LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Gertrude Lawrence: Richard Aldrich
built 256 days ago
Provenance (as written on back of frame): Mrs. David Holtzmann. Sondra Holtzmann was the wife of Gertrude Lawrence's attorney David Holtzmann, a theatrical attorney with the firm of Holtzmann & Holtzmann in New York City. After Lawrence's death in the 1950s, the Holtzmanns purchased the Cape Cod Melody Tent from Lawrence's producer husband, Richard Aldrich, and Sondra Holtzmann continued to run the theater into the 1970s.
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In the biographical 1968 film, Star!, loosely based on her life, Lawrence was portrayed by Julie Andrews. Richard Crenna played the part of Richard Aldrich while the real Richard worked as a consultant on the movie. It is possible that the poor quality of Star! had something to do with younger generations knowing nothing about Gertrude Lawrence. She has never been the subject of the Biography (TV series) on the A&E Network. Ironically, The Paley Center for Media has kinescopes and written research material proving that Lawrence was one of the very first stars of either Broadway or Hollywood to appear on the new medium of television.
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Lawrence's attorney had managed to book the actress on a British Airways flight from Washington, DC to London that lasted 36 hours, including two refueling stops. When Lawrence boarded the plane she discovered that she and Ernest Hemingway were two of the few passengers without diplomatic passports. Hours after landing near London, she performed with E.N.S.A. for British and American troops who, it turned out, had been deployed for the imminent D-Day invasion at Normandy. Lawrence's husband Richard Aldrich was among them. As Allied forces scored more victories in the South Pacific later that year, Lawrence endured long plane rides and dangerous conditions to perform for troops there.[2]
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Coincidentally, a few years before Miss Lawrence approached Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, they had already had the idea pitched to them -- by their wives. Both Dorothy Rodgers and Dorothy Hammerstein had read the Landon book, but it wasn't until Rodgers and Hammerstein viewed a screening of the 1946 film version of the Landon novel that they came around. The film, starring Rex Harrison as the King and Irene Dunne as Anna, provided Rodgers and Hammerstein with the clue they were looking for: yes, the history was fascinating, and yes the exotic themes and settings were ideal for musical pageantry and spectacle; but a good musical ... needs story and conflict and here -- in the multiple themes of East versus West, "civilization" versus "barbarism," despotism versus democracy and man versus woman -- Rodgers and Hammerstein found plenty to write about.
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After World War II ended, Lawrence and Aldrich returned to their homes in Dennis, Massachusetts and New York. Lawrence became the first notable client of a pioneering African-American limousine owner/driver named Roosevelt Zanders.[4]
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Richard Aldrich