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Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 ?
November 11, 1945) was an American popular composer. He
wrote around 700 songs and more than 100 complete scores for
shows and films in a career lasting from 1902 until his
death at the age of 60..
Jerome Kern was born in New York City. His parents, Fanny
and Henry Kern, were both German Jews. They named him Jerome
because they lived near Jerome Park, a favourite place of
theirs (Jerome Park was named after Leonard Jerome, who was
the father of Jennie Jerome, mother of British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill). Fanny encouraged her son to
take piano lessons. Henry was a merchandiser and sold pianos
among other things. Although Henry wanted his son to go into
business with him, Jerome insisted on staying with music.
He grew up on East 56th Street in Midtown Manhattan, where
he attended public schools. He studied at the New York
College of Music and then in Heidelberg, Germany. When he
came back to New York, he started working as a rehearsal
pianist, but it didn't take long for him to become a
prominent and renowned composer. By 1915, he was represented
in many Broadway shows. In 1920, he wrote "Look for the
Silver Lining" for the musical Sally.
1925 was a major turning point in Kern's career, for he met
Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he would entertain a
lifelong friendship and collaboration. Their first show
(written together with Otto Harbach) was Sunny. Together,
they produced next the famous Show Boat in 1927, which
includes the well-known songs "Ol' Man River" and "Can't
Help Lovin' Dat Man". Based on the book of the same name by
Edna Ferber, "Showboat" was the first musical comedy to
integrate plot, music and choreography into a cohesive story
deviating from the usual musical revue of that era. The
musical Roberta (1933) gave us "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and
starred Bob Hope.
In 1935, Jerome Kern moved to Hollywood and started working
on music for films but continued working on Broadway
productions, too. His last Broadway show was the rather
unsuccessful Very Warm For May in 1939; the score included
another Kern?Hammerstein classic, "All The Things You Are".
Kern's Hollywood career was successful indeed. For Swing
Time (starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire), he wrote
"The Way You Look Tonight" (lyrics: Dorothy Fields), which
won the Academy Award in 1936 for the best song. In 1941, he
and Hammerstein wrote "The Last Time I Saw Paris", a homage
to the French city just recently occupied by the Germans.
The song was introduced in the movie Lady Be Good and won
another Oscar for Best Song.
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