| Roberta | |
|---|---|
| Music | Jerome Kern |
| Lyrics | Otto Harbach |
| Book | Otto Harbach |
| Basis | Gowns by Roberta, a novel by Alice Duer Miller |
| Productions | 1933 Broadway 1935 Film version 1969 Television version |
Roberta is a musical from 1933 with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics and book by Otto Harbach. The musical is based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller. The play features the famous songs "Yesterdays", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Let's Begin", "You're Devastating", "Something Had To Happen" and "The Touch of Your Hand".
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The original Broadway production opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre on November 18, 1933, and ran for 295 performances. It starred Tamara Drasin (billed as Tamara), Bob Hope, George Murphy, Lyda Roberti, Fred MacMurray, Fay Templeton, Ray Middleton (billed as Raymond E. Middleton), and Sydney Greenstreet. Hope, Murphy, MacMurray and Greenstreet were not yet the Hollywood stars they would soon be, and Middleton was not the Broadway leading man he would become after Annie Get Your Gun.
The play was made into a 1935 film by RKO starring Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Randolph Scott. The film omitted "The Touch of Your Hand" (sung by a minor character), "Something Had To Happen", and "You're Devastating" (originally Middleton's big song in the show), but added the Kern songs "I Won't Dance" and "Lovely to Look At", which became so popular that they are now always included in revivals and recordings of Roberta.
In 1952, MGM remade Roberta under the title Lovely to Look At. This remake also included the additional songs written for the 1935 film. It starred Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Red Skelton, Ann Miller, Gower Champion, Marge Champion, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, was made in Technicolor and reuniting four members of the previous year's Show Boat (1951 film) (Grayson, Keel and the two Champions).
The show was also presented on television in a highly adapted, modernized 1969 NBC color telecast. This production was presented by Bob Hope, who reprised his original stage role, inserting many new, then-topical jokes about current events. Others in the cast included Michele Lee, John Davidson, Eve McVeagh, and Janis Paige (who sang "I Won't Dance" with a male chorus).