| 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.
Jerome Kern was born in New York City. His parents 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).
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". The musical Roberta (1933) gave us "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes".
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.
Jerome Kern died at the age of 60 in New York.
External link
- Jerome Kern's biography (http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibit_home_page.asp?exhibitId=67) at the "Songwriters
Hall of Fame".
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