April 7, 1949: "South Pacific" Premieres On Broadway

April 7, 1949: South Pacific premieres on Broadway, at the Majestic Theatre, at 245 West 44th Street. (The Theatre is still operating.) It is based on Tales of the South Pacific, the Pulitzer Prize-winning World War II book by James Michener. Richard Rodgers wrote the music, Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the lyrics, and Hammerstein and Joshua Logan wrote the text. Logan also directed.

The story: Ensign Nellie Forbush is a young U.S. Navy nurse serving on a Polynesian island. Living there is Emile de Becque, a middle-aged French plantation owner. They fall in love, and recall their first meeting, with the musical's best-remembered song, "Some Enchanted Evening."

But Nellie, from the Southern city of Little Rock, Arkansas, discovers that he has had 2 children from a previous relationship with a native woman. After deciding that her prejudice is stronger than her love, singing, "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair," he persuades her to change her mind, and she sings, "I'm In Love with a Wonderful Guy."

A secondary plot involves men in the Navy's Construction Battalions -- C.B.'s, or Seabees. Some have become infatuated with Navy nurses, and they have to contend with the fact that nurses are officers, and off-limits to enlisted men like themselves. This leads to the song "There Is Nothing Like a Dame."

The two plots eventually combine, and one of the Seabees laments that he didn't start out feeling prejudiced, singing, "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught." Given that this was 2 years after the debut of Jackie Robinson, and 5 years before Brown v. Board of Education, Rodgers & Hammerstein (and Michener) had to use the Polynesians as an allegory for black Americans.

In the original Broadway cast, Nellie was played by Mary Martin, who ended up washing her hair (wearing a bathing suit inside a large tub, obscuring most of her body) onstage 8 times a week for 2 years; and Emile by the Italian bass singer Ezio Pinza.

The musical was filmed, with Logan again directing, in 1958, by which point Brown v. Board and the Montgomery Bus Boycott had happened. Mitzi Gaynor played Nellie, and, this time, Emile was played by 2 Italian actors: Rossano Brazzi played his physical form, but Giorgio Tozzi dubbed his singing. It was filmed again in 2001, long after the Civil Rights Movement. This time, Nellie was played by a much older actress, Glenn Close, and Emile by Croatian actor Rade Šerbedžija.

To put it in perspective: When they played Nellie, their ages were: Martin, 35; Gaynor, 27; and Close, 54. When they played Emile, Pinza was 56, Brazzi 41, and Šerbedžija 55. So only the 2001 couple were age-appropriate for each other.

Ezio Pinza died in 1957, before he could be included in the film. Oscar Hammerstein II died in 1960, Richard Rodgers in 1979, Joshua Logan in 1988, Mary Martin in 1990, Rossano Brazzi in 1994, and James Michener in 1997. As of April 7, 2022, Mitzi Gaynor is still alive. (UPDATE: She died in 2024.)

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April 7, 1949 was a Thursday. Mitch Daniels was born. He was elected Governor of Indiana as a Republican, and served President George W. Bush as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Scores were hard to come by, at least in America. The baseball season hadn't started yet. Football was in the off-season. The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League would merge before the next season to form the National Basketball Association. Their 1948-49 regular seasons had not yet ended, but the BAA had no games scheduled for April 7, and NBL teams' records don't seem to be available on any source I can find.

The Stanley Cup Finals began the next day. The Toronto Maple Leafs opened them by beating the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 on an overtime goal by Joe Klukay. On April 10, the Leafs won again, 3-1. Both of those games were played at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. At Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, the Leafs won Game 3, 3-1 on April 13; and completed the sweep, 3-1 on April 16.