Frederick Loewe
b. 10 June 1901, Vienna, Austria, d. 14 February 1988. Born into a musical family, (his father was a professional singer), Loewe studied piano as a child, appearing with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in 1917. In 1924, he visited the USA, but failed to make an impact upon the local classical music scene. Instead, he eked out a living playing piano in restaurants and bars, then roamed throughout the USA, tackling a variety of jobs, including prospecting and cowpunching. As a young teenager he had written songs and he resumed this activity in New York in the early '30s. His style was closely related to that popular in his birthplace and proved generally unsuccessful in his new homeland. In 1942, he formed a musical partnership with Alan Jay Lerner with whom he wrote songs for a succession of shows with results which varied between flops and modest successes. In 1947, the collaborators had their first major hit with BRIGADOON, from which came The Heather On The Hill, From This Day On and Almost Like Being In Love. The association was renewed in 1951 with Paint Your Wagonwith such songs as They Call The Wind Maria, I Talk To The Trees and Wand'rin Star’. In 1956, the team had their major success with My Fair Lady, which ran on Broadway for 2,717 performances. The score included such lasting favourites as On The Street Where You Live, Get Me To The Church On Time, With A Little Bit Of Luck, Wouldn't It Be Loverly?, The Rain In Spain, Why Can't The English?, I'm An Ordinary Man and I Could Have Danced All Night. After the huge success of MY FAIR LADY the team was invited to write a musical film and while Lerner was keen, Loewe was reluctant. In the end he agreed and the result, GIGI (1958) was one of the final flourishes of the old-style Hollywood musical. Among the songs from the film were Thank Heaven For Little Girls, I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore, I Remember It Well and the title song. After being hospitalized with heart trouble, Loewe returned to his collaboration with Lerner in a new Broadway show, Camelot, which opened in 1960. Although the show's preproduction was marred with problems, the result was another success with such outstanding songs as If Ever I Would Leave You and How To Handle A Woman. This show proved to be the last important collaboration for Loewe and Lerner. They teamed up again in 1973 with a stage production of GIGI and the following year made their swan song with THE LITTLE PRINCE. Loewe died in February 1988.