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- Music Department
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Franz Xaver Gruber was an Austrian primary school teacher, church organist and composer in the village of Arnsdorf, who is best known for composing the music to "Stille Nacht" ("Silent Night"). Gruber was born on 25 November 1787 in the village of Hochburg-Ach, Upper Austria, the son of linen weavers, Josef and Maria Gruber. His given name was recorded in the baptismal record as "Conrad Xavier," but this was later changed to "Franz Xaver". The Hochburger schoolteacher Andreas Peterlechner gave him music lessons.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Joseph Mohr was born on 11 December 1792 in Salzburg, Archbishopric of Salzburg, Holy Roman Empire [now Salzburg, Austria]. He is known for The Giver (2014), L.A. Confidential (1997) and Get Carter (2000). He died on 4 December 1848 in Wagrain, Salzburg, Austrian Empire [now Austria].- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
James Pierpont was born on 25 April 1822 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a composer, known for The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), The Jacket (2005) and Reindeer Games (2000). He was married to Eliza Jane Purse and Millicent Cowee. He died on 5 August 1893 in Winter Haven, Florida, USA.- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Jerome David Kern was born in 1885. He began his stage career grafting American songs (for which he wrote the music) into imported European operettas. His breakthrough came with the song "They Didn't Believe Me", written (with lyrics by Edward Laska) for a show called "The Girl from Utah". It established him as a major American composer in 1914. Married to a Englishwoman, Kern became an Anglophile, and teamed up with British writers Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse to write the so-called "Princess Theatre musicals"--shows like "Very Good, Eddie" and "Leave It To Jane", which were unusual not so much for their silly storylines but for the fact that the characters were everyday people rather than the exotic characters of operetta, and also for the fact that these shows had few sets and small casts. He later wrote shows like "Sally" and "Sunny", both loaded with song hits, star casts and spectacular sets but silly plots. Finally, looking for an entirely different type of musical, Kern decided to adapt Edna Ferber's novel "Show Boat" to the musical stage. Although Oscar Hammerstein II agreed to do the adaptation and lyrics, nearly everyone (including Ferber) thought Kern and Hammerstein had lost their minds. "Show Boat"'s storyline featured interracial marriage, wife desertion, alcoholism and gambling, and the most realistic characters ever seen in a musical up to then, not to mention the song "Ol' Man River" and an opening chorus of black dockworkers singing about their work. Most of the songs were integrated so well into the story that they could not possibly have been sung in another show or taken out of "Show Boat" without damaging the plot. And "Show Boat" featured a song, "Mis'ry's Comin' Round", which was so utterly tragic that Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. ordered it cut--and it remained cut, existing only as background music, until the 1994 revival. In spite of all this, "Show Boat" became a huge hit and has remained one of the musical theater's greatest classics and most often revived shows--the only musical pre-1943 to be revived over and over. Kern, however, did not experiment any further--his other hit shows, "Music In The Air", "Roberta" and "The Cat and the Fiddle", contain classic songs that are still sung, but the shows are almost never revived. After a heart attack in 1939, Kern wrote songs exclusively for movie musicals. Two of his movie musicals, Swing Time (1936) with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Cover Girl (1944) with Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly, have become famous for their songs and dances. Kern died of a stroke at the age of 60, in 1945.- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Gus Kahn was born on 6 November 1886 in Koblenz, Germany. He was a composer and writer, known for Paycheck (2003), Repo Men (2010) and Con Air (1997). He was married to Grace Kahn. He died on 8 October 1941 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Cole Porter was born June 9, 1891, at Peru, Indiana, the son of pharmacist Samuel Fenwick Porter and Kate Cole. Cole was raised on a 750-acre fruit ranch. Kate Cole married Samuel Porter in 1884 and had two children, Louis and Rachel, who both died in infancy. Porter's grandfather, J.G. Cole, was a multi-millionaire who made his fortune in the coal and western timber business. His mother introduced him to the violin and the piano. Cole started riding horses at age six and began to studying piano at eight at Indiana's Marion Conservatory. By age ten, he had begun to compose songs, and his first song was entitled "Song of the Birds".
He attended Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1905, an elite private school from which he graduated in 1909 as class valedictorian. That summer he toured Europe as a graduation present from his grandfather. That fall, he entered Yale University and lived in a single room at Garland's Lodging House at 242 York Street in New Haven, CT, and became a member of the Freshman Glee Club. In 1910, he published his first song, "Bridget McGuire". While at Yale, he wrote football fight songs including the "Yale Bulldog Song" and "Bingo Eli Yale," which was introduced at a Yale dining hall dinner concert. Classmates include poet Archibald Macleish, Bill Crocker of San Francisco banking family and actor Monty Woolley. Dean Acheson, later to be U.S. Secretary of State, lived in the same dorm with Porter and was a good friend of Porter. In his senior year he was president of the University Glee club and a football cheerleader.
Porter graduated from Yale in 1913 with a BA degree. He attended Harvard Law school from 1913 to 1914 and the Harvard School of Music from 1915 to 1916. In 1917 he went to France and distributed foodstuffs to war-ravaged villages. In April 1918 he joined the 32nd Field Artillery Regiment and worked with the Bureau of the Military Attache of the US. During this time he met the woman who would become his wife, Linda Lee Thomas, a wealthy Kentucky divorcée, at a breakfast reception at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. He did not, as is often rumored, join the French Foreign Legion at this time, nor receive a commission in the French army and see combat as an officer.
In 1919 he rented an apartment in Paris, enrolled in a school specializing in music composition and studied with Vincent D'indy. On December 18, 1919, married Linda Lee Thomas, honeymooning in the south of France. This was a "professional" marriage, as Cole was, in fact, gay. Linda had been previously married to a newspaper publisher and was described as a beautiful woman who was one of the most celebrated hostesses in Europe. The Porters made their home on the Rue Monsieur in Paris, where their parties were renowned as long and brilliant. They hired the Monte Carlo Ballet for one of their affairs; once, on a whim, they transported all of their guests to the French Riviera.
In 1923 they moved to Venice, Italy, where they lived in the Rezzonico Palace, the former home of poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. They built an extravagant floating night club that would accommodate up to 100 guests. They conducted elaborate games including treasure hunts through the canals and arranged spectacular balls.
Porter's first play on Broadway featured a former ballet dancer, actor Clifton Webb. He collaborated with E. Ray Goetz, the brother-in-law of Irving Berlin, on several Broadway plays, as Goetz was an established producer and lyricist.
His ballad "Love For Sale" was introduced on December 8, 1930, in a revue that starred Jimmy Durante and was introduced by Kathryn Crawford. Walter Winchell, the newspaper columnist and radio personality, promoted the song, which was later banned by many radio stations because of its content. In 1934, his hit "Anything Goes" appeared on Broadway. During the show's hectic rehearsal Porter once asked the stage doorman what he thought the show should be called. The doorman responded that nothing seemed to go right, with so many things being taken out and then put back in, that "Anything Goes" might be a good title. Porter liked it, and kept it. In 1936, while preparing for "Red, Hot and Blue" with Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante, Ethel Merman was hired to do stenographic work to help Porter in rewriting scripts of the show. He later said she was the best stenographers he ever had.
Porter wrote such classic songs as "Let's Do It" in 1928, "You Do Something To Me" in 1929, "Love For Sale" in 1930, "What Is This Thing Called Love?" in 1929, "Night and Day" in 1932, "I Get A Kick Out Of You" in 1934, "Begin the Beguine" in 1935, "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" in 1938, "Don't Fence Me In" in 1944, "I Love Paris" in 1953, "I've Got You Under My Skin", In the Still of The Night", "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To", "True Love", "Just One Of Those Things", "Anything Goes", "From This Moment On", "You're The Top", "Easy to Love" and many, many more.
On October 24, 1937, taking a break from a re-write of what would be his weakest musical, "You Never Know", visiting as a guest at a countess' home, Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, New York, he was badly injured in a fall while horseback-riding. Both of his legs were smashed and he suffered a nerve injury. He was hospitalized for two years, confined to a wheelchair for five years and endured over 30 operations to save his legs over the next 20 years. During his recuperation he wrote a number of Broadway musicals.
On August 3, 1952, his beloved mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage. His wife, Linda, died of cancer on May 20, 1954. On April 3, 1958, he sustained his 33rd operation, and still suffering from chronic pain, his right leg was amputated. He refused to wear an artificial limb and lived as a virtual recluse in his apartment at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. He sought refuge in alcohol, sleep, self-pity and sank into despair. He even refused to attend a "Salute to Cole Porter" at the Metropolitan Opera on May 15, 1960, and the commencement exercises at Yale University in June of 1960 when he was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, or his 70th birthday party arranged by his friends at the Orpheum Theater in New York City in June 1962.
After what appeared to be a successful kidney stone operation at St. John's hospital in Santa Monica, California, he died very unexpectedly on October 15, 1964. His funeral instructions were that he have no funeral or memorial service and he was buried adjacent to his mother and wife in Peru, Indiana.- Richard Neutra was born on 8 April 1892 in Vienna, Austria. He was married to Dione Niedermann. He died on 16 April 1970 in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Composer, songwriter ("Yes, Sir, That's My Baby", "My Buddy", "My Mammy", "My Blue Heaven", "Makin' Whoopie"), author, pianist and publisher, educated in public schools and then a worker in a Wall Street brokerage firm, becoming a pianist for a music publishing firm. During World War I, he entertained at Camp Upton in New York, and then joined the staff of Irving Berlin Music Company, later co-founding Donaldson, Douglas & Gumble in 1928. He wrote the Broadway stage scores for "Sweetheart Time" and "Whoopee", then came to Hollywood in 1929. Joining ASCAP in 1921, his chief musical collaborators included Sam Lewis, Edgar Leslie, Joe Young, Gus Kahn, Harold Adamson and Johnny Mercer. His other popular-song compositions include "The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady", "Back Home in Tennessee", "Don't Cry, Frenchy, Don't Cry", "On the Gin Gin Ginny Shore", "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?", "You're a Million Miles from Nowhere", "Carolina in the Morning", "Beside a Babbling Brook", "Down by the Winegar Woiks", "That Certain Party", "I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight", "Let's Talk About My Sweetie", "At Sundown", "Sam, the Old Accodion Man", "Just Like a Melody Out of the Sky", "I'm Bringing a Red, Red Rose", "Makin' Whoopie", "My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now", "Love Me or Leave Me", "Kansas City Kitty", "Changes", "My Baby Just Cares for Me", "'Taint No Sin", "Little White Lies", "You're Driving Me Crazy", "Lazy Lou'siana Moon", "Hello, Beautiful", "My Mom", "An Earful of Music", "Did I Remember?", "Could Be", "It's Been So Long", "You", "You Never Looked So Beautiful Before", "Cuckoo in the Clock" and "Mister Meadowlark".- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Harry Warren was born on 24 December 1893 in Brooklyn [now in New York City], New York, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for The Shape of Water (2017), An Affair to Remember (1957) and Sphere (1998). He was married to Josephine Wensler. He died on 22 September 1981 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Composer
- Soundtrack
Hawaiian-born composer of "Lovely Hula Hands," the million-selling (as recorded by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters) Christmas song "Mele Kalikimaka," "Blue Lei," "The Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunakakai," "On a Coconut Island," and many other favorites and standards of Hawaiian music. He graduated from Punahou High School in Honolulu in 1912. He died at his home in Honolulu, Hawaii, shortly before his 101st birthday in 1995.- Music Department
- Producer
- Writer
Prolific songwriter ("April Showers", "Button Up Your Overcoat", "Look for the Silver Lining", "California, Here I Come"), composer, producer, publisher and author, educated at USC. He wrote songs for the Broadway musicals "Sinbad", "Sally", "The Perfect Fool", "The French Doll", and the 1918 and 1921 editions of the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1925, he joined Lew Brown and Ray Henderson as a songwriting and music publishing team.
His Broadway stage scores include "La La Lucille", "Bombo", "Orange Blossoms", "The Yankee Princess", and "George White's Scandals" (1922 through 1926, and 1928), "Big Boy", "Sweet Little Devil", "Tell Me More", "Captain Jinks", and "Manhattan Mary". He also was co-librettist for "Good News", "Hold Everything", "Three Cheers", "Follow Through", "Flying High", and "Take A Chance" (the latter of which he also co-produced). He also was producer and co-librettist for the Broadway musicals "DuBarry Was a Lady" and "Panama Hattie", and produced "Louisiana Purchase".
In 1929, he sold the publishing firm and went to Hollywood under contract to Fox, eventually becoming a co-producer at Paramount (1941-1944). His film biography was given the title of his song "The Best Things in Life Are Free". Joining ASCAP in 1920 (he served as an ASCAP director between 1922 and 1930), he collaborated musically with Gus Kahn, Al Jolson, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Vincent Rose, Louis Silvers, Joseph Meyer, Victor Herbert, Emmerich Kálmán, Ira Gershwin, Ballard MacDonald, Lewis E. Gensler, James F. Hanley, Nacio Herb Brown, Richard A. Whiting, and Vincent Youmans.
His other popular-song compositions include:- "'N' Everything",
- "I'll Say She Does",
- "You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet",
- "Yoo-Hoo",
- "Memory Lane",
- "Why Do I Love You?",
- "Whip-poor-will",
- "Avalon",
- "In Arcady",
- "A Kiss in the Dark",
- "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise",
- "Do It Again",
- "I Won't Say I Will but I Won't Say I Won't",
- "Somebody Loves Me",
- "Keep Smiling at Trouble",
- "Hello, 'Tucky",
- "If You Knew Susie",
- "Just a Cottage Small by a Waterfall",
- "Alabamy Bound",
- "Tell Me More",
- "Kickin' the Clouds Away",
- "My Fair Lady",
- "When Day is Done",
- "Lucky Day",
- "Birth of the Blues",
- "Black Bottom",
- "It All Depends on You",
- "The Best Things in Life Are Free",
- "Good News",
- "The Varsity Drag",
- "Just Imagine",
- "Lucky In Love",
- "Broken Hearted",
- "Just a Memory",
- "So Blue",
- "I'm on the Crest of a Wave",
- "You're the Cream in My Coffee",
- "You Wouldn't Fool Me, Would You?",
- "Sonny Boy",
- "Together",
- "My Sin",
- "I'm A Dreamer, Aren't We All?",
- "Sunny Side Up",
- "If I Had a Talking Picture of You",
- "Little Pal",
- "Without Love",
- "Thank Your Father",
- "Red Hot Chicago",
- "You Try Somebody Else",
- "Eadie Was a Lady",
- "My Lover",
- "I Want to Be With You",
- "Oh, How I Long to Belong to You",
- "Rise 'n Shine",
- "You're an Old Smoothie",
- "Should I Be Sweet?",
- "Gather Lip Rouge While You May",
- "Polly Wolly Doodle",
- "Wishing".
- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
(Please replace entire biography because it is incorrect) Lorenz Hart was born in Harlem in New York City and attended Columbia University. He met Richard Rodgers in 1918, who was to write the music for songs, musicals, and films with him for the next 25 years. They produced such stage hits as 'Pal Joey," "On Your Toes," "The Boys From Syracuse." and "Jumbo, all of which were made into movies. They also wrote songs for such film musicals as "The Hot Heiress," "Love Me Tonight," which starred Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, and "Mississippi," which starred Bing Crosby. Hart also supplied the English lyrics for a film version of "The Merry Widow" with music by Franz Lehar. Although their show "I'd Rather Be Right was never filmed, the song "Off the Record," which was sung by George M. Cohan on Broadway, was performed by James Cagney playing Cohan in 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy. Hart's alcoholism, short stature, and repressed guilt about his homosexuality led to problems in his reliability in his collaboration with Rodgers. In 1943, Rodgers began a collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II with the musical Oklahoma. Hart died of pneumonia shortly after Oklahoma's premiere.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
The son of a day laborer, William Boyd moved with his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he was seven. His parents died while he was in his early teens, forcing him to quit school and take such jobs as a grocery clerk, surveyor and oil field worker. He went to Hollywood in 1919, already gray-haired. His first role was as an extra in Cecil B. DeMille's Why Change Your Wife? (1920). He bought some fancy clothes, caught DeMille's eye and got the romantic lead in The Volga Boatman (1926), quickly becoming a matinée idol and earning upwards of $100,000 a year. However, with the end of silent movies, Boyd was without a contract, couldn't find work and was going broke. By mistake his picture was run in a newspaper story about the arrest of another actor with a similar name (William 'Stage' Boyd) on gambling, liquor and morals charges, and that hurt his career even more. In 1935 he was offered the lead role in Hop-a-Long Cassidy (1935) (named because of a limp caused by an earlier bullet wound). He changed the original pulp-fiction character to its opposite, made sure that "Hoppy" didn't smoke, drink, chew tobacco or swear, rarely kissed a girl and let the bad guy draw first. By 1943 he had made 54 "Hoppies" for his original producer, Harry Sherman; after Sherman dropped the series, Boyd produced and starred in 12 more on his own. The series was wildly popular, and all recouped at least double their production costs. In 1948 Boyd, in a savvy and precedent-setting move, bought the rights to all his pictures (he had to sell his ranch to raise the money) just as TV was looking for Saturday morning Western fare. He marketed all sorts of "Hoppy" products (lunch boxes, toy guns, cowboy hats, etc.) and received royalties from comic books, radio and records. He retired to Palm Desert, California, in 1953. In 1968 he had surgery to remove a tumor from a lymph gland and from then on refused all interview and photograph requests.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Legendary, prolific composer, songwriter and author, educated at Townsend Harris Hall, City College of New York, and Columbia University. He began his career as a contributor to newspaper columns, and also worked for a touring carnival. His Broadway stage scores include "Two Little Girls in Blue" (written under the pseudonym 'Arthur Francis'), "Lady Be Good", "Tell Me More", "Tip-Toes", "Oh, Kay", "Funny Face", "Rosalie", "Treasure Girl", "Show Girl", "Strike Up the Band", "Girl Crazy", "Of Thee I Sing" (Pulitzer Prize, 1932), "Let 'Em Eat Cake", "Life Begins at 8:40", "Ziegfeld Follies of 1936", "Lady in the Dark", and "Park Avenue". Joining ASCAP in 1920, his chief musical collaborators was his brother George Gershwin, and also included Lewis Alter, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Joseph Meyer, Sigmund Romberg, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, Richard Whiting, Kurt Weill, Burton Lane, Vincent Youmans, Philip Charig, and E. Y. 'Yip' Harburg. His popular-song compositions include "The Real American Folk Song", "Oh, Me! Oh, My!", "Dolly", "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise", "Fascinating Rhythm", "So Am I", "Oh, Lady Be Good", "The Half of It Dearie Blues", "Little Jazz Bird", "The Man I Love", "Kickin' the Clouds Away", "Looking for a Boy", "These Charming People", "That Certain Feeling", "Sweet and Low-Down", "Sunny Disposish", "Dear Little Girl", "Maybe", "Clap Yo' Hands", "Do Do Do", "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Strike Up the Band", "Let's Kiss and Make Up", "Funny Face", "'S Wonderful", "My One and Only", "He Loves and She Loves", "The Babbitt and the Bromide", "How Long Has This Been Going On?", "The One I'm Looking For", "I've Got a Crush on You", "Oh So Nice", "Where's the Boy, Here's the Girl", "Liza", "Soon", "Bidin' My Time", "Could You Use Me?", "Embraceable You", "Sam and Delilah", "I Got Rhythm", "But Not for Me", "Boy! What Love Has Done to Me!", "I Am Only Human After All", "Cheerful Little Earful", "Blah-Blah-Blah", "Wintergreen for President", "Love Is Sweeping the Country", "Of Thee I Sing (Baby)", "Who Cares?", "Hello, Good Morning", "Lorelei", "Isn't It a Pity?", "My Cousin in Milwaukee", "Mine", "You're a Builder-Upper", "Fun to be Fooled", "What Can You Say in a Love Song?", "Let's Take a Walk Around the Block", "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'", "Bess, You Is My Woman Now", "It Ain't Necessarily So", "I Loves You, Porgy", "There's a Boat dat's Leavin' Soon for New York", "Island in the West Indies", "I Can't Get Started", "That Moment of Moments", "By Strauss", "Beginner's Luck", "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off", "Shall We Dance", "They All Laughed", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", "A Foggy Day", "Nice Work if You Can Get It", "I Was Doing All Right", "Love Is Here to Stay", "Love Walked In", "Spring Again", "One Life to Live" and many more.- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
He was born Jacob Gershowitz, 26 September 1898, in Brooklyn, New York, of Russian-Jewish immigrants. As a boy he could play popular and classical works on his brother Ira's piano by ear. In 1913 he quit school to study music and began composing for Tin Pan Alley; by 1919 he had his first hit "Swanee" and his first Broadway show "La, La, Lucille." In less than three weeks in 1924 he composed "Rhapsody in Blue," originally for Paul Whiteman's relatively small swing band and later orchestrated by Ferde Grofé. "Concerto in F" followed the next year, and his musical success "Oh, Kay!" (which included "Someone to Watch Over Me") the year after that. Success continued: "Funny Face" (1927), the tone poem "American in Paris" (1928), "Girl Crazy" (1929), "Of Thee I Sing" (1931 the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize), and the first true American opera: "Porgy and Bess" (1935). He moved to Hollywood were his songs were performed by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In 1937 he fell in love with Paulette Goddard, then married to Charlie Chaplin. He was heartbroken that she would not leave her husband for him. When he fell ill, that June, it was written off as stress. A month later he died of a brain tumor, five hours after a failed surgical attempt to remove it. Funerals were hold in both Hollywood and New York.- Stanley Rochinski was born on 31 August 1900 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. He was married to Marie A. Soper. He died in October 1974 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
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He met Lorenz Hart in 1918 who was to write lyrics for Richard for the next 25 years. The produced many successful songs and musicals such as 'Pal Joey' and 'The Boys From Syracuse'. In 1943 Richard teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein to make a musical version of the play 'How Green Was Your Valley' which became 'Oklahoma' Richard also provided the music for 'Carousel', 'South Pacific'. The King and I' and 'The Sound of Music'.- Music Department
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Composer, saxophonist, author and singer Carmen Lombardo was educated in the public schools of London, Ontario and joined the orchestra of his brother Guy Lombardo as a saxophonist and singer on films, in theatre and hotel appearances, on radio, and on many records. Joining ASCAP in 1929, he wrote the stage scores for the shows "Arabian Nights", "Paradise Island" and "Mardi Gras!" at Jones Beach, New York. His chief musical collaborators included Gus Kahn, Charles Newman, John Loeb and John Green, and his popular-song compositions include "Boo Hoo", "Powder Your Face With Sunshine", "Coquette", "Sweethearts on Parade", "Snuggled on Your Shoulder", "Jungle Drums", "Wake Up and Sing", "Address Unknown", "Return to Me", "A Sailboat in the Moonlight", "It's Never Too Late", "It's Easier Said Than Done", "Some Rainy Day", "Seems Like Old Times", "Where Are You Gonna Be When the Moon Shines?", "Our Little Ranch House", "Get Out Those Old Records", "How Long Has It Been?", "A Thousand and One Nights", "A Whale of a Story", "Teeny Weeny Genie", "Marry the One You Love", "The Hero of All My Dreams", "Paradise Island", and "The Coconut Wireless".- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Bing Crosby was born Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. in Tacoma, Washington, the fourth of seven children of Catherine (Harrigan) and Harry Lincoln Crosby, a brewery bookkeeper. He was of English and Irish descent. Crosby studied law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but was more interested in playing the drums and singing with a local band. Bing and the band's piano player, Al Rinker, left Spokane for Los Angeles in 1925. In the early 1930s Bing's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. His live performances from New York were carried over the national radio network for 20 consecutive weeks in 1932. His radio success led Paramount Pictures to include him in The Big Broadcast (1932), a film featuring radio favorites. His songs about not needing a bundle of money to make life happy was the right message for the decade of the Great Depression. His relaxed, low-key style carried over into the series of "Road" comedies he made with pal Bob Hope. He won the best actor Oscar for playing an easygoing priest in Going My Way (1944). He showed that he was indeed an actor as well as a performer when he played an alcoholic actor down on his luck opposite Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954). Playing golf was what he liked to do best. He died at age 74 playing golf at a course outside Madrid, Spain, after completing a tour of England that had included a sold-out engagement at the London Palladium.- Music Department
- Actor
- Writer
Mack Gordon was born on 21 June 1904 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. He was an actor and writer, known for The Shape of Water (2017), Collegiate (1935) and Sweet and Low-Down (1944). He was married to Elizabeth Cook and Rose Ponelli. He died on 28 February 1959 in New York City, New York, USA.- Music Department
- Composer
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No American has written more first-rate songs than Arlen. He grew up in a musical family (his father was a cantor), and disappointed but didn't surprise his parents by dropping out of high school to become a musician. A stint as pianist and singer with a dance band, the Buffalodians, allowed him to escape Buffalo for New York City. Arlen stayed on after the band's demise; after some mostly unsuccessful attempts to conquer vaudeville or Broadway, Arlen stumbled onto a tune that, with lyrics by Ted Koehler, became "Get Happy", his first hit. With Koehler as lyricist, Arlen became the staff composer for Harlem's Cotton Club, a premiere showcase for African-American entertainers such as Cab Calloway and Ethel Waters. They wrote "I've Got the World on a String" and "Ill Wind", among dozens of others. Arlen's second important collaborator was E.Y. Harburg, with whom he composed the score for _Wizard of Oz, The (1939)_, celebrated specialty numbers for Bert Lahr and Groucho Marx, and two Broadway musicals. In the 1940s, Arlen reached the peak of his popularity with his third major partner, Johnny Mercer; most of their hits, such as "Blues in the Night", "My Shining Hour" and "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)", were written for the movies, as Hollywood replaced the stage as the songwriters' most lucrative market. As he aged, Arlen grew increasingly frustrated with Hollywood's waste of material and Broadway's rigmarole; his personal life in this period was also unhappy. His best songs, though, in renditions by performers li ke Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra and later cabaret singers and jazz musicians, have continued to be seen as classics.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
American songwriter and lyricist, best known for "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" (co-written with Sol Marcus and made popular by The Ink Spots). A graduate of the prestigious Juilliard School of Music, Benny began his career in vaudeville and as a composer for local orchestras. He was also trained as a musician on guitar and banjo. Bennie first started his career as a professional songwriter in 1938 under contract to the Chappell Music Company. Though his output was interrupted by army service in World War II, he subsequently teamed up with George David Weiss for a successful decade-long collaboration. During this time, he penned numerous hit songs, including "Surrender", " I'll Never Be Free", "Oh What It Seemed it Be", "Rumors are Flying" and "The Wheel of Fortune". In 1968, he set up his own music publishing company and in 1984 was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. His songs have been performed by such illustrious vocalists as Frank Sinatra, Kay Starr, Perry Como, Doris Day and Nina Simone.- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Arthur Morton was born Arthur Goldberg on 8th August 1908 in Duluth, Minnesota. He attended west high school in Minneapolis and graduated from the university of Minnesota (where he played in jazz bands) in 1929. After a year of law school and graduate work in philosophy he moved to Los Angeles. In 1935 he married Emmy Lou Hellman , the daughter of screenwriter Sam Hellman and the sister of editor Verna Fields. In addition to film scores, Morton wrote a number of songs ("My Secret Castle", "As I Live & Breathe") and many scores for television series. His younger son, John S. Morton, is a composer living in Tappan, New York.- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of the great jazz vocalists of all time, Lee Wiley was possessed of a wonderful warm, sensuous and somewhat smoky voice and was able to project more emotion into her songs than most of her contemporaries. She rose to fame at a young age in the 1930's, singing with the bands of Leo Reisman (at the Central Park Casino), Paul Whiteman (radio shows) and Glen Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra. She also recorded with Johnny Green and film composer Victor Young, a collaboration which resulted in her writing the lyrics for 'Anytime,Anyday,Anywhere', 'Got the South in My Soul' and 'Eerie Moan'.
Throughout the 1940's, Lee did prodigious recordings of standards by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers & Hart and others. She interpreted them in her uniquely intimate way, invariably backed by small combos of first rate musicians, such as Bud Freeman, Fats Waller, Billy Butterfield and Eddie Condon. Her renditions of 'Can't Get Out of This Mood', 'How Long Has This Been Going On?' and 'As Time Goes By' are possibly the best versions ever recorded. In June 1943, Lee married pianist and bandleader Jess Stacy, but this union only lasted four years. In the 1950's, she made fewer recordings, though her two RCA albums arranged by Ralph Burns, West of the Moon (1956) and A Touch of Blues (1957), are stand outs. Lee Wiley effectively stepped out of the limelight in the 1960's, except for a brief appearance at the 1972 New York Jazz Festival. She died of colon cancer, aged 67. A unique talent, she merited greater fame than was accorded her in her lifetime and since.- Music Department
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Johnny Mercer started his career as singer and songwriter for Paul Whiteman. He started writing songs for Hollywood in 1935, where he also had a few small parts in musicals. Among his famous songs is the inoffical anthem of Hollywood, "Hooray For Hollywood" that he wrote for the movie "Hollywood Hotel". He also had radio programs and made records, some with Bing Crosby.- Music Department
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Award-winning songwriter ("All the Way" [Academy Award, 1957], "Three Coins in the Fountain" [Academy Award, 1954], "Love and Marriage" [Emmy Award, 1955], "High Hopes" [Academy Award, 1959], "Call Me Irresponsible" [Academy Award, 1963]), composer, author and publisher, educated at Seward Park High School in New York.
He was a violinist in vaudeville orchestras, and organized a dance band wih Saul Chaplin. He wrote the night club scores for "Connie's Hot Chocolates of 1936", "New Grand Terrace Review", and "Cotton Club Parade" (1939).
Arriving in Hollywood in 1940, he wrote many title and theme songs along with film scores and incidental music. His Broadway stage scores include "High Button Shoes", "Two's Company", "Skyscraper", and music for the marionette show "Les Poupees de Paris". He joined ASCAP in 1936, and his chief musical collaboraors included Saul Chaplin, Jule Styne, and James Van Heusen. He became a musical publisher in 1955.
His other song compositions include "If I Had Rhythm in My Nursery Rhymes", "Rhythm Is Our Business", "Shoe Shine Boy", "Until the Real Thing Comes Along", "Dedicated to You", "If It's the Last Thing I Do", "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon", "Posin'", "Please Be Kind", "Joseph, Joseph", "I've Heard That Song Before", "Victory Polka", "I'll Walk Alone", "Saturday Night is The Loneliest Night in the Week", "Poor Little Rhode Island" (the official state song), "The Charm of You", "I Fall in Love Too Easily", "What Makes the Sunset", "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry", "It's Been a Long, Long Time", "Day By Day", "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow", "I Should Care", "I'm Glad I Waited For You", "The Things We Did Last Summer", "Five Minutes More", "Time After Time", "Papa, Won't You Dance With Me?", "You're My Girl", "I Still Get Jealous", "It's Magic", "Be My Love", "Because You're Mine", "Teach Me Tonight", "The 86th! The 86th!" (official song of the US Army 86th Infantry Regiment), "The Impatient Years", "Look to Your Heart", "I'll Never Stop Loving You", "Hey, Jealous Lover", "The Second Time Around", "September of My Years", "My Kind of Town", "I Like to Lead When I Dance", "Love Is a Bore", "Everybody Has a Right to Be Wrong", "I'll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her", and the film title songs for "The Tender Trap", "It's A Woman's World", "The Long Hot Summer", "Indiscreet", "Pocketful of Miracles", "Come Blow Your Horn", "The Best of Everything", and "Where Love Has Gone".- Actor
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Alan Walbridge Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the only child of Ina Raleigh (aka Selina Rowley) and Alan Harwood Ladd, a freelance accountant. His mother was English, from County Durham. His father died when he was four. At age five, he burned his apartment playing with matches, and his mother moved them to Oklahoma City. He was malnourished, undersized and nicknamed Tiny. His mother married a house painter who moved them to California--a la "The Grapes of Wrath"--when he was eight. He picked fruit, delivered papers, and swept stores. In high school he discovered track and swimming. By 1931 he was training for the 1932 Olympics, but an injury put an end to those plans. He opened a hamburger stand called Tiny's Patio, and later worked as a grip at Warner Brothers Pictures. He married his friend Midge in 1936, but couldn't afford her, so they lived apart. In 1937, they shared a friend's apartment. They had a son, Alan Ladd Jr., and his destitute alcoholic mother moved in with them, her agonizing suicide from ant poison witnessed a few months later by her son. His size and coloring here regarded as not right for movies, so he worked hard at radio, where talent scout and former actress Sue Carol discovered him early in 1939. After a string of bit parts in "B" pictures--and an unbilled part in Orson Welles' classic Citizen Kane (1941)--he tested for This Gun for Hire (1942) late in 1941. His fourth-billed role as psychotic killer Raven made him a star. He was drafted in January 1943 and discharged in November with an ulcer and double hernia. Throughout the 1940s his tough-guy roles packed audiences into theaters and he was one of the very few males whose cover photos sold movie magazines. In the 1950s he was performing in lucrative but unrewarding films (an exception being what many regard as his greatest role, Shane (1953)). By the end of the 1950s liquor and a string of so-so films had taken their toll. In November 1962 he was found unconscious lying in a pool of blood with a bullet wound near his heart, a probable suicide attempt. In January 1964 he was found dead, apparently due to an accidental combination of alcohol and sedatives.- Music Department
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Academy Award-winning songwriter ("Buttons and Bows" [1948], "Mona Lisa" [1950], "Que Sera Sera" [1956]), composer, author, musician and publisher, educated at the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania. He began his career in the college dance orchestra, then played in local night clubs and cruise ships. He wrote special material for Olsen and Johnson, then went to Hollywood and was signed to a contract with Paramount in 1945-46, and then became a freelancer. His Broadway stage scores include "Oh Captain!" and "Let It Ride". He has written special material for television and night club acts, including those of Betty Hutton, Cyd Charisse and Mitzi Gaynor. With his partner, Jay Livingston (who also was his chief musical collaborator), he owned a music-publishing firm. Other musical collaborators included Henry Mancini, Max Steiner and Victor Young.
Joining ASCAP in 1945, his popular-song compositions include "Silver Bells", "G'bye Now", "Stuff Like That There", "A Square in the Social Circle", "My Love Loves Me", "A Thousand Violins", "I'll Always Love You", "Misto Cristofo Columbo", "Love Him", "The Ruby and the Pearl", "Haven't Got a Worry", "Never Let Me Go", "As I Love You", "Let Me Be Loved", "You're So Right for Me", "Surprise", "The Morning Music of Montmartre", "Marshmallow Moon", "My Beloved", "Angel Town", "All the Time", "Almost in Your Arms", "Dreamsville", "Warm and Willing", "Just an Honest Mistake", "His Own Little Island", "Love, Let Me Know" and "On My Way".- Music Department
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Jay Livingston was born March 28, 1915 in McDonald, Pennsylvania. He (along with his partner Ray Evans) composed many songs for movies such as To Each His Own (1946), Tammy and the Bachelor (1957) and Academy Award winning songs "Mona Lisa" from the movie Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1949), "Buttons and Bows" from the movie The Paleface (1948) and "Que Sera Sera" from the movie The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). Livingston and Evans also collaborated on several popular TV themes such as Bonanza (1959) and Mister Ed (1961).- Composer
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Composer, songwriter ("Oh, Look At Me Now"), and lyricist who worked with Joe Bushkin on several popular-song compositions, which also include "There'll Be a Hot Time in Berlin," "How Do You Do Without Me," "You Can Never Shake Love," "Wherever There's Love," "The Things I Know About You," "Slow Burn," "Lovely Weather We're Having," and "Something Wonderful Happens in Summer." He joined ASCAP in 1944.- Music Artist
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Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).
Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's Eleven (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.
After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980), in 1987, as a retired police detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter, in an episode entitled Laura (1987).- Music Department
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Comedian, actor, composer and conductor, educated in New York public schools. He was a master of ceremonies in amateur shows, a carnival barker, daredevil driver and a disc jockey, and later a comedian in night clubs. By the mid-1950s he had turned to writing original music and recording a series of popular and best-selling albums with his orchestra for Capitol Records. Joining ASCAP in 1953, his instrumental compositions include "Melancholy Serenade", "Glamour", "Lover's Rhapsody", "On the Beach" and "To a Sleeping Beauty", among numerous others.- Music Department
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Songwriter and jazz pianist who was born to Russian immigrants and learned to play the piano by age ten. His first professional performance was in 1932 with the Frank LaMarr orchestra in New York's Roseland Ballroom. By 1935, he became intermission pianist at the Famous Door where the Bunny Berigan Boys were performing, a group that included guitarist Eddie Condon and pianist George Zack, whom Bushkin ended up replacing. In 1936, he played on Billie Holiday's first recording under her own name. Later, he went on to play with Condon, Joe Marsala, and Tommy Dorsey, whose band he joined and where he wrote the hit song "Oh! Look at Me Now" with John DeVries, the tune that launched the career of a young Frank Sinatra. He was pianist with the bands of Louis Prima, Bunny Berigan, Joe Marsala, and Muggsy Spanier. In 1946, he joined Benny Goodman and later played with Louis Armstrong. In 1951, he formed his own group and worked at The Embers in New York. Bushkin retired after working with conductor/arranger Kenyon Hopkins on several Capitol albums ("Blue Angels," "Night Sounds," "I Get a Kick out of Porter"), but performed on Bing Crosby's last tours in 1976 and 1977 and a 1984 concert series at New York's St. Regis Hotel, designed to commemorate his half-century show-business career. He joined ASCAP in 1946 and wrote many songs and instrumentals.- Music Artist
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Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to Gaetano Alfonso "Guy" Crocetti, an Italian immigrant and barber, and his Ohio-born wife, Angela (Barra) Crocetti. He spoke only Italian until age five. Martin came up the hard way, with such jobs as a boxer ("Kid Crochet"), a steel mill worker, a gas station worker and a casino croupier/dealer. In 1946, Martin got his first ticket to stardom, as he teamed up with another hard worker who was also trying to succeed in Hollywood: Jerry Lewis. Films such as At War with the Army (1950) sent the team toward super-stardom. The duo were to become one of Hollywood's truly great teams. They lasted 11 years together, and starred in 16 movies. They were unstoppable, but personality conflicts broke up the team. Even without Lewis, Martin was a true superstar.
Few thought that Martin would go on to achieve solo success, but he did, winning critical acclaim for his role in The Young Lions (1958) with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, and Some Came Running (1958), with Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra. Movies such as Rio Bravo (1959) brought him international fame. One of his best remembered films is in Ocean's Eleven (1960), in which he played Sam Harmon alongside the other members of the legendary Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. Martin proved potent at the box office through the 1960s, with films such as Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), again with Rat Pack pals Sammy Davis Jr. and Sinatra. During much of the 1960s and 1970s, his film persona of a boozing playboy prompted a series of films as secret agent Matt Helm and his own television variety show. Airport (1970) followed, featuring Martin as a pilot. He played a phony priest in The Cannonball Run (1981).
In 1965, Martin explored a new method for entertaining his fans: Television. That year he hosted one of the most successful TV series in history: The Dean Martin Show (1965), which lasted until 1973. In 1965, it won a Golden Globe Award. In 1973, he renamed it "The Dean Martin Comedy Hour", and from 1974 to 1984 it was renamed again, this time "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts". It became one of the most successful TV series in history, skewering such greats as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, James Stewart, George Burns, Milton Berle, Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller, and Joe Namath.
His last public role was a return to the stage, for a cross-country concert tour with Davis and Sinatra. He spoke affectionately of his fellow Rat Packers. "The satisfaction that I get out of working with these two bums is that we have more laughs than the audience has", Martin said. After the 1980s, Martin took it easy until his son, Dean Paul Martin, was killed in a plane crash in March 1987.
Devastated by the loss, from which he never recovered, he walked out on a reunion tour with Sinatra and Davis. Martin spent his final years in solitude, out of the public light. A heavy smoker most of his life, Martin died on Christmas Day 1995 at age 78 from complications to lung cancer.- Music Department
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Alexander Courage was born on 10 December 1919 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Star Trek (1966), Jurassic Park (1993) and Star Trek: Generations (1994). He was married to Shirley Pumpelly. He died on 15 May 2008 in Pacific Palisades, California, USA.- Actress
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Betty Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg on February 26, 1921, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Two years later, Betty's father decided that the family way of life wasn't for him, so he left (he committed suicide 16 years later). Having to fend for themselves, Mrs. Thornburg moved the family to Detroit to find work in the numerous auto factories there, but times were hard and she decided to take advantage of Prohibition and opened a small tavern, at the time called a speakeasy. The police were always looking for those types of operation, both big and small, and when they detected one, they swooped in and closed it down. Mrs. Thornburg was no different from the other owners, they simply moved elsewhere. Poverty was a constant companion. In addition to that, Mrs. Thornburg was an alcoholic.
At nine years old, Betty began singing publicly for the first time in a school production. Realizing the voice Betty had, her mother took her around Detroit to have her sing to any group that would listen. This was a small way of getting some money for the poor family. When she was 13, Betty got a few singing jobs with local bands in the area. Thinking she was good enough to make the big time, she left for New York two years later to try a professional career. Unfortunately, it didn't work out and Betty headed back to Detroit.
In 1937, Betty was hired by Vincent Lopez who had a popular band that appeared on the local radio. Later, she would return to New York and it was here that her career took off. Betty found herself on Broadway in 1940, and it was only a matter of time before her career took off to bigger heights. The following year, she left New York for Hollywood, where she was to find new life in films. She was signed by Paramount Pictures and made her debut, at 21, in The Fleet's In (1942), along with Eddie Bracken, William Holden and Dorothy Lamour. Reviews were better than expected, with critics looking favorably upon her work. She had previously appeared in a few musical shorts, which no doubt helped her in her first feature film. She made one more musical in 1942 and two more in 1943.
In 1944, she tried to break away from musicals and try her hand in a screwball comedy, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943). She proved - to herself, the public and the critics - that she was marketable outside musicals. In subsequent films, Betty was able to show her comedic side as well as her singing. In 1948, she appeared in her first big box-office bomb, Dream Girl (1948), which was ripped to shreds by critics, as was Betty's acting, and the movie flopped at the box office. It wasn't long before Betty became unhappy with her career. In truth, she had the acting talent, but the parts she got weren't the types to showcase that. Though she did appear in three well-received films later, Red, Hot and Blue (1949), Annie Get Your Gun (1950) and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), her career was winding down.
Later, after filming Somebody Loves Me (1952), Betty was all but finished. She had married Charles O'Curran that year and he wanted to direct her in an upcoming film. Paramount didn't like the idea and the temper tantrum-prone Betty walked out of her contract and movies. She did concentrate on the relatively new medium of television and the stage, but she never recovered her previous form. Her final film was a minor one, Spring Reunion (1956). Her TV series, The Betty Hutton Show (1959), didn't fare too well at all. Betty lived in quiet retirement in Palm Springs, California until her death on March 11, 2007. She was 86 years old.- Composer
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George David Weiss was born on 9 April 1921 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a composer and writer, known for Crazy Rich Asians (2018), 12 Monkeys (1995) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). He was married to Claire Nicholson. He died on 23 August 2010 in Oldwick, New Jersey, USA.- Actress
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Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born on June 21, 1921, in Bemidji, Minnesota. Her father was a United States Army lieutenant and her mother had been a student of drama and an actress with a traveling troupe. Once Mr. Russell was mustered out of the service, the family took up residence in Canada but moved to California when he found employment there. The family was well-to-do and although Jane was the only girl among four brothers, her mother saw to it that she took piano lessons. In addition to music, Jane was interested in drama much as her mother had been and participated in high school stage productions. Upon graduation, Jane took a job as a receptionist for a doctor who specialized in foot disorders. Although she had originally planned on being a designer, her father died, and she had to go to work to help the family. Jane modeled on the side and was very much sought-after especially because of her figure.
She managed to save enough money to go to drama school, with the urging of her mother. She was signed by Howard Hughes for his production of The Outlaw (1943) in 1941, the film that was to make Jane famous. The film was not a classic by any means but was geared through its marketing to show off Jane's ample physical assets rather than acting abilities. Although the film was made in 1941, it was not released until two years later and then only on a limited basis due to the way the film portrayed Jane's assets. It was hard for the flick to pass the censorship board. Finally, the film gained general release in 1946. The film was a smash at the box office.
Jane did not make another film until 1945 when she played Joan Kenwood in Young Widow (1946). She had signed a seven-year contract with Hughes, and it seemed the only films he would put her in were those that displayed Jane in a very flattering light due to her body. Films such as His Kind of Woman (1951) and The Las Vegas Story (1952) did nothing to highlight her true acting abilities. The pinnacle of her career was in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) as Dorothy Shaw, with Marilyn Monroe. This film showed Jane's comedic side very well. Jane did continue to make films throughout the 1950s, but the films were at times not up to par, particularly with Jane's talents being wasted in forgettable movies to show off her sexy side. Films such as Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955) and The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) did do Jane's justice and were able to show exactly the fine actress she was.
After The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957) (a flop), Jane took a hiatus from films, to dabble a little in television, returning in 1964 to film Fate Is the Hunter (1964). Unfortunately, the roles were not there anymore as Jane appeared in only four pictures during the entire decade of the 1960s. Her last film of the decade was The Born Losers (1967). After three more years away from the big screen, she returned to make one last film called Darker Than Amber (1970). Her last play before the public was in the 1970s when Jane was a spokesperson for Playtex bras. Had Jane not been wasted during the Hughes years, she could have been a bigger actress than what she was allowed to show. Jane Russell died at age 89 of respiratory failure on February 28, 2011, in Santa Maria, California.- Actress
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Deborah Jane Trimmer was born on 30 September 1921 in Glasgow, Scotland, the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr Trimmer. She was educated at Northumberland House, Clifton, Bristol. She first performed at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London. She subsequently performed with the Oxford Repertory Company 1939-40. Her first appearance on the West End stage was as Ellie Dunn in "Heartbreak House" at the Cambridge Theatre in 1943. She performed in France, Belgium and Holland with ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association, or Every Night Something Awful) - The British Army entertainment service. She has appeared in many films from her first appearance in Major Barbara (1941).- Actress
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Kay Starr was born on 21 July 1922 in Dougherty, Oklahoma, USA. She was an actress, known for The Nice Guys (2016), L.A. Confidential (1997) and Shutter Island (2010). She was married to Earl Spencer Callicutt, George Alfred Mellen, Vic Schoen, Harold Solomon (Stanley), Roy E. Davis and Woody Gunther. She died on 3 November 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Veronica Lake was born as Constance Frances Marie Ockleman on November 14, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the daughter of Constance Charlotta (Trimble) and Harry Eugene Ockelman, who worked for an oil company as a ship employee. Her father was of half German and half Irish descent, and her mother was of Irish ancestry. While still a child, Veronica's parents moved to Florida when she was not quite a year old. By the time she was five, the family had returned to Brooklyn. When Connie was only twelve, tragedy struck when her father died in an explosion on an oil ship. One year later her mother married Anthony Keane and Connie took his last name as her own. In 1934, when her stepfather was diagnosed with tuberculosis, the family moved to Saranac Lake, where Connie Keane enjoyed the outdoor life and flourished in the activities of boating on the lakes, skating, skiing, swimming, biking around Moody Pond and hiking up Mt Baker. The family made their home in 1935 at 1 Watson Place, (now 27 Seneca Street) then they moved to 1 Riverside Drive,(now Lake Kiwassa Road). Both Connie and Anthony benefited from the Adirondack experience and in 1936 the family left the Adirondacks and moved to Miami, FL., however, the memories of those carefree Saranac Lake days would always remain deeply rooted in her mind.
Two years later, Connie graduated from high school in Miami. Her natural beauty and charm and a definite talent for acting prompted her mother and step-father to move to Beverly Hills, California, where they enrolled her in the well known Bliss Hayden School of Acting in Hollywood. Connie had previously been diagnosed as a classic schizophrenic and her parents saw acting as a form of treatment for her condition. She showed remarkable abilities and did not have to wait long for a part to come her way.
Her first movie was as one of the many coeds in the RKO film, Sorority House (1939). It was a minor part, to be sure, but it was a start. Veronica quickly followed up that project with two other films. All Women Have Secrets (1939) and Dancing Co-Ed (1939), were again bit roles for the pretty young woman from the East Coast, but she did not complain. After all, other would-be starlets took a while before they ever received a bit part. Veronica continued her schooling, while taking a bit roles in two more films, Young as You Feel (1940) and Forty Little Mothers (1940). Prior to this time, she was still under her natural name of Constance Keane. Now, with a better role in I Wanted Wings (1941), she was asked to change her name, and Veronica Lake was born. Now, instead of playing coeds, she had a decent, speaking part. Veronica felt like an actress. The film was a success and the public loved this bright newcomer.
Paramount, the studio she was under contract with, then assigned her to two more films that year, Hold Back the Dawn (1941) and Sullivan's Travels (1941). The latter received good reviews from the always tough film critics. As Ellen Graham, in This Gun for Hire (1942) the following year, Veronica now had top billing. She had paid her dues and was on a roll. The public was enamored with her. In 1943, Veronica starred in only one film. She portrayed Lieutenant Olivia D'Arcy in So Proudly We Hail! (1943) with Claudette Colbert. The film was a box-office smash. It seemed that any film Veronica starred in would be an unquestionable hit. However, her only outing for 1944, The Hour Before the Dawn (1944) would not be well-received by either the public or the critics. As Nazi sympathizer Dora Bruckmann, Veronica's role was dismal at best. Critics disliked her accent immensely because it wasn't true to life. Her acting itself suffered because of the accent. Mediocre films trailed her for all of 1945. It seemed that Veronica was dumped in just about any film to see if it could be salvaged. Hold That Blonde! (1945), Out of This World (1945), and Miss Susie Slagle's (1946) were just a waste of talent for the beautiful blonde. The latter film was a shade better than the previous two. In 1946, Veronica bounced back in The Blue Dahlia (1946) with Alan Ladd and Howard Da Silva. The film was a hit, but it was the last decent film for Veronica. Paramount continued to put her in pathetic movies. After 1948, Paramount discharged the once prized star, and she was out on her own. In 1949, she starred in the Twentieth Century film Slattery's Hurricane (1949), which, unfortunately, was another weak film. She was not on the big screen again until 1952 when she appeared in Stronghold (1951). By Veronica's own admission, the film "was a dog". From 1952 to 1966, Veronica made television appearances and even tried her hand on the stage. Not a lot of success for her at all. By now alcohol was the order of the day. She was down on her luck and drank heavily. In 1962, Veronica was found living in an old hotel and working as a bartender. She finally returned to the big screen in Footsteps in the Snow (1966). Another drought ensued and she appeared on the silver screen for the last time in Flesh Feast (1970) - a very low budget film.
On July 7, 1973, Veronica died of hepatitis in Burlington, Vermont. The beautiful actress with the long blonde hair was dead at the age of 50.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A native-born Californian, Rhonda Fleming attended Beverly Hills public and private schools. Her father was Harold Cheverton Louis (1896-1951). Her mother, Effie Olivia Graham (1891-1985), was a famous model and actress in New York. She has a son (Kent Lane), two granddaughters (Kimberly and Kelly) and four great-grandchildren (Wagner, Page, Lane and Cole). She has appeared in over 40 films, including David O. Selznick's Spellbound (1945), directed by Alfred Hitchcock; Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947); and Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase (1946). She later got starring roles in such classics as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Home Before Dark (1958), Pony Express (1953), Slightly Scarlet (1956), While the City Sleeps (1956) and The Big Circus (1959). While she was always a competent actress, she was more renowned for her exquisite beauty, and the camera absolutely adored her. One time a cameraman on one of her films remarked on how he was so struck by her beauty that, as a gag, he intentionally tried to photograph her badly; he was astonished to discover that no matter how deliberately he botched it, she still came out looking ravishing.
Among her co-stars over the years were Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, Glenn Ford, Burt Lancaster, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Rock Hudson and Ronald Reagan (with whom she made four films). In addition to motion pictures, Fleming made her Broadway debut in Clare Boothe Luce's "The Women", essayed the role of "Lalume" in "Kismet" at the Los Angeles Music Center and toured as "Madame Dubonnet" in "The Boyfriend". She made her stage musical debut in Las Vegas at the opening of the Tropicana Hotel's showroom. Later she appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in a one-woman concert of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin compositions. She also starred in a national ten-week concert tour with Skitch Henderson, featuring the music of George Gershwin. She has guest-starred on numerous television series, including Wagon Train (1957), Police Woman (1974), The Love Boat (1977), Last Hours Before Morning (1975) and a two-hour special of McMillan & Wife (1971). Waiting for the Wind (1991) reunited her with former co-star Robert Mitchum.
In private life she resides in Century City, California, and was married for 23 years to Ted Mann, a producer and chairman of Mann Theatres, until his death in January 2001. She is a member and supporter of Childhelp USA, ARCS (Achievement Rewards For College Scientists); a Life Associate of Pepperdine University; a Lifetime Member of the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge; a Founding Member of the French Foundation For Alzheimer Research; a Benefactor of the Los Angeles Music Center: and a Member of the Center's Blue Ribbon Board of Directors. She is a Member of the Advisory Board of Olive Crest Treatment Centers for Abused Children and serves as a Board of Directors Trustee of World Opportunities International. Along with her husband she helped build the Jerusalem Film Institute in Israel. She also is a member of the Board of Trustees of The UCLA Foundation and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Revlon/UCLA Women's Health Research Program. In addition, she created at the City of Hope Hospital The Rhonda Fleming Mann Research Fellowship to further advance research and treatment associated with women's cancer.
In 1991, she and her husband established the Rhonda Fleming Mann Clinic for Women's Comprehensive Care at UCLA Medical Center. This clinic provides a full range of expert gynecologic and obstetric care to women. Since 1992, she has devoted her time to a second facility at UCLA - the Rhonda Fleming Mann Resource Center for Women with Cancer, which opened in early 1994. This Center is the fulfillment of her vision to create a safe, warm place where women cancer patients and their families might receive the highest quality psychosocial and emotional care as well as assistance with the complex practical problems that arise with cancer. In August 1997, the Center opened "Reflections", a unique retail store and consultation suite that carries wigs, head coverings, breast prostheses and other items to help men, women and children deal with the physical appearance changes brought on by cancer and its treatments. The staffs of the clinic, center and store are guided by her belief that caring, compassion, communication and commitment are essential components of the healing process.- Stunts
- Actor
Stuntman and actor Bob Herron was born on September 23, 1924 in Lomita, California. Herron grew up with his father in Hawaii. After his parents divorced, Bob's mother remained in California and married Ace Hudkins, who was a famous supplier of horses for movies. Following service in the Navy in the South Pacific, Herron started wrangling horses on movie sets for his stepfather Hudkins in 1946. Bob made the transition to stuntman in 1950 and went on to perform stunts in a slew of films and television shows in a career that spanned from the 1950's to the early 2010's. Among the notable actors that Herron has doubled for are Ernest Borgnine, Tom Bosley, Ross Martin, Mills Watson, Jackie Gleason, Cliff Robertson, Andy Griffith, and Robert Conrad. Moreover, Bob did a lot of swimming and high diving while living in Hawaii as well as raced his Austin-Healey sports car a little in the 1950's.- Actress
- Writer
- Music Department
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. Monroe is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional struggles within the film industry. Her life and death are still the subjects of much controversy and speculation.
She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926. Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state. Because Gladys was mentally and financially unable to care for young Marilyn, Gladys placed her in the care of a foster family, The Bolenders. Although the Bolender family wanted to adopt Marilyn, Gladys was eventually able to stabilize her lifestyle and took Marilyn back in her care when Marilyn was 7 years old. However, shortly after regaining custody of Marilyn, Gladys had a complete mental breakdown and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was committed to a state mental hospital. Gladys spent the rest of her life going in and out of hospitals and rarely had contact with young Marilyn. Once Marilyn became an adult and celebrated as a film star, she paid a woman by the name of Inez Melson to look in on the institutionalized Gladys and give detailed reports of her progress. Gladys outlived her daughter, dying in 1984.
Marilyn was then taken in by Gladys' best friend Grace Goddard, who, after a series of foster homes, placed Marilyn into the Los Angeles Orphan's Home in 1935. Marilyn was traumatized by her experience there despite the Orphan's Home being an adequate living facility. Grace Goddard eventually took Marilyn back to live with her in 1937 although this stay did not last long as Grace's husband began molesting Marilyn. Marilyn went to live with Grace's Aunt Ana after this incident, although due to Aunt Ana's advanced age she could not care properly for Marilyn. Marilyn once again for the third time had to return to live with the Goddards. The Goddards planned to relocated and according to law, could not take Marilyn with them. She only had two choices: return to the orphanage or get married. Marilyn was only 16 years old.
She decided to marry a neighborhood friend named James Dougherty; he went into the military, she modeled, they divorced in 1946. She owned 400 books (including Tolstoy, Whitman, Milton), listened to Beethoven records, studied acting at the Actors' lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses at UCLA downtown. 20th Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year later. In 1948, Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach Natasha Lytess and featured her in the B movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948) in which she sang three numbers : "Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy", "Anyone Can Tell I Love You" and "The Ladies of the Chorus" with Adele Jergens (dubbed by Virginia Rees) and others. Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and put her in All About Eve (1950) , resulting in 20th Century re-signing her to a seven-year contract. Niagara (1953) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar.
When she went to a supper honoring her in the The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she arrived in a red chiffon gown borrowed from the studio (she had never owned a gown). That same year, she married and divorced baseball great Joe DiMaggio (their wedding night was spent in Paso Robles, California). After The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she wanted serious acting to replace the sexpot image and went to New York's Actors Studio. She worked with director Lee Strasberg and also underwent psychoanalysis to learn more about herself. Critics praised her transformation in Bus Stop (1956) and the press was stunned by her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller . True to form, she had no veil to match her beige wedding dress so she dyed one in coffee; he wore one of the two suits he owned. They went to England that fall where she made The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) with Laurence Olivier , fighting with him and falling further prey to alcohol and pills. Two miscarriages and gynecological surgery followed. So had an affair with Yves Montand . Work on her last picture The Misfits (1961) , written for her by departing husband Miller, was interrupted by exhaustion. She was dropped from the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962) due to chronic lateness and drug dependency.
On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe's day began with threatening phone calls. Dr. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn's physician, came over the following day and quoted later in a document "Felt it was possible that Marilyn had felt rejected by some of the people she had been close to." Apart from being upset that her publicist slept too long, she seemed fine. Pat Newcombe, who had stayed the previous night at Marilyn's house, left in the early evening as did Greenson who had a dinner date. Marilyn was upset he couldn't stay, and around 7:30pm she telephoned him to say that her second husband's son had called her. Peter Lawford also called Marilyn, inviting her to dinner, but she declined. Lawford later said her speech was slurred. As the evening went on there were other phone calls, including one from Jose Belanos, who said he thought she sounded fine. According to the funeral directors, Marilyn died sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm. Her maid unable to raise her but seeing a light under her locked door, called the police shortly after midnight. She also phoned Ralph Greenson who, on arrival, could not break down the bedroom door. He eventually broke in through French windows and found Marilyn dead in bed. The coroner stated she had died from acute barbiturate poisoning, and it was a 'probable suicide' though many conspiracies would follow in the years after her death.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Born in New York, raised in Philadelphia, Mulligan was the foremost baritone sax player of his generation, as well as an acclaimed composer and arranger, and one of the founders of the post-WWII "West Coast" school of jazz. In addition to his three marriages, Mulligan was the long-term lover of actress Judy Holliday, an affair which began in 1958 and ended with her death. When she became terminally ill in the 1960s, he put his own career on hold to nurse her until the end.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Actor, songwriter ("What Every Girl Should Know"), author and publisher, David Holt was educated at Long's Professional School and the Westlake College of Music in Hollywood. He was a child actor on the stage and in early films, and composed special material. Later he became the general manager and co-owner of a music-publishing company. Joining ASCAP in 1952, his chief musical collaborators included Johnny Mercer, Robert Wells, Sammy Cahn, Paul Francis Webster and Dok Stanford. His other popular-song compositions include "Anyone Can Fall in Love".- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
David L. Wolper was born on 11 January 1928 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and director, known for L.A. Confidential (1997), Murder in the First (1995) and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). He was married to Gloria Hill, Dawn Richard and Toni Carroll. He died on 10 August 2010 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.- Music Department
- Composer
- Additional Crew
Born on February 10, 1929, Jerry Goldsmith studied piano with Jakob Gimpel and composition, theory, and counterpoint with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also attended classes in film composition given by Miklós Rózsa at the Univeristy of Southern California. In 1950, he was employed as a clerk typist in the music department at CBS. There, he was given his first embryonic assignments as a composer for radio shows such as "Romance" and "CBS Radio Workshop". He wrote one score a week for these shows, which were performed live on transmission. He stayed with CBS until 1960, having already scored The Twilight Zone (1959). He was hired by Revue Studios to score their series Thriller (1960). It was here that he met the influential film composer Alfred Newman who hired Goldsmith to score the film Lonely Are the Brave (1962), his first major feature film score. An experimentalist, Goldsmith constantly pushed forward the bounds of film music: Planet of the Apes (1968) included horns blown without mouthpieces and a bass clarinetist fingering the notes but not blowing. He was unafraid to use the wide variety of electronic sounds and instruments which had become available, although he did not use them for their own sake.
He rose rapidly to the top of his profession in the early to mid-1960s, with scores such as Freud (1962), A Patch of Blue (1965) and The Sand Pebbles (1966). In fact, he received Oscar nominations for all three and another in the 1960s for Planet of the Apes (1968). From then onwards, his career and reputation was secure and he scored an astonishing variety of films during the next 30 years or so, from Patton (1970) to Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and from Chinatown (1974) to The Boys from Brazil (1978). He received 17 Oscar nominations but won only once, for The Omen (1976) in 1977 (Goldsmith himself dismissed the thought of even getting a nomination for work on a "horror show"). He enjoyed giving concerts of his music and performed all over the world, notably in London, where he built up a strong relationship with London Symphony Orchestra.
Jerry Goldsmith died at age 75 on July 21, 2004 after a long battle with cancer.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Chet Baker started his career in the late forties. He became famous with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in 1952. His solo in "My funny valentine" is a classic of the west coast jazz in the fifties. When Mulligan was arrested in 1953, Chet led the group until 1955, when he went to Europe. He also sang on many records. In Europe he recorded with many musicians in different countries. His career was interrupted many times for personal problems with drugs and he was arrested many times for his addiction. In 1974 he come back to music after three years in obscurity, playing in a concert in Carnegie Hall with his old friend, Gerry Mulligan. After this he started a "new career", but his problems with drugs were continuous. His death today is a mystery, one possibility is suicide but another says he was killed by trafficants in Amsterdam, Holland.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Joe Porcaro was born on 29 April 1930 in New Britain, Connecticut, USA. He is known for Peter Pan (2003), Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982) and One from the Heart (1981). He was married to Eileen. He died on 6 July 2020 in Los Angeles, California, USA.