Composer brought Broadway optimism
Hits included Hello Dolly!, La Cage Aux Folles
Jerry Herman, who has died aged 88, was a composer and lyricist who, despite having only a rudimentary musical education, was behind some of the biggest musicals on Broadway, among them Hello Dolly!, La Cage Aux Folles, Mack and Mabel, and Mame.
His shows were characterized by big costumes and glamour, with an undercurrent of great emotion and optimism. They brought a feel-good factor to New York audiences looking to escape the tribulations of 1960s America.
His first hit musical was Milk and Honey, about the founding of Israel, which opened on Broadway in October 1961. It ran for 543 performances and was nominated for a Tony award.
Hello Dolly!, the first major Broadway hit after the assassination of President Kennedy, opened in January 1964 and ran for nearly seven years. It was Herman’s greatest success, picking up 10 Tonys.
Mame opened in 1966, and the song If He Walked Into My Life became an instant hit.
La Cage Aux Folles (1983), with its theme of homosexual love, was seen by many as a defiant riposte to the Aids crisis that left Herman Hiv-positive and killed his partner, Marty Finkelstein. The original Broadway production ran for more than 1,700 performances and won six Tonys.
Jerry Herman was born July 10, 1931. He grew up seeing musical comedies, and during the summers his parents ran a children’s camp they owned in upstate New York, which Jerry increasingly turned from an athletics camp into a dramatic one.
After a year studying architecture, Herman enrolled at the University of Miami, which had an avantgarde theatre department.
In 1958 Herman approached the proprietor of the Showplace, a seedy downtown club, who accepted his proposal to stage Nightcap. The critics loved it, and it ran for two years.
Interior design became a secondary occupation and led to him renovating almost 40 apartments and houses.
He received a slew of honours, including a Tony for lifetime achievement in 2009 and a Kennedy Center honour in 2010.