Adler and Ross

Richard Adler and Jerry Ross had one of the shortest and most successful partnerships in Broadway history. In just two seasons they wrote The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees, both of which won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Then, months after their second hit opened, Ross died at 29.

Who Adler and Ross were

Richard Adler was born in New York City on August 3, 1921, and died on June 21, 2012. Jerry Ross was born in the Bronx on March 9, 1926, and died on November 11, 1955. The two met in 1950 and became proteges of Frank Loesser, the writer of Guys and Dolls, who was also a music publisher.

Unusually for a Broadway team, they did not split the work into music and lyrics. Both shared credit for words and music, writing side by side. Their songs are bright, punchy, and pop-friendly, built for the radio as much as the stage: a tango (Hernando's Hideaway), a seductive vamp (Whatever Lola Wants), and a rousing pep song ((You Gotta Have) Heart). Both of their hits were staged by George Abbott (with Jerome Robbins co-directing The Pajama Game) and choreographed by a young Bob Fosse, whose style helped define their sound on stage.

Adler and Ross's Broadway shows in order

Their first hit was the 1953 song Rags to Riches, which Tony Bennett took to number one. That same year they contributed songs to the Broadway revue John Murray Anderson's Almanac.

The Pajama Game (1954), about a labor dispute in a pajama factory, ran 1,063 performances and introduced Hey There and Hernando's Hideaway. Damn Yankees (1955), about a baseball fan who sells his soul to help the Washington Senators beat the Yankees, ran 1,019 performances and made a star of Gwen Verdon as Lola. Both were adapted into Hollywood films with much of the stage cast.

After Ross's death, Adler continued without a regular partner. His later Broadway musicals, Kwamina (1961) and Music Is (1976), were short-lived. He also staged the 1962 Madison Square Garden birthday gala for President John F. Kennedy at which Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday.

Legacy and where to start

The Pajama Game won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1955 and Damn Yankees won it in 1956, giving Adler and Ross back-to-back wins in their only two book musicals. Both shows remain popular with schools and community theatres, and The Pajama Game's 2006 Broadway revival won the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. Adler was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

Start with Damn Yankees, a fast, funny baseball fantasy with Whatever Lola Wants and Heart. Then try The Pajama Game, whose mix of romance and workplace comedy still plays well, and listen for how Fosse's choreography shaped Steam Heat.

Adler and Ross: frequently asked questions

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