CBS’s presentation of CINDERELLA was prompted by the astounding success rival NBC had enjoyed previously with a television production of PETER PAN starring Mary Martin. CBS felt that with the right star in the right version of the right fairy tale, a little of that NBC pixie dust might rub off on them.
Unlike PETER PAN, which was a television version of a Broadway production, it was determined by CBS that their musical would be created specifically for the medium. In choosing their fairy tale, inspired casting may have helped in the decision: at the time, a radiant Julie Andrews was charming Broadway in an Edwardian Cinderella musical called MY FAIR LADY, and when CBS asked her to play Cinderella for them, she readily agreed. With ideal casting like that, the network had very little trouble getting Rodgers & Hammerstein involved. "What sold us immediately was the chance to work with Julie," recalled Rodgers in his autobiography. "It was right from the start."
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II prepared their version of CINDERELLA in a scant eight month period. The story remained true to Perrault's original: "The traditional CINDERELLA has done very well," Hammerstein remarked. "Why should we trick her up? We wanted to do a musical version of the story that everyone remembers from childhood." Nevertheless, the script was embroidered with a few sly and witty touches that were uniquely Hammerstein, and the score featured such jewels as "In My Own Little Corner," "Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?," "Ten Minutes Ago," "Impossible" and several of Rodgers’ most enchanting waltzes and marches.
Joining Julie Andrews was a stellar cast that included Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney as the King and Queen; Ilka Chase as the Stepmother; Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley as the Stepsisters; Jon Cypher as The Prince; and Edith Adams as an atypically young and sensible Godmother.
Produced at a costly $375,000, this was a sumptuous CINDERELLA that spared no expense. "Being ignorant of the medium," wrote Hammerstein of his first experience in television, "I wrote this show on the assumption we could do anything, and nothing has been refused me yet." CINDERELLA went through an unusually long (for television) rehearsal period, followed by two complete run-throughs (dubbed "the New Haven and Boston tryouts" by the authors).
On March 18, the cast went into Columbia Records studios where, under the supervision of Goddard Lieberson, they recorded the CINDERELLA score; the album was released in conjunction with the broadcast less than two weeks later. On Sunday night March 24, Rodgers and Hammerstein appeared on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, playing selections from CINDERELLA and urging viewers to watch "the same channel, same time, same place" one week hence.
And watch they did. CINDERELLA’s broadcast, live on CBS-TV on Sunday night March 31, 1957 from 8 to 9:30PM, was viewed by 107,000,000 people -- the largest television audience to date. Rodgers mused that for CINDERELLA to reach as large an audience on Broadway it would have to play to SRO houses for 110 years!
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