Those who have read Meryle Secrest's 2001 Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers (I recommend it) are aware of the composer and his wife Dorothy's awkward, mostly distanced and sometimes toxic relationships with their two daughters, Mary and Linda. Now, twenty years later and posthumously, Mary tells her side of the story and just barely gets it all down into collaborator Jesse Green's notebook and audio recorder before her demise. It may be the most candid book written by any musical theater talent; it lives up to its title.
The title, Shy, is also ironic as Mary Rodgers was anything but (it's the name of one of the songs from her biggest hit, still being performed: Once Upon a Mattress). The first and most powerful impact of the book that hits the reader is Mary's clear voice, defiant and smart, self-deprecating, opinionated and honest with a devil-may-care attitude. The narrative is made even more interesting by Jesse Green's annotated asides, giving background information on composers, actors, agents and a multitude of others Rodgers alludes to and critiques in this memoir.
Growing up in the shadow of Richard Rodgers' monumental career, Mary was slow to exhibit talent as a composer but grew up with an enviable coterie of mid-century musical theater talent, including Hal Prince, Arthur Laurents and, especially, Stephen Sondheim (Stephen being tutored by Oscar Hammerstein at a young age), who remained the love of Mary's life. The platonic year they lived together in a facsimile of marriage will be a surprise to those who first read about it here.
Soldering on through the death of a child and a physically and emotionally abusive first marriage, Mary had an amazing and multi-faceted career which included writing children's music for Little Golden Records and Captain Kangaroo, contributing to The Mad Show on Broadway and Marlo Thomas' Free to Be... You and Me., writing a series of children's books (including Freaky Friday, still being adapted today), and a writer of longstanding of Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts.
Shy is addictively readable and catnip for those interested in the golden age of musical theater.
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