The live one-time-only public broadcast, in color, on Sunday evening, March 31, was reputedly seen by a staggering 107 million viewers, the most watched program in television history. Without the benefit, as was common for Broadway shows, of an out-of-town tryout, the cast ran through two fully-staged performances, on March 17 and 24, which were recorded as private black-and-white kinescopes.
Rehearsals began on February 24, 1957, with Andrews available only on days and afternoons when My Fair Lady was not playing. Howard Lindsay-co-librettist a few years later of The Sound of Music-played the King his wife Dorothy Stickney, the Queen Edie Adams, the Fairy Godmother Ilka Chase, the stepmother and Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley, the stepsisters.
Making his television debut, Jon Cypher-a quarter-century later assuming the role of Police Chief Fletcher Daniels on Hill Street Blues-was cast as the Prince.
A few years before, she had actually auditioned for, but failed to secure, a role in Pipe Dream, although Rodgers had taken positive note of her singing.ĬBS, in a complex arrangement with Rodgers and Hammerstein, secured the right to broadcast the show, which they saw as a chance to one-up NBC, which had scored big with live broadcasts, in 19, of Peter Pan with Mary Martin. They knew that Andrews, about six months into her acclaimed portrayal of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, was now “hot property” and thus they jumped at the opportunity. But it wasn’t long after Pipe Dream closed in June, 1956 that Julie Andrews’ agent contacted Rodgers to inquire whether he and Oscar might be interested in crafting for her a television version of the Cinderella story. The last two were received less than favorably by both the press and public. Beginning in 1943 with the (retitled) Oklahoma! the team cranked out-at precise two-year intervals- Carousel, Allegro, South Pacific, The King and I, Me and Juliet, and Pipe Dream. When Richard Rodgers, following his 1942 breakup with lyricist Lorenz Hart and Hart’s death the following year, teamed with Oscar Hammerstein II on a show originally titled Away We Go! it was with a sense that they were writing, as Rodgers put it, “a different kind of musical.” There was hardly an expectation, however, that they would revolutionize the American musical and dominate Broadway for the next two decades.
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