Richard Lewine, 94; Producer Blended Broadway, TV

Richard Lewine, a composer of Broadway musicals starting in the 1930s who went on to produce television musicals and music specials, including the Emmy-winning “My Name Is Barbra” in 1965, has died. He was 94.

Lewine, who wrote music with a light touch that showed an urbane sense of humor, died Thursday at his home in New York City of natural causes, his daughter, Cornelia Fortier, said Tuesday.

As a vice president for CBS television from 1952 to 1961, Lewine brought first-rate music specials to the air. He produced Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concerts” from 1957 to 1961, with Bernstein as host and conductor of the New York Philharmonic.

Several of the musicals Lewine produced for television featured children’s fairy tales but were meant for adults too. “Cinderella,” which aired in 1957, starred Julie Andrews, with music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The following year, Lewine produced “Aladdin,” with music by Cole Porter.

“Richard Lewine brought Broadway to television,” said Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization in New York City, of which Lewine was managing director in the early 1980s, after Richard Rodgers died.

“He lent a kind of intelligence to anything he touched for television,” Chapin said.

Lewine produced several music specials that starred British playwright and raconteur Noel Coward, who was paired with actress Mary Martin for one show and actress Claudette Colbert for another in the late 1950s.

In the early 1960s, Lewine became an independent television producer. He oversaw “Hootenanny,” a folk music show that aired on ABC in 1963 and 1964.

In 1965, Barbra Streisand chose him to produce “My Name Is Barbra,” for which he won an Emmy. The show was the first of many television specials for Streisand, who at the time was starring in the hit Broadway show, “Funny Girl.”

Lewine also produced “The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood,” a musical for television starring Liza Minnelli with music by Jule Styne and Robert Merrill.

Lewine’s earliest musicals for the stage included “The Fireman’s Flame” and “Naughty Naught ‘00” in the 1930s, done in the style of vaudeville.

“Richard Lewine’s early plays were spoofs of Victorian musicals,” said Miles Kreuger, president of the Institute of the American Musical. Kreuger said that he believed that Lewine was the last surviving Broadway composer of the 1930s.

One of his most popular works for Broadway was “Make Mine Manhattan,” a 1948 music review starring Sid Caesar. Lewine also scored “The Girls Against the Boys,” a musical starring Burt Lahr and Nancy Walker in 1959.

In 1964, Lewine produced and scored a short documentary film, “The Days of Wilfred Owen,” about the 20th century British poet. He co-wrote several reference books, including, “Encyclopedia of Theater Music” (1964) and “Songs of the American Theater” (1973).

Born in New York City, Lewine studied music at Columbia University but did not graduate. He served in the Army during World War II and in 1945 married Mary Haas, who died in 1968. He later married Elizabeth Rivers.

Besides his wife and daughter, he is survived by a son, Peter, and four grandchildren.

Contributions in his name can be made to the Dramatists Guild Fund, 1501 Broadway, New York, NY 10036; or the Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023.