Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella premiered in a live television broadcast on March 31 1957 starring Julie Andrews a sparkling new star who had just triumphed in My Fair Lady. Richard Lewine a distant cousin and close friend of Rodgers produced and Ralph Nelson directed. Real-life spouses Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney played the King and Queen; Jon Cypher played the Prince; Ilka Chase Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley played the comical Stepmother and Stepsisters; and Edi Adams played the Fairy Godmother.
Rodgers and Hammerstein approached the story with the honesty and simplicity that characterized all their work and Cinderella was a smash hit. The live broadcast was viewed by more people than any other program in the history of television.
In 1997 Cinderella was remade for television in a production adapted by Robert L. Freedman and directed by Robert Iscove with choreography by Rob Marshall. Produced by Whitney Houston and Debra Martin Chase for Walt Disney Television Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella aired on November 2 1997. This version featured a diverse cast with Brandy Norwood as Cinderella Whitney Houston as her fairy godmother Bernadette Peters as Cinderella's stepmother Paolo Montalbán as the prince Whoopi Goldberg as the queen Victor Garber as the king and Jason Alexander as Lionel the herald. Several songs were added including "The Sweetest Sounds" from No Strings sung by Cinderella and the Prince and "There's Music in You " written for the 1953 film Main Street to Broadway sung as the finale by the Fairy Godmother. Sixty million viewers watched the broadcast making it the most-watched television musical in decades and earning ABC its highest Sunday-night ratings in 10 years.