Cinderella 1965

Cast: Lesley Ann Warren, Stuart Damon, Ginger Rogers, Walter Pidgeon, Celeste Holm

After the success of the live 1957 Cinderella on CBS (with Julie Andrews), the network decided to produce another television version. The 1957 premiere had been broadcast before videotape was available, so only one performance could be shown. CBS mounted a new production in 1965, with Richard Rodgers as Executive Producer and written by Joseph Schrank. The new script hewed closer to the traditional tale, although nearly all of the original songs were retained and sung in their original settings. Added to the Rogers and Hammerstein score was "Loneliness of Evening", which had been composed for South Pacific in 1949 but not used in that musical. The 1965 debut had a Nielsen rating of 42.3, making it the highest-rated non-sports special on CBS from the beginning of the Nielsen ratings until 2009, and the 50th highest-rated show of any kind during that period.