The elder Hammerstein became Sondheim's surrogate father, influencing him profoundly and developing his love of musical theater. When Sondheim was about ten years old (around the time of his parents' divorce), he formed a close friendship with James Hammerstein, son of lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II, who were neighbors in Bucks County. He had been estranged from her for nearly 20 years. When she died in 1992, Sondheim did not attend her funeral. What she did for five years was treat me like dirt, but come on to me at the same time." She once wrote him a letter saying that the only regret she ever had was giving birth to him. And she used me the way she used him, to come on to and to berate, beat up on, you see. Sondheim detested his mother, who was said to be psychologically abusive and to have projected her anger from her failed marriage onto her son: "When my father left her, she substituted me for him. "A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys. "The curtain went up and revealed a piano", Sondheim recalled. Sondheim traced his interest in theater to Very Warm for May, a Broadway musical he saw when he was nine. He graduated magna cum laude and received the Hubbard Hutchinson Prize, a two-year fellowship to study music. From 1946 to 1950, Sondheim attended Williams College. From 1942 to 1947, he attended George School, a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he wrote his first musical, By George, in 1946. His mother sent him to New York Military Academy in 1940. He spent several summers at Camp Androscoggin. When he lived in New York City, Sondheim attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. The only child of affluent parents living in the San Remo at 145 Central Park West, he was described in Meryle Secrest's biography Stephen Sondheim: A Life as an isolated, emotionally neglected child. The composer grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and, after his parents divorced, on a farm near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. His father manufactured dresses designed by his mother. His paternal grandparents, Isaac and Rosa, were German Jews, and his maternal grandparents, Joseph and Bessie, were Lithuanian Jews from Vilnius. Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, into a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Etta Janet ("Foxy" née Fox 1897–1992) and Herbert Sondheim (1895–1966). Film adaptations of his works include West Side Story (1961), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), A Little Night Music (1977), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Into the Woods (2014), and West Side Story (2021). A theater is named after him both on Broadway and in the West End of London. Sondheim's numerous awards and nominations include eight Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, an Olivier Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. He transitioned to writing both music and lyrics for the theater, with his best-known works including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987). He began his career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959). Sondheim's interest in musical theater began at a young age, and he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II. His music and lyrics were tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of life. With his frequent collaborations with Hal Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes that ranged beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited for reinventing the American musical. Stephen Joshua Sondheim ( / ˈ s ɒ n d h aɪ m/ March 22, 1930 – November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist.
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