Through the dances of Oklahoma! and a string of Broadway hits, [Agnes] de Mille changed the look and quality of the entire American musical theater. She started her career in 1928, a year after [John] Martin had come to The New York Times. De Mille knew him to be an exceptionally fine, discerning, and knowledgeable critic, but claims he had a weakness that could corrupt his judgment:

He used to fall in love, now and then, with some of the dancers. When anything threatened them in any way, or worked against them, he didn't hesitate to use his great weapon of The New York Times personally. I think this is wicked. Well, I displeased him because I wouldn't favor him in certain ways relating to certain young men that he was interested in. He simply ignored me for seven years.

But because she was on Broadway, her works were reviewed by both Brooks Atkinson and Walter Kerr, one the influential theater critics of Times and The New York Herald Tribune, respectively, who gave her rave notices.

Ironically, the Times consulted Agnes de Mille on Martin's successor. Clifton Daniel, managing editor, invited her opinion and de Mille, recounting the conversation, informed Daniel that the new critic must be an American, and should be a man, because dancing is considered effeminate and sissy and we labor under that stigma. I think you must get a man who can write and, if possible, a virile man. Clifton Daniel looked at me with big wide eyes as though he were an innocent child and said, "I'm not aware we ever had any homosexuality in our critical forces." I said, "Mr. Daniel, we've been drinking tea up to this point and I suggest we switch to whiskey."

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