As profiled in our last post, the 1957 tele-musical Cinderella – currently celebrating its 60th Diamond Anniversary here in the Parallel Julieverse – was a landmark event in American entertainment history. With a record-setting national audience of 107 million people (63% of the then US population), and an additional 10 million viewers via syndicated affiliates in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and overseas US territories, Cinderella was the single most watched TV show to that point. Even today, it remains among the highest rated broadcast events of all time (Baughman,143-44).
While nobody could have foreseen phenomenal success on that scale, Cinderella enjoyed promising prospects from the outset. TV musicals were big business in the 1950s. Adaptations of Broadway shows like Kiss Me Kate, Annie Get Your Gun and Wonderful Town earned consistently strong ratings for networks. In 1955, NBC scored a major hit with Peter Pan, a star vehicle for Mary Martin that was so popular it was restaged a year later in a special live version and then rebroadcast annually for several years thereafter (Newcomb, 153).
Inspired by the success of Peter Pan, NBC approached Rodgers and Hammerstein, the reigning giants of Broadway, about staging an original musical for television based on another classic children’s tale, Cinderella (Pobgrebin, C3). The celebrated writing and composing team were apparently keen. They had been toying for some time with the possibility of creating a “family musical” and both were firm fans of television, often staying up late at night glued to the set. Rodgers had also had some direct experience of the new medium via live TV productions of two earlier Rodgers and Hart musicals, A Connecticut Yankee and Dearest Enemy, telecast in 1955 (Block, 174). However, a chance encounter saw the pair switch allegiances – or maybe that should be channels – from NBC to CBS.
Unsure whether to develop the new project as a pretaped or, as was then the fashion, live telecast, Rodgers and Hammerstein turned to Richard Lewine, a longtime friend and experienced TV producer, for advice (Messing, 5-6). At the time, Lewine was working as Vice President in charge of colour television for CBS and he informed the pair that the rival network was also looking to mount a musical spectacular of their own, ostensibly to showcase their new colour system. He suggested that CBS would not only be able to offer a more lucrative package than NBC but they had a further ace up their sleeve: Julie Andrews was under contract to them and was interested in playing the lead role. That proved the deal clincher. As Richard Rodgers (1995) later recalled:
“My Fair Lady [had]…served to establish Julie Andrews as Broadway’s radiant new star. There wasn’t a composer or a lyricist who didn’t start dreaming of songs for her to sing or roles for her to play…[W]hat sold us immediately was the chance to work with Julie…It was right right from the start” (290).
So it was that, in September 1956, CBS Television announced Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein would partner with them to create a brand new musical version of Cinderella as a star vehicle for Julie Andrews (Messing, 6). Widely touted as “the most important single show of this television season,” Cinderella was the biggest and most expensive program yet produced for American TV with a budget estimated at over $550,000 (McManus, 10). Planned as a live colour broadcast, at least to the East and Central Zones – a black-and-white kinescope would be used for delayed transmission to the West Coast – Cinderella was also a major technical and logistical enterprise, requiring a huge production crew of over 300 personnel (Messing, 99-101).
The program was more or less pre-sold on the household ‘brand’ names of Rodgers and Hammerstein but, with so much riding on it, CBS was leaving nothing to chance. No sooner had the project been announced than the network’s publicity department launched into over-drive with “the greatest campaign for a single show in the history of the network” (Messing, 2). Specially commissioned photos of Julie in costume – although not the actual costumes used in the final telecast – were released to news outlets nationwide. As colour was to be a major feature of the telecast, full colour art and photography was issued where possible. Moreover, the network stipulated that no media outlets should run the same picture or story in an effort to maximise coverage and visual interest (Messing, 39).
From the start of rehearsals on 24 February 1957, the publicity team issued at least one new major press release every day: “biographies of the principals, rehearsal news, human interest features, costumes, sets, feature stories of workout requirements, props, expenses, etc” (Messing, 40). Deluxe promotional press kits were sent to TV stations, radio networks, and magazines and newspapers nationwide. Special advance recordings of select songs from Cinderella were couriered to radio disc jockeys around the nation in a bid to familiarise listeners with the score. In New York, magazine editors were given special access to the stars and rehearsal stage, newspaper columnists were invited to luncheon dates and studio interviews with Julie and the other players, and there was “an average of one phone call per day from principals in the cast…to television editors around the country” (Messing, 41).
The Sunday night preceding the broadcast, Rodgers and Hammerstein guest starred on The Ed Sullivan Show, the high rating CBS variety program that would cede its timeslot the following Sunday to Cinderella. Their appearance kicked off an intensive week-long “saturation publicity campaign” where “Cinderella would be fully exploited until air time” (Messing 51). Full page advertisements were taken out in all the major metropolitan markets and CBS network stations and affiliated radio broadcasters were blitzed with advertising spots (Messing, 40).
Alongside the CBS campaign, Cinderella was also the subject of intense promotion by the show’s commercial sponsors: Pepsi-Cola and Shulton perfumes (“Pepsi, Shulton”, 2). Pepsi-Cola in particular undertook a massive merchandising campaign, which was again the largest such venture in the company’s history (“TV Stamps,” 116-121). Five million Cinderella comic books were printed and inserted in all cartons of Pepsi sold in the weeks prior to the broadcast; 3,300 memento key chains were sent out to radio disc jockeys; special advertisements and posters were plastered in stores and on roadside billboards; and dozens of Cinderella contests were promoted in both the electronic and print press (ibid, 120).
And at the heart of all the media frenzy was 21 year old Julie Andrews who, it’s sobering to recall, was still appearing nightly in My Fair Lady throughout almost the whole period of Cinderella’s development. “I may seem calm but I’m actually quite terrified,” the star confessed in the lead up to the big night, “Every time I start a new venture I’m always afraid that what has gone before is dumb luck and this time I will flop and show my true colors” (McManus, 10). But there was no backing out and, with no understudy, no getting sick, either. “Julie is Cinderella,” asserted Richard Rodgers in the week prior to the big event, “If Julie can’t make the show, then neither can we” (Annenberg, 13). Luckily, she did make the show and 107 million people were treated to “a lovely night, a lovely night, a finer night you know you’ll never see!”
Annenberg, Walter H. “Once Upon a Time: The Story of How Rodgers and Hammerstein Created ‘Cinderella’.” TV Guide. 30 March 1957: 10-13.
Baughman, James L. Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948–1961. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
Block, Geoffrey. Richard Rodgers. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
Grode, Eric. “A Cinderella Moment.” Theater Week. 7: 2, 1993: 16-20.
Hischak, Thomas S. “Cinderella.” The Rodgers and Hammerstein Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007: 48-52.
McManus, Margaret. “Julie Andrews of ‘My Fair Lady’ Has Title Role in TV ‘Cinderella’.” Asbury Park Evening Press, 30 March 1957: 10.
Messing, Harold. CBS Television Production of ‘Cinderella‘. (Unpublished Masters thesis). Stanford University, 1957.
Newcomb, Horace, ed. Encyclopedia of Television. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.
“Pepsi, Shulton ‘Cinderella’ to Cost 555G.” Billboard. 1 December 1956: 2.
Pogrebin, Robin. “Magical Find Excites TV Historians; ‘Cinderella’ Film Reflects An Emerging Medium.” The New York Times. 20 June 2002: C3
Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography. New York: DaCapo Press, 1995.
Smith, Cecil. “‘Cinderella’ Gigantic to Team Julie Andrews and Unknown.” The Los Angeles Times - TV Supplement. 31 March 1957: 3-7.
“TV Stamps Quality on Pepsi.” Broadcasting-Telecasting. 24 June 1957: 116-121.
© 2017, Brett Farmer. All Rights Reserved
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