Misplaced Pages

#609390

85-640: The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934, 1936, 1943, and 1957. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air . Inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris, the Ziegfeld Follies were conceived and mounted by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. , reportedly at

170-452: A Simple Melody " became the first of his famous "double" songs in which two different melodies and lyrics are counterpointed against one another. Variety called Watch Your Step the "first syncopated musical", where the "sets and the girls were gorgeous". Berlin was then 26, and the success of the show was riding on his name alone. Variety said the show was a "terrific hit" from its opening night. It compared Berlin's newfound status as

255-557: A competing revue to the undergraduates, called variably Revue and Integration or Revue and Imitation. The Moira Stuart Cup is competed for annually at the United Hospitals Comedy Revue, by all five of the University of London Medical Schools . It has been won by all medical schools at least once, with RUMS (UCL Medical School) and St George's Hospital Medical School achieving the most victories, winning

340-575: A composer with that of the Times building: "That youthful marvel of syncopated melody is proving things in Watch Your Step , firstly that he is not alone a rag composer, and that he is one of the greatest lyric writers America has ever produced." Whitcomb also points out the irony that Russia, the country Berlin's family was forced to leave, flung itself into "the ragtime beat with an abandon bordering on mania". For example, Prince Felix Yusupov ,

425-652: A continued embrace of a unifying authorial presence in this seemingly scattershot genre, much as was earlier the case with Ziegfeld, Carrol, et al . With different artistic emphases, the revue genre is today above all upheld at traditional variety theatres such as the Le Lido , Moulin Rouge and Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin, as well as in shows in Las Vegas. It is a current and fairly longstanding tradition of medical, dental, engineering, legal and veterinary schools within

510-482: A cover of this song on his 1992 release The Future (Leonard Cohen album) . Written after his first daughter's birth, he distilled his feelings about being married and a father for the first time: "Blue days, all of them gone; nothing but blue skies, from now on." The song was introduced by Belle Baker in Betsy , a Ziegfeld production. It became a hit recording for Ben Selvin and one of several Berlin hits in 1927. It

595-501: A great kid", and raved about him so much that Von Tilzer hired Berlin. In 1908, when he was 20, Berlin took a new job at a saloon named Jimmy Kelly's in the Union Square neighborhood. There, he was able to collaborate with other young songwriters, such as Edgar Leslie , Ted Snyder , Al Piantadosi , and George A. Whiting . In 1909, the year of the premiere of Israel Zangwill 's The Melting Pot , he got another big break as

680-494: A hit twice (for Vincent Lopez and George Olsen ) in its first incarnation. There were four more hit versions in 1944–45. In 1959, Sammy Turner took the song to no. 2 on the R&;B chart. It became Patsy Cline 's postmortem anthem and hit no. 18 on the country chart in 1980, 17 years after her death, and a tribute musical called "Always... Patsy Cline", played a two-year Nashville run that ended in 1995. Leonard Cohen included

765-558: A partnership with Sam Harris to build the Music Box Theater . He maintained an interest in the theater throughout his life, and even in his last years was known to call the Shubert Organization , his partner, to check on the receipts. In its early years, the theater was a showcase for revues by Berlin. As theater owner, producer and composer, he looked after every detail of his shows, from the costumes and sets to

850-416: A ragtime revue, Watch Your Step , which starred the couple and showcased their talents on stage. That musical revue became Berlin's first complete score with songs that "radiated musical and lyrical sophistication". Berlin's songs signified modernism , and they signified the cultural struggle between Victorian gentility and the "purveyors of liberation, indulgence, and leisure", says Furia. The song " Play

935-472: A recent Oxford undergraduate of Russian noble lineage and heir to the largest estate in Russia, was described by his dance partner as "wriggling around the ballroom like a demented worm, screaming for 'more ragtime and more champagne ' ". My ambition is to reach the heart of the average American, not the highbrow nor the lowbrow but that vast intermediate crew which is the real soul of the country. The highbrow

SECTION 10

#1732771829610

1020-408: A ship departing for China and became so entranced that he did not see a swinging crane, which knocked him into the river. When he was fished out after going down for the third time, he was still holding in his clenched fist the five pennies he earned that day. His mother took a job as a midwife , and three of his sisters worked wrapping cigars, common for immigrant girls. His older brother worked in

1105-413: A single entertainment. Minstrelsy 's olio section provided a structural map of popular variety presentation, while literary travesties highlighted an audience hunger for satire. Theatrical extravaganzas , in particular, moving panoramas, demonstrated a vocabulary of the spectacular. Burlesque , itself a bawdy hybrid of various theatrical forms, lent to classic revue an open interest in female sexuality and

1190-502: A single year". On April 1, 1917, after President Woodrow Wilson declared that America would enter World War I , Berlin felt that Tin Pan Alley should do its duty and support the war with inspirational songs. Berlin wrote the song "For Your Country and My Country", stating that "we must speak with the sword not the pen to show our appreciation to America for opening up her heart and welcoming every immigrant group." He also co-wrote

1275-441: A song aimed at ending ethnic conflict, "Let's All Be Americans Now". At the grand finale... Sergeant Berlin led the entire 300-person cast off the stage, marching them down the theater's aisles, singing 'We're on Our Way to France,' all to tumultuous applause. The cast carried off their little producer like he was victor ludorum ... Tin Pan Alley had joined hands with real life — biographer Ian Whitcomb . In 1917, Berlin

1360-782: A song titled '"Row, Row, Row"', the tune of which has been adapted by football clubs in Brazil and Australia, where Melbourne 's Herald Sun ranked one of these adaptations, We're from Tigerland , as the best Australian Football League club song. Revue Owing to high ticket prices, ribald publicity campaigns and the occasional use of prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt even less restricted by middle-class social norms than their contemporaries in vaudeville . Like much of that era's popular entertainments, revues often featured material based on sophisticated, irreverent dissections of topical matter, public personae and fads, though

1445-646: A songwriter in Tin Pan Alley and on Broadway . In 1911, Emma Carus introduced his first world-famous hit, " Alexander's Ragtime Band ", followed by a performance from Berlin himself at the Friars' Frolic of 1911 with Clifford Hess as his accompanist. He became an instant celebrity, and the featured performer later that year at Oscar Hammerstein 's vaudeville house, where he introduced dozens of other songs. The New York Telegraph described how two hundred of his street friends came to see "their boy" onstage: "All

1530-427: A songwriting star. From its first and subsequent releases, the song was near the top of the charts as others sang it: Bessie Smith , in 1927, and Louis Armstrong , in 1937; No. 1 by Bing Crosby and Connee Boswell; Johnny Mercer in 1945; Al Jolson , in 1947 and Nellie Lutcher in 1948. Add Ray Charles 's big-band version in 1959, and "Alexander" had a dozen hit versions in just under a half century. Initially

1615-489: A staff lyricist with the Ted Snyder Company . Installed as a staff lyricist with a leading Tin Pan Alley music publishing house, Berlin quickly established himself as one of that frantic industry's top writers of words to other composer's melodies. By 1910 he was already in demand and even appeared in a Shubert Broadway revue performing his own songs. It was purely by chance that Berlin started composing music to

1700-482: A sweatshop assembling shirts. Each evening, when the family came home from their day's work, Bergreen writes, "they would deposit the coins they had earned that day into Lena's outspread apron." Music historian Philip Furia writes that when "Izzy" began to sell newspapers in the Bowery , he was exposed to the music and sounds coming from saloons and restaurants that lined the crowded streets. Young Berlin sang some of

1785-612: A three-room tenement at 330 Cherry Street . His father, unable to find comparable work as a cantor in New York, took a job at a kosher meat market and gave Hebrew lessons on the side to support his family. He died a few years later when Irving was thirteen years old. With only a few years of schooling, eight-year-old Irving began helping to support his family. He became a newspaper boy, hawking The Evening Journal. One day while delivering newspapers, according to Berlin's biographer and friend, Alexander Woollcott , he stopped to look at

SECTION 20

#1732771829610

1870-412: A traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan , that took place in late 1975 and early 1976. Towards the end of the 20th century, a subgenre of revue largely dispensed with the sketches, founding narrative structure within a song cycle in which the material is culled from varied works. This type of revue may or may not have identifiable characters and a rudimentary storyline but, even when it does,

1955-681: Is American music." Berlin was born Israel Beilin on May 11, 1888, in the Russian Empire . Although his family came from the shtetl of Tolochin ( Yiddish : טאָלאָטשין ; today Talachyn, Талачын , in Belarus ), Berlin later learned that he was probably born in Tyumen , Siberia, where his father, an itinerant cantor , had taken his family. He was one of eight children of Moses (1848–1901) and Lena Lipkin Beilin (1850–1922). From Tyumen,

2040-550: Is likely to be superficial, overtrained, supersensitive. The lowbrow is warped, subnormal. My public is the real people. — Irving Berlin Some of the songs Berlin created came out of his own sadness. For instance, in 1912 he married Dorothy Goetz , the sister of songwriter E. Ray Goetz . She died six months later of typhoid fever contracted during their honeymoon in Havana . The song he wrote to express his grief, "When I Lost You",

2125-409: Is now sometimes (incorrectly) employed as an analog for "revue," though the term was proprietary to Ziegfeld until his death in 1932. Other popular proprietary revue names included George White's "Scandals," Earl Carroll 's "Vanities" and John Murray Anderson 's Greenwich Village Follies . Revues are most properly understood as having amalgamated several theatrical traditions within the corpus of

2210-634: The Follies charged $ 5.00 for an opening night ticket ($ 130 in 2020 dollars); at that time, many cinema houses charged from $ 0.10 to 0.25, while low-priced vaudeville seats were $ 0.15. Among the many popular producers of revues, Florenz Ziegfeld played the greatest role in developing the classical revue through his glorification of a new theatrical "type", "the American girl". Famed for his often bizarre publicity schemes and continual debt, Ziegfeld joined Earl Carroll , George White , John Murray Anderson , and

2295-701: The Marx Brothers and the Fairbanks Twins found great success on the revue stage. One of Cole Porter 's early shows was Raymond Hitchcock 's revue Hitchy-Koo of 1919 . Composers or lyricists such as Richard Rodgers , Lorenz Hart , Irving Berlin , and George M. Cohan also enjoyed a tremendous reception on the part of audiences. Sometimes, an appearance in a revue provided a key early entry into entertainment. Largely due to their centralization in New York City and their adroit use of publicity, revues proved particularly adept at introducing new talents to

2380-624: The Shubert Brothers as the leading producing figure of the American revue's golden age. Revues also had a presence in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, with films such as "Frau meiner Träume" being made. Revues took advantage of their high revenue stream to lure away performers from other media, often offering exorbitant weekly salaries without the unremitting travel demanded by other entertainments. Performers such as Eddie Cantor , Anna Held , W. C. Fields , Bert Williams , Ed Wynn ,

2465-497: The 1946 film Blue Skies . The song was written in 1928 with a separate set of lyrics and was introduced by Harry Richman in a 1930 film of the same name. In 1939, Clark Gable sang it in the movie Idiot's Delight . In 1974 it was featured in the movie Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks , and was a no. 4 hit for synth-pop artist Taco in 1982. In 2012 it was used for a flash mob wedding event in Moscow. This waltz-time song

2550-567: The American theatre. Rodgers and Hart , one of the great composer/lyricist teams of the American musical theatre , followed up their early Columbia University student revues with the successful Garrick Gaieties (1925). Comedian Fanny Brice , following a brief period in burlesque and amateur variety, bowed to revue audiences in Ziegfeld's Follies of 1910 . Specialist writers and composers of revues have included Sandy Wilson , Noël Coward , John Stromberg, George Gershwin , Earl Carroll , and

2635-615: The British team Flanders and Swann . In Britain predominantly, Tom Arnold also specialized in promoting series of revues and his acts extended to the European continent and South Africa. With the introduction of talking pictures, in 1927, studios immediately began filming acts from the stage. Such film shorts gradually replaced the live entertainment that had often accompanied cinema exhibition. By 1928, studios began planning to film feature-length versions of popular musicals and revues from

Ziegfeld Follies - Misplaced Pages Continue

2720-647: The Festival, with St. George's Medics Revue having been performing annually at the Fringe for 18 years and have sold-out their show for the last nine years. The BSMS Medic Revue has performed sellout shows in the Brighton Fringe Festival since 2008. The MDs Comedy Revue performed at the Fringe for the first time in 2015, to a sell-out audience, repeating this feat their second show in 2016 and their third in 2018. The Cambridge clinical school also now run

2805-745: The Follies era, many of the top entertainers, including W. C. Fields , Eddie Cantor , Josephine Baker , Fanny Brice , Ann Pennington , Bert Williams , Eva Tanguay , Bob Hope , Will Rogers , Ruth Etting , Ray Bolger , Helen Morgan , Louise Brooks , Marilyn Miller , Ed Wynn , Gilda Gray , Nora Bayes and Sophie Tucker appeared in the shows. The Ziegfeld Follies were known for displaying beautiful chorus girls, commonly called Ziegfeld Girls , who "paraded up and down flights of stairs as anything from birds to battleships." They usually wore elaborate costumes by designers such as Erté , Lady Duff-Gordon and Ben Ali Haggin . The " tableaux vivants " used in

2890-406: The Follies. The name was later used by other promoters in New York City, Philadelphia, and again on Broadway, with less connection to the original Follies. These later efforts failed miserably. When the show toured, the 1934 edition was recorded in its entirety, from the overture to play-out music, on a series of 78 rpm discs , which were edited by the record producer David Cunard to form an album of

2975-528: The Pelham's resident pianist Mike Nicholson, in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights. The sheet music to the published song presented his name as "I. Berlin". Berlin continued writing and playing music at Pelham Cafe and developing an early style. He liked the words to other people's songs but sometimes the rhythms were "kind of boggy," and he might change them. One night he delivered some hits composed by his friend George M. Cohan , another kid who

3060-561: The Ritz ", " Cheek to Cheek ", " White Christmas ", " Happy Holiday ", " Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) ", and " There's No Business Like Show Business ". His Broadway musical This Is the Army (1942) was adapted into the 1943 film of the same name . Berlin's songs have reached the top of the US charts 25 times and have been extensively re-recorded by numerous singers. Berlin died in 1989 at

3145-519: The Roof"). In The Drowsy Chaperone , the character Victor Feldzieg is the producer of Feldzieg's Follies , a parody of Ziegfeld Follies . The TV show Boardwalk Empire , about crime and corruption in 1920s Atlantic City, New Jersey , features a character that is a former Follies dancer, Lucy Danzige, portrayed by Paz de la Huerta . The 1912 version of the Ziegfeld Follies included

3230-670: The UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to put on revues each year, combining comedy sketches, songs, parodies, films and sound-bites. One of the most notable and funniest is the Australian National University's "Arts Revue". As well as performing at their respective universities, shows will often be performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe . The Cambridge Medics Revue, St George's Medics Revue, and Birmingham Medics Revues have all performed at

3315-592: The United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s, escaping discrimination, poverty and brutal pogroms . Other such families included those of George and Ira Gershwin , Al Jolson , Sophie Tucker , L. Wolfe Gilbert , Jack Yellen , Louis B. Mayer (of MGM ), and the Warner brothers . After their arrival in New York City, the Baline family lived briefly in a basement flat on Monroe Street, and then moved to

3400-508: The age of 101 . Composer Douglas Moore sets Berlin apart from all other contemporary songwriters, and includes him instead with Stephen Foster , Walt Whitman , and Carl Sandburg , as a "great American minstrel"—someone who has "caught and immortalized in his songs what we say, what we think about, and what we believe." Composer George Gershwin called him "the greatest songwriter that has ever lived", and composer Jerome Kern concluded that "Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he

3485-531: The age of thirteen, Berlin had few survival skills and realized that formal employment was out of the question. His only ability was acquired from his father's vocation as a singer, and he joined with several other youngsters who went to saloons on the Bowery and sang to customers. Itinerant young singers like them were common on the Lower East Side. Berlin would sing a few of the popular ballads he heard on

Ziegfeld Follies - Misplaced Pages Continue

3570-443: The bandwagon and produced expensive revues such as Harmony Heaven ( British International Pictures , 1929), Elstree Calling (BIP, 1930), and The Musical Revue Of 1959 (BI P, 1960). Revues are often common today as student entertainment (with strong traditions in many universities in UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark). These use pastiche , in which contemporary songs are re-written in order to comment on

3655-522: The bitter-sweetness of the 1920s, it was Berlin who gave eloquence to their heartbreak by way of ' What'll I Do ' and 'Remember' and 'All Alone'". This ballad of love and longing was a hit record for Paul Whiteman and had several other successful recordings in 1924. Twenty-four years later, the song went to no. 22 for Nat King Cole and no. 23 for Frank Sinatra . Written when he fell in love with Ellin Mackay , who later became his wife. The song became

3740-402: The casting and musical arrangements. According to Berlin biographer David Leopold, the theater, located at 239 West 45th St., was the only Broadway house built to accommodate the works of a songwriter. It was the home of Berlin's Music Box Revue from 1921 to 1925 and As Thousands Cheer in 1933 and today includes an exhibition devoted to Berlin in the lobby. By 1926, Berlin had written

3825-469: The college or courses in a humorous nature. While most comic songs will only be heard within the revue they were written for, sometimes they become more widely known—such as "A Transport of Delight", about the big red London bus, by Flanders and Swann , who first made their name in a revue titled At the Drop of a Hat . The Rolling Thunder Revue was a famed U.S. concert tour in the mid-1970s consisting of

3910-459: The country". He wrote hundreds of songs, many becoming major hits, which made him famous before he turned thirty. During his 60-year career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, including the scores for 20 original Broadway shows and 15 original Hollywood films, with his songs nominated eight times for Academy Awards . Many songs became popular themes and anthems, including " Alexander's Ragtime Band ", " Blue Skies ", " Easter Parade ", " Puttin' on

3995-423: The decade". Composer George Gershwin , foreseeing its influence, said it was "the first real American musical work", adding, "Berlin had shown us the way; it was now easier to attain our ideal." Berlin was "flabbergasted" by the sudden international popularity of the song, and wondered why it became a sudden hit. He decided it was partly because the lyrics, "silly though it was, was fundamentally right ... [and]

4080-604: The dreams that shape our lives". Born in Imperial Russia , Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights, and became known as the composer of numerous international hits, starting with 1911's " Alexander's Ragtime Band ". He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway . For much of his career, Berlin could not read sheet music, and

4165-405: The famed "Wedding Cake" set which had been used for Metro's earlier film, The Great Ziegfeld . Judy Garland was filmed on the top of the cake. Charles Winninger , who had performed in the Follies of 1920, appeared as " Ed Gallagher " with Gallagher's real-life partner, Al Shean to recreate the duo's famous song " Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean ". According to modern sources, Turner's character

4250-547: The family returned to Tolochin, and from there, they travelled to Antwerp and left the old continent aboard the SS Rhynland from the Red Star Line . On September 14, 1893, the family arrived at Ellis Island in New York City. When they arrived, Israel was put in a pen with his brother and five sisters until immigration officials declared them fit to be allowed into the city. After the family's naturalization ,

4335-522: The film gave a glimpse into what the Follies were really like. The show-stopper was the Irving Berlin -composed " A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody ", which, by itself, cost more to produce than one of Ziegfeld's entire stage shows. In 1941 MGM released Ziegfeld Girl , starring Judy Garland , Lana Turner , Hedy Lamarr , James Stewart and Tony Martin . The film was set in the 1920s. Celebrated numbers from Ziegfeld Revues were recreated, including

SECTION 50

#1732771829610

4420-399: The heyday of the revues, the musical includes many songs and production numbers that are intended to evoke the types of entertainment typically featured in the Ziegfeld Follies and other revues of the period. Examples include parade of showgirls ("Beautiful Girls"); a torch song (" Losing My Mind "); a baggy pants comic song ("The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues"); and a novelty song ("Rain on

4505-718: The highlights of the production and which was released as a CD in 1997. In 1937, at the 9th Academy Awards , the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, The Great Ziegfeld produced the previous year won the Best Picture (called "Outstanding Production"), starring William Powell as Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. and co-starring Myrna Loy (as Ziegfeld's second wife Billie Burke ), Luise Rainer (as Anna Held , which won her an Academy Award for Best Actress ), and Frank Morgan as Jack Billings. Featuring numbers by Ray Bolger , Dennis Morgan , Virginia Bruce , and Harriet Hoctor ,

4590-424: The little writer could do was to finger the buttons on his coat while tears ran down his cheeks—in a vaudeville house!" Richard Corliss , in a Time profile of Berlin, described "Alexander's Ragtime Band" as a march, not a rag , "its savviest musicality comprised quotes from a bugle call and " Swanee River ". The tune revived the ragtime fervor that Scott Joplin had begun a decade earlier, and made Berlin

4675-612: The masculine gaze. Revues enjoyed great success on Broadway from the World War I years until the Great Depression , when the stock market crash forced many revues from cavernous Broadway houses into smaller venues. (The shows did, however, continue to infrequently appear in large theatres well into the 1950s.) The high ticket prices of many revues helped ensure audiences distinct from other live popular entertainments during their height of popularity (late 1910s–1940s). In 1914,

4760-541: The melody ... started the heels and shoulders of all America and a good section of Europe to rocking." In 1913, Berlin was featured in the London revue Hello Ragtime, where he introduced " That International Rag ", a song he had written for the occasion. Furia writes that the international success of "Alexander's Ragtime Band" gave ragtime "new life and sparked a national dance craze". Two dancers who expressed that craze were Vernon and Irene Castle . In 1914, Berlin wrote

4845-500: The name "Beilin" was changed to "Baline". According to biographer Laurence Bergreen , as an adult Berlin admitted to no memories of his first five years in Russia except for one: "he was lying on a blanket by the side of a road, watching his house burn to the ground. By daylight the house was in ashes." As an adult, Berlin said he was unaware of being raised in abject poverty since he knew no other life. The Berlins were one of hundreds of thousands of Jewish families who emigrated to

4930-671: The original Follies. Ziegfeld Follies was awarded the "Grand Prix de la Comedie Musicale" at the Cannes Film Festival in 1947, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (black and white). The stage musical Funny Girl depicts Fanny Brice's success with the Follies. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1964 with Barbra Streisand playing Brice, Roger DeKoven as Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and Brice's son-in-law Ray Stark producing. The 1968 Columbia Pictures film adaptation featuring Streisand reprising her role as Brice and Walter Pidgeon as Ziegfeld

5015-453: The primary attraction was found in the frank display of the female body. Revue comes from the French word for "review," as in a "show presenting a review of current events." George Lederer 's The Passing Show (1894) is usually held to be the first successful American "review." The English spelling was used until 1907 when Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. popularized the French spelling. "Follies"

5100-414: The revues were designed by Ben Ali Haggin from 1917 to 1925. Joseph Urban was the scenic designer for the Follies shows, starting in 1915, and Edward Royce directed the Follies in 1920 and 1921, in addition to several other Ziegfeld productions. After Ziegfeld's death his widow, actress Billie Burke , authorized use of his name for Ziegfeld Follies in 1934 and 1936 to Jake Shubert, who then produced

5185-557: The scores to two editions of the Ziegfeld Follies and four annual editions of his Music Box Revue . These shows spanned the years of 1921–1926, premiering songs such as "Say It With Music", "Everybody Step", and "Pack Up Your Things and Go to the Devil". Life magazine called Berlin the "Lullaby Kid", noting that "couples at country-club dances grew misty-eyed when the band went into 'Always', because they were positive that Berlin had written it just for them. When they quarreled and parted in

SECTION 60

#1732771829610

5270-453: The song was not recognized as a hit, however; Broadway producer Jesse Lasky was uncertain about using it, although he did include it in his "Follies" show. It was performed as an instrumental but did not impress audiences, and was soon dropped from the show's score. Berlin regarded it as a failure. He then wrote lyrics to the score, played it again in another Broadway review, and this time Variety news weekly called it "the musical sensation of

5355-449: The songs he heard while selling papers, and people would toss him some coins. He confessed to his mother one evening that his newest ambition in life was to become a singing waiter in a saloon. From this he stepped up to work as a song plugger and singing waiter in cafes and restaurants in the downtown areas of New York City. His first lyric, written with a café pianist, earned him a royalty of thirty-seven cents. However, before Berlin

5440-508: The songs remain the focus of the show (for example, Closer Than Ever by Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire ). This type of revue usually showcases songs written by a particular composer or songs made famous by a particular performer. Examples of the former are Side By Side By Sondheim (music/lyrics Stephen Sondheim ), Eubie! ( Eubie Blake ) Tom Foolery ( Tom Lehrer ), and Five Guys Named Moe (songs made popular by Louis Jordan ). The eponymous nature of these later revues suggest

5525-525: The songs were for the new dances then appearing, such as the grizzly bear , chicken walk , or foxtrot . After a Hawaiian dance craze began, he wrote "That Hula-Hula", and then did a string of Southern songs, such as "When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam". During this period, he was creating a few new songs every week, including songs aimed at the various immigrant cultures arriving from Europe. On one occasion, Berlin, whose face

5610-785: The stage. The lavish films, noted by many for a sustained opulence unrivaled in Hollywood until the 1950s epics, reached a breadth of audience never found by the stage revue, all while significantly underpricing the now-faltering theatrical shows. A number of revues were released by the studios, many of which were filmed entirely (or partly) in color. The most notable examples of these are The Show of Shows ( Warner Brothers , 1929), The Hollywood Revue of 1929 ( Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , 1929), Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 ( Fox Film Corporation , 1929), Paramount on Parade ( Paramount , 1930), New Movietone Follies of 1930 (Fox, 1930), and King of Jazz ( Universal , 1930). Even Britain jumped on

5695-560: The street, hoping people would pitch him a few pennies. From these seamy surroundings, he became streetwise, with real and lasting education. Music was his only source of income, and he picked up the language and culture of the ghetto lifestyle. Berlin learned what kind of songs appealed to audiences, writes Bergreen: "well-known tunes expressing simple sentiments were the most reliable." He soon began plugging songs at Tony Pastor 's Music Hall in Union Square and, in 1906, when he

5780-484: The suggestion of his then-wife, the actress and singer Anna Held . The shows' producers were turn-of-the-twentieth-century producing titans Klaw and Erlanger . The Follies were a series of lavish revues, something between later Broadway shows and the more elaborate high class vaudeville and variety show . The first follies, The Follies of 1907 , was produced that year at the Jardin de Paris roof theatre. During

5865-607: The trophy six times each. The cup is not officially endorsed by Moira Stuart herself. a. In 2019, the judges ironically declared Imperial College School of Medicine the winners, because they could not decide which of The MDs Comedy Revue or The Zebraphiles were the funnier. b. The 2002 UH Revue was a showcase of each Medical School's Revue societies, with the competition element brought in from 2003. Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin ; Yiddish : ישראל ביילין ; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989)

5950-413: The vogue for "ragtime", but later inspired a major motion picture. 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' is a public menace....Hysteria is the form of insanity that an abnormal love for ragtime seems to produce. It is as much a mental disease as acute mania—it has the same symptoms. When there is nothing done to check this form it produces idiocy. — Dr. Ludwig Gruener German newspaper story Berlin rose as

6035-450: The words of his songs. A lyric he had submitted to a publisher was thought to be complete with music. Not wishing to lose the sale, Berlin quickly wrote a melody. It was accepted and published. The success of this first effort opened the door to his career as a composer of music as well as lyrics. In 1910, Berlin wrote a hit that solidly established him as one of Tin Pan Alley's leading composers. Alexander's Ragtime Band not only popularized

6120-677: Was 18, got a job as a singing waiter at the Pelham Cafe in Chinatown . Besides serving drinks, he sang made-up " blue " parodies of hit songs to the delight of customers. Biographer Charles Hamm writes that in Berlin's free time after hours, he taught himself to play the piano. Never having had lessons, after the bar closed for the night, young Berlin would sit at a piano in the back and begin improvising tunes. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", written in collaboration with

6205-526: Was a hit for Rudy Vallée in 1929, and in 1937, updated to a four-quarter-time swing arrangement, was a top hit for Tommy Dorsey . It was on the charts at no. 13 in 1953 for The Four Tunes and at no. 15 for the Bachelors in 1965, 36 years after its first appearance. Rudy Vallée performed it on his radio show, and the song was a hit for George Olsen , Connee Boswell (she was still known as Connie), and Ozzie Nelson 's band. Aretha Franklin produced

6290-568: Was an American composer and songwriter. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook . Berlin received numerous honors including an Academy Award , a Grammy Award , and a Tony Award . He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Gerald R. Ford in 1977. Broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite stated he "helped write the story of this country, capturing the best of who we are and

6375-490: Was drafted into the United States Army , and his induction became headline news, with one paper headline reading, "Army Takes Berlin!" But the Army wanted Berlin, now aged 30, to do what he knew best: write songs. While stationed with the 152nd Depot Brigade at Camp Upton , he then composed an all-soldier musical revue titled Yip Yip Yaphank , written as a patriotic tribute to the United States Army . The show

6460-610: Was fourteen his meager income was still adding less than his sisters' to the family's budget, which made him feel worthless. He then decided to leave home and join the city's ragged army of other young immigrants. He lived in the Bowery, taking up residence in one of the lodging houses that sheltered the thousands of other homeless boys in the Lower East Side . Bergreen describes them as being uncharitable living quarters, " Dickensian in their meanness, filth, and insensitivity to ordinary human beings." Having left school around

6545-449: Was getting known on Broadway with his own songs. When Berlin ended with Cohan's "Yankee Doodle Boy", notes Whitcomb, "everybody in the joint applauded the feisty little fellow." Max Winslow (c. 1883–1942), a staff member at music publisher Harry Von Tilzer Company, noticed Berlin's singing on many occasions and became so taken with his talent that he tried to get him a job with his firm. Von Tilzer said that Max claimed to have "discovered

6630-447: Was his first ballad. It was an immediate popular hit and sold more than a million copies. He began to realize that ragtime was not a good musical style for serious romantic expression, and over the next few years adapted his style by writing more love songs. In 1915 he wrote the hit "I Love a Piano", a comical and erotic ragtime love song. By 1918 he had written hundreds of songs, mostly topical, which enjoyed brief popularity. Many of

6715-490: Was modeled after Ziegfeld Girl Lillian Lorraine , who suffered a drunken fall into the orchestra pit during an extravagant number. In 1946 MGM released a third feature film based on Ziegfeld's shows titled Ziegfeld Follies with Fred Astaire , Judy Garland , Lena Horne , William Powell (as Ziegfeld), Gene Kelly , Fanny Brice , Red Skelton , Esther Williams , Cyd Charisse , Lucille Ball , Kathryn Grayson , and others performing songs and sketches similar to those from

6800-436: Was performed by Al Jolson in the first feature sound film, The Jazz Singer , that same year. In 1946, it returned to the top 10 on the charts with Count Basie and Benny Goodman . In 1978, Willie Nelson made the song a no. 1 country hit, 52 years after it was written. An instant standard with one of Berlin's most "intricately syncopated choruses", this song is associated with Fred Astaire , who sang and danced to it in

6885-423: Was still not known, was on a train trip and decided to entertain the fellow passengers with some music. They asked him how he knew so many hit songs, and Berlin modestly replied, "I wrote them." An important song that Berlin wrote during his transition from writing ragtime to lyrical ballads was " A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody ", which became one of Berlin's "first big guns", says historian Alec Wilder . The song

6970-399: Was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp; he used his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever when he needed to play in keys other than F-sharp. He was known for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular: uncomplicated, simple and direct, with his stated aim being to "reach the heart of the average American," who he saw as the "real soul of

7055-458: Was taken to Broadway where it also included a number of hits, including " Mandy " and " Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning ", which Berlin performed himself. The shows earned $ 150,000 for a camp service center. One song he wrote for the show but decided not to use, he would introduce 20 years later: "God Bless America". Berlin returned to Tin Pan Alley after the war and in 1921 created

7140-487: Was the year's top-grossing movie. A subsequent Broadway revival in 2022 and 2023 featured Beanie Feldstein and later Lea Michele as Brice and Peter Francis James as Ziegfeld. The 1971 Stephen Sondheim musical Follies takes place at a reunion of showgirls from the Weissman Follies , a fictional revue inspired by the Ziegfeld Follies . In addition to featuring "ghosts" of statuesque showgirls from

7225-454: Was written for Ziegfeld 's Follies of 1919 and became the musical's lead song. Its popularity was so great that it later became the theme for all of Ziegfeld's revues, and the theme song in the 1936 film The Great Ziegfeld . Wilder puts it on the same level as Jerome Kern 's "pure melodies", and in comparison with Berlin's earlier music, says it is "extraordinary that such a development in style and sophistication should have taken place in

#609390