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Excerpt: 'The Hammersteins'

NPR

Published October 22, 2010 at 3:48 PM EDT

In stark contrast to his namesake grandfather, for young Oscar II, home provided refuge and peace of mind:

I have [peace of mind] to an amazing degree compared to all other people I know. I have always had this somehow. I have never been harried pr extremely worried except for temporary, specific causes. In a confused world I am confused, but I am not thrown into a panic by confusion. I am not unduly distressed by it. I can take confusion and imperfection in my stride.

Although his family's magical world of opera and vaudeville initially frightened young Oscar, his fear soon turned into fascination.

It was during these days in Harlem that I started going to the theatre. My grandfather had several years before this built two theaters there. One was called the Columbus, and the other was the Harlem Opera House. He had given opera there for a short time. They were now sort of subway circuit houses. They didn't call it the subway circuit in those days because there was no subway, but it was kind of a second-run place, and after the shows had exhausted themselves on Broadway they came up to Harlem, where they found an entirely different population.

Reggie and I love the theatre. We would always go to matinees, sometimes with my mother, sometimes with my mother and Mousie. Once in a while my grandmother would come to. Once in a while, if the place sounded boring to older people, we would be sent with a servant.

Oscar pinpointed the day -- October 5. 1903 -- that he was actually bitten by the theatre bug. During a performance of The Fisher Maiden at the Victoria, in its pre-vaudeville days, in a scene in which the blue lights of midnight bloomed into the pink lights of dawn, Oscar floated across the footlights, never to return.

But Willy had wanted better for his son Oscar. (Reggie, not so much.) Oscar attended Columbia University, with the clear understanding that he study to become a lawyer. But while he studied prelaw, the siren call of the stage echoed through the Columbia ivy. Oscar soon joined the Varsity Players, performing skits and contributing songs:

My first stage experience came when the Columbia University Players Club produced the show 'On Your Way.' I wasn't writing but played a comedy role. That was in 1915 and I obtained the part by a competition, the show being cast in a competitive scheme that was open to all university students. The following year I was cast in the leading comedy role in the show 'The Peace Pirates.' I recall that I did my first writing at that time, inserting one scene in the show that was a Shakespearean travesty. When the time passed for the next university production I wrote it, the piece of being called 'Home James.' I not only supplied the book and lyrics but enacted the principal comedy role.