Mary Rodgers was an American composer, author, and screenwriter, most famous for her novel Freaky Friday, which served as the basis of a 1976 film, for which she wrote the screenplay, as well as three other versions. Her best-known musicals were Once Upon a Mattress and The Mad Show, and she contributed songs to Marlo Thomas' successful children's album Free to Be... You and Me.
Early life
Rodgers was born in New York City. She was a daughter of composer Richard Rodgers and his wife, Dorothy Belle. She had a sister, Mrs. Linda Emory. She attended the Brearley School in Manhattan, and majored in music at Wellesley College. She began writing music at the age of 16 and her professional career began with writing songs for Little Golden Records, which were albums for children with three-minute songs. One of these recordings, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves 40, which was released in 1957, featured performances by Bing Crosby of songs Mary Rodgers wrote with lyricist Sammy Cahn. She also composed music for television, including the jingle for the Prince Spaghetti commercial.
Career
Her first full-length musical Once Upon a Mattress, which was also her first collaboration with lyricist Marshall Barer with whom she continued to write songs for nearly a decade, opened Off Broadway in May 1959 and moved to Broadway later in the year. Following the show's initial run of 244 performances, there was a US tour, a production in London's West End, three televised productions, and a Broadway revival. Cast albums were released for the original Broadway production, the original London production, and the Broadway revival. To this day, the show is frequently performed by community and school groups across the United States. Another significant compositional project for her was The Mad Show, a musical revue based on Mad magazine which opened on Off Broadway in January 1966 and ran for a total of 871 performances. An original cast album, produced by Goddard Lieberson, was released on Columbia Masterworks. Although the show also began as a collaboration with Marshall Barer, he quit before the project was completed and the show's remaining songs feature lyrics by Larry Siegel, Steven Vinaver, and Stephen Sondheim, who contributed the lyrics to a parody of "The Girl from Ipanema" called "The Boy From..." under the pseudonym Esteban Ria Nido. None of her other shows had the same level of success, but she also wrote music for musicals and revues, the first on Broadway being Davy Jones' Locker with Bil Baird's marionettes, which had a two-week run at the Morosco Theatre from March 28 to April 11, 1959. Others included From A to Z, Hot Spot, Working, and Phyllis Newman's one-woman show The Madwoman of Central Park West. A revue of Rodgers's music titled Hey, Love, conceived and directed by Richard Maltby Jr. ran in June 1993 at Eighty-Eight's in New York City. She eventually transitioned into writing children's books, most notably Freaky Friday, which was made into a feature film for which Rodgers wrote the screenplay, and was remade for television in 1995, and again for cinemas in 2003. Rodgers' other children's books include The Rotten Book, A Billion for Boris, and Summer Switch, and she contributed songs to the landmark children's album Free to Be... You and Me. She made a few brief forays back into composing for musical theatre, including an adaptation of her book Freaky Friday which was presented by Theatreworks/USA in 1991 and The Griffin and the Minor Canon, which was produced by Music Theatre Group, but after the latter show she never composed another note of music and never even played the piano again. She later explained, "I had a pleasant talent but not an incredible talent... I was not my father or my son. And you have to abandon all kinds of things."
Personal life
Her first husband, whom she married in December 1951, was lawyer Julian B. Beaty, Jr.; they had three children, Tod, Nina, and Kim Beaty. Their union ended in 1957. She and her second husband, film exec Henry Guettel, had three sons, Matthew,, Adam, a Tony Award-winning musical theatre composer, and Alec. Henry died in October 2013 at the age of 85. Mary Rodgers was a director of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization and a board member of ASCAP. She also served for several years as chairman of the Juilliard School.
Death
Rodgers died from heart failure at her home in Manhattan on June 26, 2014.
