Roberta

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. It features the songs "Yesterdays", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "Let's Begin", "You're Devastating", "Something Had To Happen", "The Touch of Your Hand" and "I'll Be Hard to Handle".

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" (lifted from the flop Kern show Three Sisters) and "Lovely to Look At" (written for the 1935 film and nominated for an Academy Award). These two additions became so popular that they are now frequently included in revivals and recordings of Roberta.

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