Richard Rodgers – 1902-1979
From the 1920s through the end of the 1950s, Rodgers was one of the leading composers of the American musical, producing with lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II some of the most popular and best Broadway shows of all time, including Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951), The Flower Drum Song (1958), and The Sound of Music (1959).