Sammy Fain
b. Samuel Feinberg, 17 June 1902, New York, USA, d. 6 December 1989, Los Angeles, California, USA. Fain was a prolific composer of Broadway shows and films for over 40 years, winning two Oscars, and nine nominations. Early in his career he worked for music publisher Jack Mills, and as a singer/pianist in vaudeville and radio. His first published song, with a lyric by Irving Mills and Al Dubin in 1925, was Nobody Knows What A Red-Haired Mamma Can Do, and was recorded, appropriately, by Sophie Tucker. In 1926 he met Irving Kahal (b. 5 March 1903, Houtzdale, Pennsylvania, USA), who was to be his main collaborator until Kahal's death in 1942. Almost immediately they had hits with Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella and I Left My Sugar Standing In The Rain. In 1929 their song, Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine was a hit for another singer/pianist, Gene Austin, and surfaced again 25 years later, sung by the Four Aces. Fain contributed songs to several early musical films including THE BIG POND (1930) in which Maurice Chevalier introduced You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me, the Marx Brothers’ comedy, MONKEY BUSINESS (1931) When I Take My Sugar To Tea, FOOTLIGHT PARADE (1933) By A Waterfall, GOIN’ TO TOWN (1935) in which Mae West sang Now I'm A Lady and He's A Bad, Bad Man But He's Good Enough For Me and DAMES (1934) which featured the song When You Were A Smile On Your Mother's Lips And A Twinkle In Your Daddy's Eye— and in which Fain actually appeared as a songwriter. Fain's '30s Broadway credits included EVERYBODY'S WELCOME, RIGHT THIS WAY (featuring I'll Be Seeing You and I Can Dream Can't I), HELLZAPOPPIN’ (reputedly the most popular musical of the '30s) and GEORGE WHITE'S SCANDALS OF 1939 (Are You Havin Any Fun?’ and Something I Dreamed Last Night). During the '40s and '50s Fain collaborated with several lyricists including Lew Brown, Jack Yellen, Mitchell Parish, Harold Adamson, E.Y. ‘Yip’ Harburg, Bob Hilliard and Paul Francis Webster. In 1945 Fain worked with Ralph Freed, brother of the more famous lyricist and movie producer, Arthur Freed. Fain and Freed's The Worry Song was interpolated into the Sammy Cahn/ Jule Styne score for the Frank Sinatra/ Gene Kellymovie Anchors Aweigh (1945), to accompany Kelly's famous dance sequence with the animated Jerry the mouse. Fain's greatest Hollywood success was in the '50s. He wrote the scores for two Disney classics: ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951), I'm Late with Bob Hilliard; and PETER PAN (1953), Your Mother And Mine and ‘Second Star To the Right’ with Sammy Cahn. Also with Cahn, Fain wrote some songs for the Three Sailors And a Girl (1953) movie (The Lately Song and Show Me A Happy Woman And I'll Show You A Miserable Man). In 1953 Fain, in collaboration with Paul Francis Webster, won his first Academy Award for the song, Secret Love, from their score for the Doris Day/ Howard Keel movie, Calamity Jane. His second Oscar, the title song for the film, LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING (1955), was also written in partnership with Webster, as were several other film title songs including A Certain Smile, April Love, and Tender Is The Night which were all nominated for Academy Awards. Other Fain/Webster movie songs included There's A Rising Moon (For Every Falling Star), from YOUNG AT HEART (1954) and A Very Precious Love, from MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR (1958), both sung by Doris Day. Fain's last four Broadway musicals were FLAHOOLEY (1951) written with Harburg (Here's To Your Illusions and He's Only Wonderful), ANKLES AWEIGH (1955) written with Dan Shapiro, CHRISTINE (1960), with Webster, and SOMETHING MORE (1964) with Alanand Marilyn Bergman. Fain continued to write films songs through to the '70s. He also made some vocal records, and had a US chart entry as early as 1926 with Al Dubin and Joe Burke's, Painting The Clouds With Sunshine. He was voted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 1971, and served on the board of directors of ASCAP from 1979 until his death from a heart attack on 6 December 1989. His main lyricist during the '50s, Paul Francis Webster (b. 20 December 1907, New York, USA), also wrote lyrics for other composers including Duke Ellington (I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good), Hoagy Carmichael (Baltimore Oriole, Doctor, Lawyer, Or Indian Chief, and Memphis In June), and for Dmitri Tiomkin film themes including RIO BRAVO (1959), THE ALAMO (1960), THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961), 55 DAYS AT PEKING (1963) and the title song for FRIENDLY PERSUASION (1956). Webster, partnered by Johnny Mandel, also won an Oscar in 1965 for the song, The Shadow Of Your Smile, from the film THE SANDPIPER.