Shy, the Alarmingly Outspoken Memoir of Mary Rodgers by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green

Mary Rodgers (1931-2014) was the composer of the musical Once Upon a Mattress, which launched the career of a young Carol Burnett, and the young readers novel Freaky Friday, which spawned sequels, musicals, films, and the inspired pairing of Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan.

But in her own mind and the mind of many in her profession, Mary was merely the eldest daughter of Richard Rodgers, the greatest American melodist– Rodgers and Hart (The Boys from Syracuse, Pal Joey) Rodgers and Hammerstein (Oklahoma, The Sound of Music)

Richard Rodgers was indeed a genius, but also an alcoholic and a womanizer. His wife Dorothy was a long-suffering, chilly spouse with side gigs as an author, decorator, and inventor. Parent was not a role suited to either of them, which Mary mentions repeatedly in her memoir.  “Mummy’s idea of a daughter was a chambermaid crossed with a lapdog; Daddy’s, Clara Schumann [German pianist and composer] as a chorus girl.”

But as a Rodgers, Mary met everyone in musical theater. Her thumbnail sketches of,  among many others, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Judy Holliday, Woody Allen, Arthur Laurent (“the little shit”), Hal Prince, Truman Capote, Marshall Barer, Mary Martin, and George Abbott are often outrageous.  (The copious footnotes for those of us who did not major in musical theater are a big help.)

As Mary’s profession life sputtered along, her personal life was a train wreck. The 1950s were not kind to ambitious working mothers, especially for Mary who had six children in a dozen years, two husbands, and many unsuitable boyfriends. “And if I failed in some ways as a mother, my kids, I think, have forgiven me. They certainly had a fun ride.” (I guess we will have to wait for their memoirs to determine if that’s true!) 

What saves Shy from being a rather whinny portrait of a poor little rich girl struggling to make her way in man’s world (although it is certainly that) is despite her blind spots, Mary is frank (mostly) about her limitations as an artist, spouse, and parent.  And what makes the memoir really zing is that she is just as frank about everyone else’s flaws too!

A breezy, sketchy read, best enjoyed by fans of musical theater.