Books: “Shy” by Mary Rodgers

“Shy” is a lousy name for a wonderful biography. The subject is Mary Rodgers, daughter of Composer Richard Rodgers. And candidly, the last word you’d ever use to describe her is “shy.”

This funny, wisecracking book, told in first person and published posthumously (Mary died in 2014) was developed over a period of four years with the assistance of NYT critic Jesse Green. She and he pull no punches—everybody comes in for it, starting with her philandering father (a serial womanizer who slept with actresses from Eva Gabor to Diahann Carroll); Dorothy, her cold, impossible-to-please mother; and composer Arthur Laurents whom she hates with the heat of a thousand suns.

Due to her family connections, and her not inconsiderable smarts, she was able to learn the ropes of the musical comedy world from a crowd that included the young Stephen Sondheim (who initially wrote scripts for the TV show “Topper”) as well as that over-the-top wunderkind Leonard Bernstein. Soon, Mary began to write her own material—the most famous being “Once Upon a Mattress,” the musical that propelled her and Carol Burnett to stardom.

Mary seemed to have a lifelong affinity for gay men—especially closeted ones like Sondheim, as well as her first husband with whom she had three children. She married a second time and had four more kids, one of whom died tragically and another, Adam, who went on to write “The Light in the Piazza” (2005) starting Kelli O’Hara.

If gossipy prose about every bold-faced name in the theater world is your thing, you’ll devour this book as fast as I did. Having said that, I’d also advise you to take your time—or you’ll miss another of Mary’s one-liners and never forgive yourself.