By Liz Armstrong
She Loves Me is a Tony award-winning musical that was adapted from the play Parfumerie by Miklós László. Joe Masteroff wrote the book for She Loves Me, and Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick worked on the music and lyrics.
Book by Joe Masteroff
Masteroff was known for writing the book for the 1963 musical She Loves Me, which received a Tony Award nomination for Best Author of a Musical. This musical was directed by Hal Prince and ran on Broadaway for 301 performances.
Other works include his Tony-winning Cabaret and 70, Girls, 70, which was his final Broadway project that closed in 1971.
The playwright also wrote the libretto Desire Under the Elms and the book and lyrics for Six Wives and Paramour (based on The Waltz of the Toreadors).
Masteroff was born in 1919 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from Temple University in his hometown with a degree in journalism. The day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Masteroff enlisted in World War II, spending three years in England.
As a veteran, Masteroff began his career as an actor and studied for two years with American Theatre Wing. His Broadway debut was in The Prescott Proposals in 1953. After a national tour, his first play The Warm Peninsula opened on Broadway in 1959 and ran for 86 performances.
She Loves Me was next, and Masteroff worked alongside Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick before the musical hit Broadway in 1959. Masteroff also wrote the TV series Studio One.
Bringing in his experiences from World War II, Masteroff’s Cabaret was, and still is, widely successful. Masteroff’s Cabaret ran for 1,165 performances and has been revived on Broadway three times since then. It’s received 10 Tony nominations, has toured nationally and internationally, and is considered the “third-longest running revival in Broadway history,” according to Stage Agent. Masteroff passed away in 2018 in New Jersey.
Music by Jerry Bock
Born in 1928, Jerry Bock was an American musical composer born in New Haven, Connecticut. For 55 years, Bock was integral to the Broadway scene. Working closely with Sheldon Harnick, the two composed scores to five Broadway musicals.
Bock learned to play the piano at age nine and was considered a prodigy when he attended the University of Wisconsin. While in college, he wrote the musical Big As Life.
Bock and Harnick’s 12-year partnership produced shows that consisted of The Body Beautiful, Fiorello!, Tenderloin, numbers in Man in the Moon, and a piece in Never Too Late. Fiddler on the Roof was their most successful work, garnering Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Composer, Best Lyricist, Best Actor, and more. In 1972, it received another Tony Award for being the longest-running musical in Broadway history.
Bock also worked on The Apple Tree and The Rothschilds, which both were nominated for Tony Awards. Bock won an Emmy for “A Fiddler Crab Am I” in 2010 and has been in the Songwriters Hall of Fame since 1972.
Bock passed away 2010 in New York.
Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
Sheldon Harnick was an American lyricist and songwriter that was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1924. Some of his best known work comes from his partnership with Bock, including Fiorello!, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Apple Tree.
Harnick’s journey with music started at a young age. He began playing the violin as a child and writing music in high school. Harnick served in the U.S. Army and graduated from the Northwestern University School of Music with a bachelor’s degree in music.
Harnick’s work includes a libretto for the opera Coyote Tails, the musicals Dragons and The Phantom Tollbooth, and the album Sheldon Harnick: Hidden Treasures. Prince of Broadway (2017) and Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life (2006) featured his songs and Harnick also wrote the book and lyrics for A Wonderful Life.
The songwriter also worked on songs for Barbara Cook’s Broadway!, Back from Broadway, Mostly Sondheim, Cyrano, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, Happy Birthday, Mr Abbott!, and more.
Harnick passed away in 2023 in New York.
Based On a Play by Miklós László
Hungarian-American playwright and screenwriter Miklós László was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1903. His original name was Nicholaus Leitner, but the last name László was chosen by the family, who was in the entertainment industry.
As an adult, he began to write and produce his own one-scene plays around the city of Budapest. Eventually, László became the sole provider for his mother and eight siblings and worked a variety of jobs, including those as a candy-maker and script typist.
In his 30s, the play The Happiest Man won the prestigious Hungarian Royal Academy Award for Literature in 1934. László immigrated to the U.S. in 1938 due to World War II, where he established himself in the Lower East Side of New York City.
László wrote the 1937 play Parfumerie (Illatszertar), which was then adapted into the musical She Loves Me.
The Parfumerie’s storyline was used for the movies The Shop Around the Corner (1940), You’ve Got Mail, and In the Good Old Summertime. László wrote the screenplay Katherine, which became The Big City (a movie released in 1948). The playwright was also known for his play St. Lazar’s Pharmacy. László died in 1973 in Queens, New York, though his works live on today in both the U.S. and Hungary.
