miss Channing. Thank God that Carol Channing happened. Jerry was also fortunate that seven years later, Ethel decided that it was time for her to do it. Jerry adds that he was very lucky to have both of these women play this role in his lifetime with his “hand in”. The whole thing seems pre-ordained to Jerry. Jerry would LOVE to see another revival. It is timeless. It is really not about an era. It’s about a woman, a. Come and Be My Butterfly (Eventually cut) woman who “arranges things.” It is about a woman who is larger than life. That is always in fashion. It is always acceptable to audiences. Jerry believes another revival of Dolly would be a smashing success. I’ve always wondered about the cutting of Come And Be On My Butterfly. Even on the ORIGINAL , there is a picture from that number, although the number is not on the cast recording. Jerry had nothing to do with this number being cut. He remembers so fondly David Burns (Vandergelder) clawing his way through the silk butterfly wings that were part of all of the “girls” that were part of the number in the show. He would say, “Watch those feelers, Miss!” It was just a gorgeous and different stroke and it was a correct way towards moving towards the end of that show. It was funny and it was different. The following has never been told to anyone! This is NEW stuff!!Unfortunately, critic Walter Kerr told Gower Champion after a smashingly successful opening that he didn’t think Come and Be My Butterfly was the right number in that part of the show. Jerry was helpless to argue that point. Gower Champion loved the show. It was the last new song that Jerry had put in the show. Jerry loved it because it gave “ Molloy” (Eileen Brennan) something fresh and new to do. She was a great comedienne as well as a lovely actress. Mr. Kerr talked Gower Champion into dropping the Butterfly sequence and doing “of all the boring things in the world, a polka contest which I hated and hate to this day.Talking about it irritates me.” Ginger Rogers followed in Carol Channing’s shoes. The keys were often being changed to accommodate the various actresses. That truly was not a tremendous job. There were people who did nothing but that. Orchestrations were often being done in different keys. That was never a difficulty. The one person that Jerry wanted above all else in that role was Ethel Merman. He loved MANY of the Dollys that came after Carol. There are no Dollys that he can think of that never made it to the Broadway stage that he regrets. Working on Dolly taught Jerry that a larger than life female in a ravishing theatrical costume with her feet planted center stage is the single most exciting thing in theatre. It made him write Mame and so much of the work that followed. Jerry’s thought’s on Merrick: He was difficult and a taskmaster, but underneath all of that, he was a brilliant showman. He kept Hello, Dolly alive for seven wonderful years. Jerry never asked him to put each of the other leading ladies in the show. He made those decisions as a smart business man and as someone who was truly the best entrepreneur we had in . If he said Ginger Rogers, it was Ginger Rogers. If he said it was , it was Betty Grable. All of those lovely women came from his head rather than mine. If Jerry could go back, he would insist on keeping Come and Be My Butterfly. Looking ahead, Jerry would LOVE to see Hello, Dolly revived on Broadway with Bette Midler. “Wouldn’t she be perfection?” I would not do a new revival without Come and Be My Butterfly . I would not do a new production without the original opening number. I think the rest of it really works as well as it ever has. I don’t know who else will come along that can do that role as well as Bette could. Believe me, however, every new generation has a new Dolly. How involved was Jerry on the film production starring Barbra Streisand? Not very. I was involved only when they needed new lyrics. I wrote new lyrics for Elegance because they wanted to make it longer. I also wrote Just Leave Everything To Me because Barbra Streisand asked me for a ‘list’ song. She loved doing a lot of lyric in what we call a . I made those kinds of changes. Basically, Barbra really did a terrific job with a character that she was not really right for. I have admired her and still do to this very day. She did a great job although she was too young and not the look that I felt that Dolly should have, but she was wonderful. Dolly changed Jerry Herman’s life. Even though La Cage Aux Folles has overtaken in popularity, somehow surpassing Hello, Dolly , becoming the most successful show I have ever written, I will always be known as the man who wrote Hello, Dolly! There is still something magical about those two words. They stand for a type of musical theatre: the larger than life heroine,the color, the dancing, the romantic interludes of It Only Takes a Moment , Ribbons Down My Back , and Before The Parade Passes By . The last is my favorite. “The morning after the reviews came out in 1964, I got a call from David Merrick, and he said, ‘Whatever you’re doing, put on your pants and come down to the St. James, ’cause you’ll only see this once or twice in a lifetime,’”. “I did, and I saw a line that went around Eighth Avenue, and Merrick himself pouring coffee for people wanting to buy tickets. It was a sight worth getting dressed for.” Jerry on Bette Midler. “There were so many suggestions of very talented women, but nobody pressed that button that made me say, ‘Wow,’ and then when I saw Bette on television doing a part of her Vegas act, it all happened,” he said. “I said, ‘This is the lady who can do it.’ The time has come.”