William Hammerstein(1918-2001)

Oldest son of Oscar Hammerstein II. He directed numerous stage revivals of his father's most famous musicals.

[on Oscar Hammerstein's response to the question of whether he wrote 'Ol' Man River' as a protest song]'No', replied my father, 'I wrote it because we needed it for a spot in the first act'. He went on to explain that he conceived it as a sort of cord to hold together the whole sprawling story. Remember, no one up to that time had ever tried to spread such an expanse of epic drams, covering such a span of time, over the musical stage, and it had to be held together somehow. He felt that the one constant element was the river, and that's what he wrote about.