Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s Cinderella

But with the help of her Fairy Godmother, Cinderella is transformed into a princess and finds true love with the kingdom’s Prince Charming.

History:

Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s Cinderella is the duo’s only musical written for television.  It was originally broadcast live in color by CBS on March 31, 1957, as a vehicle for Julie Andrews, who played the title role.  It also starred Jon Cypher as The Prince, Howard Lindsay as The King, Dorothy Stickney as The Queen, Edie Adams as the Fairy Godmother, Kaye Ballard & Alice Ghostley as stepsisters Portia & Joy, Ilka Chase as the Stepmother, and Iggie Wolfington as The Steward.  There were no understudies.  Rodgers had told TV Guide, “If Julie can’t make the show, then neither can we.”  The broadcast was produced for $376,000, more than double the sum usually spent on a TV production at that time, and was viewed by more than 107 million people.  The 1957 premiere had been broadcast before color videotape was available, so only one performance could be shown.  After the musical’s success in London and elsewhere as a stage production, CBS decided to produce another television version in 1965.

It was remade in 1965 with Ginger Rogers & Walter Pidgeon as the Queen & King; Celeste Holm as the Fairy Godmother; Jo Van Fleet as the Stepmother, with Pat Carroll & Barbara Ruick as her daughters Prunella & Esmerelda; and Stuart Damon as the Prince.  Lesley Ann Warren, at age 18, played the title role.  The first broadcast was on February 22, 1965, and it was rebroadcast 8 times through February 1974.  The 1965 debut had a Nielsen rating of 42.3, making it the highest-rated non-sports special on CBS from the beginning of the Nielsen ratings until 2009, and the 50th highest-rated show of any kind during that period.

It was subsequently remade for television once more in 1997.  In 1993, following the TV adaptation of Gypsy’s original Broadcast, Whitney Houston approached producers suggesting a similar starring vehicle for herself.  The producers suggested Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, with Houston in the title role.  After four years of delay, the project was restarted but having become a mother and feeling that she had aged out of the role, Houston offered it to her younger friend Brandy and took on the role of Fairy Godmother instead.  Produced by Houston and Debra Martin Chase for Walt Disney Television, it first aired on November 2, 1997.  The movie was groundbreaking in that it was completely colorblind, with a racially diverse cast.  Besides Whitney Houston & Brandy, the all-star production also featured Bernadette Peters as the Stepmother, Whoopi Goldberg as the queen, Victor Garber as the king, and Jason Alexander as Lionel, the herald.  The stepsisters were Veanne Cox as Calliope and Natalie Desselle as Minerva, serving up a more comical version of the sisters than seen in other adaptations, and introduced Paolo Montalban as the charming prince.  60 million viewers watched the broadcast, and Cinderella was again a popular and critical hit, as the Disney Home Video version, also released in 1997, became the best-selling video of a TV movie ever released.

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