Hollywood marked the beginning of a long, curious period of Hammerstein failure. He worked, on a dozen musicals between 1930 and 1942, but few were hits. He suffered the lean years stoically. In 1940 he bought, as a sort of refuge, a farm near Doylestown, Pa. People said that Oscar Hammerstein was through; he claims that he was kept going by a "certain inner conceit."
One day the Theatre Guild told him that they were redoing Lynn Riggs's Green Grow the Lilacs with a score by Dick Rodgers. Would he do the lyrics? He certainly would. After ten years of uncertainty, Hammerstein found in Oklahoma! the modern touch that "they" wanted. It consisted chiefly of a captivating simplicity that revolutionized musicomedy.
The Perfect Marriage. Rodgers & Hammerstein are ebulliently happy that Oklahoma! brought them together (though they had known each other casually for years). Hammerstein's towering calm and Rodgers' agile dynamism nicely complement each other. Both agree that their partnership is a "perfect marriage." Rodgers, who for 25 years had worked with the late, absent-minded Lorenz Hart, is continually amazed by Hammerstein's punctualness (says a friend: "He is, the only man I know who can tell you where he will be next August third at 5:30 P.M.")
Until Oklahoma!, Hammerstein adapted his lyrics to his partner's melodies (notable exception: The Last Time I Saw Paris, which Oscar first wrote as a poem, Jerome Kern later put to music). This system of creation puts the pinch on the lyricist; and it is in the pinches that Oscar has earned the awe of his fellow craftsmen, who refer to him as "The Master." Oscar now writes his words first and lets Rodgers weave a song to fit.
Hammerstein regards writing as hard labor. He works peripatetically (he has been called one of the greatest pacers of his time), and writes in longhand; he explains that if he typed, the stuff would look so neat that he would not have the heart to change anything. He claims that his vocabulary is small and that words do not come easily to him ("The man I really envy is Winston Churchill",). He is a fanatical craftsman.
Family Man. The Harmmersteins have a house in Manhattan, but he prefers Highland Farm, which was furnished by Mrs. Hammerstein, a professional interior decorator ("We didn't get cute"). There he rises at about 7:30 and, gets a massage by Peter Moen, a bald, powerful Norwegian, without whom he refuses to go anywhere (partly because Peter is homesick, Hammerstein has decided to take a trip to Scandinavia next month).