Harry Warren (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna; December 24, 1893 – September 22, 1981)

Career

Warren wrote over 800 songs between 1918 and 1981, publishing over 500 of them. They were written mainly for 56 feature films or were used in other films that used Warren's newly written or existing songs. His song "I Only Have Eyes for You" is listed in the list of the 25 most-performed songs of the 20th Century, as compiled by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). Warren was the director of ASCAP from 1929 to 1932. Among his biggest hits were "There Will Never Be Another You", "I Only Have Eyes for You", "Forty-Second Street", "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)", "Lullaby of Broadway", "Serenade In Blue", "At Last", "Jeepers Creepers", "You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me", "That's Amore", and "Young and Healthy". He wrote a succession of hit songs in the 1920s, including "I Love My Baby (My Baby Loves Me)" and "Seminola" in 1925, "Where Do You Work-a John?" and "In My Gondola" in 1926 and "Nagasaki" in 1928. In 1930, he composed the music for the song "Cheerful Little Earful" for the Billy Rose Broadway revue, Sweet and Low, and composed the music, with lyrics by Mort Dixon and Joe Young, for the Ed Wynn Broadway revue The Laugh Parade in 1931. He worked for 20th Century Fox starting in 1940, writing with Mack Gordon. He moved to MGM starting in 1944, writing for musical films such as The Harvey Girls and The Barkleys of Broadway, many starring Fred Astaire. He later worked for Paramount, starting in the early 1950s, writing for the Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman movie Just for You and the Martin and Lewis movie The Caddy, the latter containing the hit song "That's Amore". He continued to write songs for several more Jerry Lewis comedies.

Warren won the Academy Award for Best Song three times, collaborating with three different lyricists: "Lullaby of Broadway" with Al Dubin in 1935, "You'll Never Know" with Mack Gordon in 1943, and "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" with Johnny Mercer in 1946. He was nominated for eleven Oscars. The last musical score that Warren composed specifically for Broadway was Shangri-La, a disastrous 1956 adaptation of James Hilton's Lost Horizon, which ran for only 21 performances. In 1957, he received his last Academy Award nomination for the song "An Affair to Remember". He continued to write songs for movies throughout the 1960s and 1970s but never again achieved the fame that he had enjoyed earlier. His last movie score was for Manhattan Melody, in 1980, but the film was never produced. He also wrote nearly three dozen short piano vignettes. The sheet music was first published by Warren's Four Jays Music Co. A dozen of these were released on a 1975 album titled Harry Warren's Piano Vignettes, played by Hugh Delain. Several pianists have recorded the vignettes, including Warren himself.

Personal life

Warren married Josephine Wensler in 1917. They had a son, Harry Jr. (1919–1938), and a daughter, Joan (b. 1925). His wife died in 1993.

Warren died on September 22, 1981, in Los Angeles. He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. The plaque bearing Warren's epitaph displays the first few notes of "You'll Never Know".

Reputation and legacy

According to Wilfrid Sheed, quoted in Time magazine: "By silent consensus, the king of this army of unknown soldiers, the Hollywood incognitos, was Harry Warren, who had more songs on the Hit Parade than Berlin himself and who would win the contest hands down if enough people have heard of him." Season 25, Episode 10, November 24, 1979; and Season 27, Episode 17, January 2, 1982 Susannah McCorkle's debut album was The Music of Harry Warren (1976).

In 1980, producer David Merrick and director Gower Champion adapted the 1933 film 42nd Street into a Broadway musical that won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1981, ran for 3,486 performances and has had several major revivals. The score incorporated songs by Warren and Dubin from various movie musicals, including 42nd Street, Dames, Go Into Your Dance, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Gold Diggers of 1935.

A theatre in Gravesend, Brooklyn, New York, the Harry Warren Theatre, was named for Warren in 1982.

Songs

Music by Warren, unless noted:

Academy Award nominations and winners

;Winners

  • "Lullaby of Broadway" (1935) w. Al Dubin for Gold Diggers of 1935
  • "You'll Never Know" (1943) w. Mack Gordon for Hello, Frisco, Hello
  • "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" (1945) w. Johnny Mercer for The Harvey Girls

;Nominations

  • "Remember Me?" (1937) w. Al Dubin for Mr. Dodd Takes the Air
  • "Chattanooga Choo Choo" (1941) w. Mack Gordon for Sun Valley Serenade
  • "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" (1942) w. Mack Gordon for Orchestra Wives
  • "Zing a Little Zong" (1952) w. Leo Robin for Just for You
  • "An Affair to Remember (Our Love Affair)" (1956) w. Harold Adamson and Leo McCarey for An Affair to Remember

thumb|78 recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" by the [[Glenn Miller Orchestra with vocal solo by Tex Beneke]]

  • "(You May Not Be an Angel, But) I'll String Along With You" (1934) w. Al Dubin

;Other popular songs

  • "Cheerful Little Earful" (1930) w. Ira Gershwin and Billy Rose for Sweet & Low