Jerome Kern

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Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885-November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music.

"I Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "A Fine Romance," "All the Things You Are," "The Way You Look Tonight," "It's You"" and "Who?" One of the twentieth century's most influential American theatre composers. "All our lives are in danger."

Including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Ira Gershwin, and Yip Harburg, he collaborated with many of the best librettists and lyricists of his time, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, P. G. Wodehouse, P. G. Wodehouse, P. G. Kern, a native New Yorker, produced scores of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in a career that spanned more than four decades.

His musical innovations, such as 4/4 dance rhythms and the use of syncopation and jazz progressions, were based on, rather than rejecting, earlier musical theatre history.

His collaborators and his associates also used his melodies to expand or develop character to a greater degree than in other musicals of his day, giving the model for later musicals.

Although scores of Kern's musicals and musical films were flops, only Show Boat has been revived regularly.

However, songs from his other shows are still being performed and adapted.

Many of Kern's songs have been adapted by jazz players to become standard tunes.

Early life

Kern was born in New York City, on Sutton Place, in what was then the city's brewery district. Henry Kern (1842–1908), a Jewish German immigrant, and Fannie Kern née Kakeles (1852–1907), an American Jew of Bohemian descent, were his parents. His father was a livery stable when Kern's birth; later, he became a successful merchant. Kern grew up on East 56th Street in Manhattan, where he attended public schools. He demonstrated an early aptitude for music and was taught by his mother, a professional musician and tutor, to play the piano and organ.

The family moved to Newark, New Jersey, where Kern attended Newark High School (which later became Barringer High School in 1907). He wrote songs for the school's first musical, a minstrel exhibition, in 1901, and for an amateur musical interpretation of Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Newark Yacht Club in January 1902. Kern left high school before graduation in 1902's spring. Kern's father, not composing, in reaction, insisted that his son work with him in company rather than composing. Kern, on the other hand, was to order two pianos for the store, but instead he ordered 200. Kern's father relented, and later in 1902, he was a student at the New York College of Music, studying the piano under Alexander Lambert and Paolo Gallico, and harmony under Dr. Austin Pierce. At the Casino, his first published composition, a piano piece, appeared in the same year. He continued his musical studies under private tutors in Heidelberg, Germany, from 1903 to 1905, then returning to New York via London.

Kern served as a rehearsal pianist in Broadway theatres and as a song-plugger for Tin Pan Alley music publishers for a time. While in London, he was offered by American impresario Charles Frohman to write songs for interpolation in Broadway versions of London shows. In 1904, he started providing these additions to British scores for An English Daisy, by Seymour Hicks and Walter Slaughter, as well as Mr. Wix of Wickham, for which he wrote the majority of the songs.

Kern wrote "How'd you like to spoon with me?" in 1905. When the show travelled to Chicago and New York in 1905, it was compared to Ivan Caryll's hit musical The Earl and the Girl. He appeared in The Catch of the Season (1905), The Little Cherub (1906), and The Orchid (1907), among other things. From 1905 to 2007, he spent time in London, contributing songs to West End shows like The Beauty of Bath (1906), including George Grossmith Jr. and Seymour Hicks, who were among the first to bring Kern's songs to the London stage. Kern took a boat ride on the River Thames with some relatives in 1909, and when the boat stopped at Walton-on-Thames, they went to an inn named the Swan for a drink. Kern's daughter, Eva Leale (1891–1959), was a hit in the restaurant and tended to the bar. He courted her and married her at the Anglican church of St. Mary's in Walton on October 25, 1910. When Kern was in England, the couple lived at the Swan.

Kern is said to have composed music for silent films as early as 1912, but the first documented film music he wrote for, Gloria's Romance, appeared in 1916. Billie Burke's debut was one of the first starring vehicles for the singer, who had earlier written the song "Mind the Paint" with lyrics by A. W. Pinero. Kern's music is now considered lost, but the film's soundtrack has survived. Jubilo, 1919, was the second score for the silent films, followed by 1919. Kern was one of ASCAP's founding members.

The Red Petticoat (1912), one of the first musical-comedy Westerns, was Kern's first complete score. Rida Johnson Young was the libretto's first libretto. More than a hundred of Kern's songs had been used in about thirty performances, mainly Broadway adaptations of West End and European shows by WWI. Kern performed two songs in To-Night's the Night (1914), another Rubens musical. It began in New York and then soared to become a hit in London. "They Didn't Believe Me," Kern's best-known of Kern's songs from this period, was probably the best known of the Paul Rubens and Sidney Jones musical "The Girl from Utah (1914), for which Kern wrote five songs. Kern's song, which came with four beats to a bar, deviated from the traditional European waltz-rhythms and brought a new American passion for modern dances, such as the fox-trot. In his lively dance tunes, he was also able to use elements of American styles, such as ragtime, as well as syncopation. Kern put the song on Broadway and established a pattern for musical comedy love songs that survived through the 1960s, according to theatre historian John Kenrick.

Kern was supposed to sail with Charles Frohman from New York to London on the RMS Lusitania in May 1915, but Kern was unable to board because he was late playing poker. In the ship's sinking, Frohman died.

Kern wrote 16 Broadway scores between 1915 and 1920, as well as contributing songs to the London hit Theodore & Co (1916); the majority of the songs are by the young Ivor Novello) and to revues like the Ziegfeld Follies. His most notable of his performances were those for a series of shows written for the Princess Theatre, a tiny (299-seat) house built by Ray Comstock. Kern and librettist Guy Bolton were commissioned by the operatist Elisabeth Marbury to produce a string of intimate and low-budget yet sophisticated musicals.

The "Princess Theatre performances" on Broadway were unique not only for their tiny size, but also for their imaginative, cohesive scores, and naturalistic performances, which provided "a striking contrast to Ruritanian operettas then in vogue" or producer Maxim Ziegfeld's huge scale productions and extravaganzas. An earlier musical comedy had often been thinly planned, gaudy pieces, whose introduction of songs was often traced back to their scores without regard to the plot. Kern and Bolton, on the other hand, followed Gilbert and Sullivan's example in combining song and tale, as well as French opéra bouffe. "These shows developed and polished the mold from which virtually all subsequent major musical comedies developed." ... The characters and situations were, within the bounds of a musical comedy license, believable, and the comedic humor came from the characters' circumstances or the nature of the characters. Kern's ethereally flowing melodies were used to push the action or create characterization." To fit the small theater, the shows featured modern American settings and simple scene changes.

Mr. Popple (of Ippleton), Paul Rubens' 1905 London show, called Nobody Home (1915). The piece was a modest financial success until it was released. However, it didn't do anything to support the new team's quest to innovate, except that Kern's song, "The Magic Melody," was the first Broadway showtune to feature a basic jazz progression. Kern and Bolton created Very Good Eddie, a surprise hit, with further touring performances that continued into the 1918-19 season. P. G. Wodehouse, a British humorist, lyricist, and librettist, joined the Princess team in 1917, lending his talents as a lyricist to the succeeding shows.

Oh, Boy!

(1917) The Grand Canyon produced an astonishing 463 performances. Also performed for the stage were Have a Heart (1917), Leave It to Jane (1917), and Oh, Lady!

Lady!!

(1918) A.K.A. (1918). The first performance at another theater opened before Very Good Eddie closed. During the long run of Oh Boy, the second appeared elsewhere. An anonymous admirer wrote a verse in their praise that begins:

Dorothy Parker wrote in Vanity Fair in February 1918: Dorothy Parker wrote in Vanity Fair: "Itis is a girl from Spain."

Oh, Lady!

Lady!!

It was the last good "Princess Theatre performance" at the time. Kern and Wodehouse disagreed over money, and the composer decided to move to other projects. The fate of the series's last musical, Oh, My Dear!, illustrated Kern's importance to the relationship. (1918), to which he contributed only one song: "Go, Little Boat." "Despite a respectable run, most people understood there was no point in continuing the show without Kern."

Kern produced at least one show every year for the entire decade in the 1920s, and the 1920s were a breakthrough in American musical theatre. The Night Boat, Anne Caldwell's book and lyrics, was his first show of 1920, and it toured for more than 300 performances in New York and three seasons on tour. Kern wrote the score for Sally later this year, with a Bolton book and lyrics by Otto Harbach. This show, directed by Florenz Ziegfeld, lasted for 570 performances, one of the longest runs of any Broadway show in the decade, and spawned the phrase "Look for the Silver Lining" (which had been written for a younger audience) during the rising star Marilyn Miller's run. Good Morning, Dearie (1921, with Caldwell), followed by a West End revival, The Cabaret Girl (1922), and a Broadway flop, The Bunch and Judy, as the first time Kern and Fred Astaire worked together in London in 1921.

Stepping Stones (1923, with Caldwell) was a success, and in 1924, the Princess Theatre company of Bolton, Wodehouse, and Kern revived to write Sitting Pretty, but it did not capture the earlier collaborations' success. Kern's growing resistance to individual songs from his shows being broadcast on radio, in cabaret, or on record, although his primary objection was to jazz interpretations of his songs. "I write music to both the scenes and the lyrics in plays," he said. Sitting Pretty was created, he banned any broadcasting or recording of individual numbers from the show, which diminished their chances of gaining fame.

When Kern first met Oscar Hammerstein II in 1925, he was a turning point in his career, with whom he'd enjoy a lifelong friendship and cooperation. Kern had been a good companion with a warm smile and humour throughout his teenage years, but in his middle years, he became less outgoing, making it more difficult to work with: "I hear you're a son of a bitch." I'm sure I am." He rarely collaborated with any one lyricist for long. Hammerstein, on the other hand, remained on good terms for the remainder of his life. Sunny's first performance, written in collaboration with Harbach, featured the song "Who (Stole My Heart Away)?" As she did in Sally, Marilyn Miller portrayed herself in the role of title. The performance on Broadway lasted for 517 performances, and the following year, Binnie Hale and Jack Buchanan appeared in 363 shows in the West End, starring Binnie Hale and Jack Buchanan.

Ziegfeld was able to invest on Kern's next project in 1927 due to his continued success with Sally and Sunny's and consistent good results with his other shows. Kern was captivated by Edna Ferber's book Show Boat and wanted to stage a musical stage version. Hammerstein begged him to convert it and Ziegfeld to produce it. The tale, which dealt with racial inebriation, marital strife, and alcoholism, was unheard of in the escapist era of musical comedy. Despite his reservations, Ziegfeld spared no expense in staging the work to give it the full epic grandeur. "After the first night audience erupted out of the Ziegfeld Theatre in near silence, Ziegfeld expressed the worst fears after the opening night audience was revealed," the theater historian John Kenrick said. He was pleasantly surprised when the next morning had ecstatic reviews and long lines at the box office. In fact, Show Boat was the most lasting achievement of Ziegfeld's career, as it is the only one of his shows that is regularly performed today." The score is, in many ways, Kern's best, and includes "Ol' Man River" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "Life on the Wicked Stage," "Why Do I Love You" and "Why Do I Love You," as well as "How Does She Love You," all with lyrics by Hammerstein. P.G. Wodehouse's lyrics are a Lady! The production, which was also a success in London, lasted for 572 performances on Broadway and was also a hit in London. Despite Ferber's novel being shot in 1929 as a part-talkie (using some tracks from the Kern score), the musical itself was shot twice, and in 1951, with Technicolor. In 1989, a stage version of the musical was shown for the first time on television in a PBS on Great Performances production.

Although most Kern musicals have been forgotten, except for their songs, Show Boat's been well-remembered and often seen. It has been revived on Broadway and in London several times, and it has been revived several times. In the style of a Rodgers and Hammerstein production, a 1946 revival brought choreography into the display, as did the 1994 Harold Prince-Susan Stroman revival, which received five of the highest awards, including best revival. It was the first musical to perform in a major opera company's repertory (New York City Opera, 1954), and Robert Russell Bennett's revival of the 1927 score spawned a large-scale EMI recording in 1987 and several opera-house productions. Artur Rodziski, the conductor, wanted to commission a symphonic suite from the score in 1941, but Kern considered himself a composer, not a symphonist. He never planned his own scores, leaving it to musical assistants, including Frank Saddler (until 1921) and Robert Russell Bennett (from 1923). Kern oversaw an arrangement for Orchestral Scenario for Orchestra, which premiered in 1941 by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Rodziski.

Sweet Adeline (1929), with a libretto by Hammerstein, was Kern's last Broadway performance in the 1920s. It was a period piece set in the Gay 90s about a girl from Hoboken, New Jersey (near Kern's childhood home), who would become a Broadway actor. Its opening just before the stock market crash, it received rave reviews, but the intricate, old-fashioned piece was a step behind the Show Boat or even the Princess Theatre shows. Kern made national news on both directions of the Atlantic in January 1929, at the height of the Jazz Age, and with Show Boat still playing on Broadway. The collection of English and American literature that he had been building up for more than a decade was sold at auction at Anderson Galleries in New York. The collection, which is a record for a single-owner auction that lasted for more than 50 years, sold for a whopping $1,729,462.50 (equivalent to $27,292,653 in 2021). Among the books he sold were first or early editions of poems by Robert Burns and Persshe Shelley, Henry Fielding, and Charles Dickens, as well as Alexander Pope's, John Keats, Shelley, Thomas Hardy, and others.

Kern made his first trip to Hollywood in 1929 to direct Sally's 1929 film version, one of the first "all-talking" Technicolor films. He appeared on Men of the Sky for the second time in 1931, without his songs, and a 1930 film version of Sunny. Following the appearance of film sound, there was a public reaction against the early rise of film musicals; Hollywood released more than 100 musical films in 1930, but only 14 in 1931. Warner Bros. inherited Kern's service and returned to the stage. He worked with Harbach on the Broadway musical "The Cat and the Fiddle (1931), about a composer and an opera performer, and "She Didn't Say Yes" and "The Night Was Made for Love," among other items. It was a hit in the Depression years and then moved to London the following year. Jeanette MacDonald appeared in 1934 and was shot on film.

Music in the Air (1932) was another Kern-Hammerstein partnership and another show-biz venture, best remembered today for "The Song Is You" and "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star." It was "unquestionably an opera" set in the German countryside, but not with the Ruritanian trimmings of Kern's youth operettas. Roberta (1933) by Kern and Harbach included "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Let's Begin," and "Yesterdays" and "Yesterdays," among other things, Bob Hope, Fred MacMurray, George Murphy, and Sydney Greenstreet all appeared in early stages of their careers. Kern's Three Sisters (1934), his last West End performance, with a libretto by Hammerstein. The musical, which portrays horse-racing, the circus, and class distinctions, was a failure, running for just two months. In the film Roberta, the song "I Won't Dance" was used. Any British writers opposed to an American writer's essay in a British newspaper; James Agate, doyen of London theatre critics of the day, dismissed it as "American inanity," despite the fact that both Kern and Hammerstein were strong and knowledgeable Anglophils. Kern's last Broadway performance (other than revivals) was Very Warm for May (1939), another show-biz tale and another disappointment, despite the fact that the score included the Kern and Hammerstein classic "All The Things You Are."

Kern returned to Hollywood, where he composed the scores to a dozen more films in 1935, when musical films had resurfaced, thanks to Busby Berkeley's influence, although he kept appearing on Broadway productions. In 1937, he settled in Hollywood permanently. He was told by his doctors to concentrate on film scores, which was less challenging because Hollywood songwriters were not as concerned with the creation of their works as Broadway songwriters as songwriters. Kern's second phase of his Hollywood career had much greater artistic and commercial success than the first. He wrote songs for the film versions of his recent Broadway shows Music in the Air (1934), which starred Gloria Swanson in a rare singing role, and Sweet Adeline (1935). He co-created the new music for I Dream Too Much (1935), a musical melodrama about the opera world starring Metropolitan Opera diva Lily Pons. Kern and Fields interspersed the opera numbers with their songs, including "The Swing 'I Got Love,' the lullaby 'The Jockey on the Carousel,' and the entrancing title tune." He also wrote "I Won't Dance" and "Lovely to Look At" for the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film version of Roberta (1935), which was also a hit. The song "I'll Be a Struggle" was also included on the program. Lovely to Look At was a 1952 revival of This Believing to Look At.

Swing Time (1936) was their next film, which included the song "The Way You Look Tonight," which received the Academy Award in 1936 for the best song. "A Fine Romance," "Pick Yourself Up," and "Never Gonna Dance" are among Swing Time's other tracks. Swing Time is listed as "a solid candidate for the best of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals," the Oxford Companion to the American Musical. ... Despite the fact that the film is regarded as one of the best dance performances of the 1930s, it also has one of the best film scores of the 1930s. Kern and Hammerstein wrote three new songs for Show Boat's 1936 film version, "I Have the Room Above Her" and "Ah Still Suits Me." The High, Wide, and Handsome (1937) was intentionally similar in plot and style to Show Boat, but it was a box-office failure. Kern songs were also used in the Cary Grant film When You're in Love (1937) and the first Abbott and Costello film, One Night in the Tropics (1940). Hammerstein wrote the poem "The Last Time I Saw Paris" in 1940, in tribute to the French capital, which had recently occupied by the Germans. Kern set it, the only time he had written lyric and his only hit song not included in a musical. Originally a hit for Tony Martin and then for Nol Coward, the song was used in the film Lady Be Well (1941), and it received another Oscar for Best Song. Kern's second and final symphonic work was his 'Mark Twain Suite (1942).

Kern starred with many new and established collaborators in his last Hollywood musicals. "You Were Never Lovelier (1942), Johnny Mercer's "a series of memorable songs to entertain audiences until the plot came to an end." Astaire and Rita Hayworth appeared in the film, as well as the song "I'm Old Fashioned." Kern's next collaboration was with Ira Gershwin on Cover Girl (1944), in which Kern performed "Sure Thing," "Make Way for Tomorrow," lyric by E. Y. Harburg), and the hit ballad "Long Ago (and Far Away)" starred Hayworth and Gene Kelly (1944). Can't Help Singing (1944), a Deanna Durbin Western musical, with lyrics by Harburg, Kern, "provided the best original score of Durbin's career," 'Any Moment Now,' 'Swing Your Partner,'More and More,' and the lilting title number." More than "More and More" had been nominated for an Academy Award.

Kern's last film score, Centennial Summer (1946), "the songs were as resplendent as the plot and characters were mediocre." ... Oscar Hammerstein, Leo Robin, and E. Y. Harburg wrote lyrics for Kern's enchanting music, resulting in the 'All Through the Day,' the cheerful 'Up With the Lark,' and the torchy 'In Love in Vain.' Another Oscar nominee for "All Through the Day" was "All Through the Day." Kern's last two films' music differs from his earlier works. Any of it was too advanced for the film companies; Kern's biographer, Stephen Banfield, refers to "tonal experimentation... outlandish enharmonics" that the studios insisted on eliminating. At the same time, his music came full circle: he came from youth, helped to bring an end to the reigns of the waltz and opera opera, as well as "Up With the Lark," which were two of his finest waltzes ("Can't Help Singing"), the first with a distinctly operetta-like appearance.

Kern and his partner, Eva, enjoyed their yacht Show Boat trips often. He collected rare books and loved betting on horses. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a fictionalized version of Kern's life, Till the Clouds Roll By, was released in 1946, starring Robert Walker as Kern. Kern's songs are performed by Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, June Allyson, Lena Horne, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury, among others, and Gower Champion and Cyd Charisse appear as dancers in the film. A number of the biographical details have been fictionalized.

Kern returned to New York City in the fall of 1945 to oversee auditions for a new revival of Show Boat, as well as the production of Annie Get Your Gun by Rodgers and Hammerstein. On November 5, 1945, when he was 60 years old, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while walking at the corner of Park Avenue and 57th Street. Kern was first admitted to the indigent ward at City Hospital and then moved to Doctors Hospital in Manhattan, but was only identified by his ASCAP card. When Kern's breathing came to a halt, Hammerstein was by his side. Hammerstein turned "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star" from Music in the Air (a personal favorite of the composer's) into Kern's ear. Hammerstein realized Kern had died after receiving no response. Annie Get Your Gun by Rodgers and Hammerstein followed the composer Irving Berlin's assignment of writing the score for Annie Get Your Gun.

Kern is laid to rest at Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester County, New York. Betty Jane (1913-1996) married Artie Shaw in 1942 and later Jack Cummings. Kern's wife later remarried, to George Byron, a songwriter.

Early 1920s

Kern produced at least one show every year for the entire decade during the 1920s, an extremely lucrative period in American musical theatre. Anne Caldwell's first show of 1920, The Night Boat, with book and lyrics by Anne Caldwell, lasted for more than 300 performances in New York and three seasons on tour. Kern penned the score for Sally, a Bolton book and lyrics by Otto Harbach later this year. This performance, directed by Florenz Ziegfeld, ran for 570 performances, one of the longest runs of any Broadway show in the decade, and popularized the phrase "Look for the Silver Lining" (which had been written for a previous performance) performed by rising star Marilyn Miller. It was also a long history in London (1921, with Caldwell), followed by a West End revival, The Cabaret Girl (1922), and a Broadway flop, The Bunch and Judy, as the first time Kern and Fred Astaire met together (1921).

Stepping Stones (1923, with Caldwell) was a success, and the Princess Theatre Company of Bolton, Wodehouse, and Kern reformed to write Sitting Pretty, but it did not capture the initial enthusiasm of the earlier collaborations. Kern's increasing resistance to seeing individual songs from his shows perform on radio, in cabaret, or on record, although his main objection was to jazz interpretations of his songs. "I write music to both the scenes and the lyrics in plays," he described himself as a "musical clothier." When Sitting Pretty was introduced, he prohibited any broadcasting or recording of individual numbers from the program, which limited their potential to grow in popularity.

When Kern first met Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he would continue to have a lifelong friendship and collaboration, it would be a turning point in his career. Kern had been a good companion with a swanky smile and humour in his middle years, but he became more outgoing in his middle years, making it difficult to work with: "I hear you're a son of a bitch," he said. I am, as well. He rarely collaborated with any one lyricist for long. Hammerstein, on the other hand, stayed on close terms for the remainder of his life. Sunny was their first performance, written in collaboration with Harbach, and it featured the song "Who (Stole My Heart Away)?" As she had in Sally, Marilyn Miller played the title role. The show lasted 517 performances on Broadway and the West End in 2003, starring Binnie Hale and Jack Buchanan.

Ziegfeld was able to gamble on Kern's next project in 1927 due to the strong success of Sally and Sunny and consistent good results with his other shows. Kern was captivated by Edna Ferber's book Show Boat and wanted to produce a musical stage version. Hammerstein was persuaded to modify it and Ziegfeld was hired to produce it. In the escapist world of musical comedy, the tale, which was about racial strife and alcoholism, was unheard of. Despite his skepticism, Ziegfeld spared no expense in staging the work to bring it to its full epic grandeur. "After the first night audience poured out of the Ziegfeld Theatre in near silence, Zaegfeld's worst worries had been confirmed," the theatre historian John Kenrick said." When the next morning brought ecstatic reviews and long lines at the box office, he was pleasantly surprised. In fact, Show Boat was the most lasting achievement of Ziegfeld's career – the only one of his shows that is still being produced today." The score includes "Because" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "Life On The Wicket Stage," "Why Do I Love You," and "Why Do I Love You," all with Hammerstein lyrics. P. G. Wodehouse's lyrics are a hit at Lady! The show on Broadway at 572 performances and was also a hit in London. Despite Ferber's book being shot unsuccessfully as a part-talkie in 1929 (using some songs from the Kern score), the musical itself was shot twice in 1936 and 1951, with Technicolor. In 1989, a stage version of the musical was shown on television for the first time in a PBS On Great Performances production.

Though most Kern musicals have been forgotten, other than for their songs, Show Boat's history is well-remembered and often seen. It has long been a staple of stock productions and has been revived several times on Broadway and London. The 1946 revival brought choreography into the display, as did the 1994 Harold Prince-Susan Stroman revival, which received five awards, including best revival. It was the first musical to perform in a major opera company's repertory (New York City Opera, 1954), and the discovery of the 1927 score by Robert Russell Bennett's original orchestrations led to a large-scale EMI recording in 1987 and several opera-house performances. Artur Rodziski, the conductor, wanted to commission a symphonic suite from the score in 1941, but Kern considered himself a composer rather than a symphonist. He never orchestrated his own scores, leaving that to musical assistants, notably Frank Saddler (until 1921) and Robert Russell Bennett (from 1923). Kern oversaw an agreement for Orchestral works Scenario for Orchestra, conducted by Rodzienski in 1941.

Sweet Adeline (1929), with a libretto by Hammerstein, was Kern's last Broadway performance in the 1920s. It was a period piece set in the Gay 1990s about a girl from Hoboken, New Jersey (near Kern's home), who would become a Broadway actress. It was an open-and-coming success that few people had a rave about, but it was far removed from Show Boat's or even the Princess Theatre shows. Kern made news on both directions of the Atlantic in January 1929, right at the height of the Jazz Age, and with Show Boat still playing on Broadway, because it was mainly unconnected with music. He sold the collection of English and American literature at Anderson Galleries in New York, which had been collecting for more than a decade. The collection, which includes inscribed first editions and manuscripts of eighteenth and nineteenth century writers, sold for a total of $1,729,462.50 (equivalent to $27,292,653 in 2021) – a record for a single-owner auction that lasted for more than 50 years. Among his bestsellers were first or early editions of poems by Robert Burns and Persshe Shelley, as well as Alexander Pope, John Keats, Shelley, Thomas Hardy, and others.

Kern's first trip to Hollywood in 1929 was to oversee the 1929 film version of Sally, one of the first "all-talking" Technicolor films. He appeared on Men of the Sky for the second time in 1931 without his songs, as well as a 1930 film version of Sunny. Following the emergence of film sound, there was a public reaction against the early days of film music; Hollywood produced more than 100 musical films in 1930, but only 14 in 1931. Kern's deal was done, and he returned to the stage, so Warner Bros. restored Kern's. He worked with Harbach on "The Cat and the Fiddle (1931), about a composer and an opera performer, which also included the songs "She Didn't Say Yes" and "The Night Was Made for Love." It was a hit in the depression years, and it was moved to London the following year. Jeanette MacDonald was filming in 1934 with Jeanette MacDonald.

Music in the Air (1932) was another Kern-Hammerstein collaboration and another show-biz venture, best remembered today for "The Song Is You" and "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star" (It's). It was "unquestionably an operetta" set in the German countryside, but without the Ruritanian trimmings of Kern's youth's operettas. Roberta (1933) by Kern and Harbach included "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Let's Begin," and "Yesterdays" and others in their early days, including Bob Hope, Fred MacMurray, George Murphy, and Sydney Greenstreet. Kern's Three Sisters (1934) was his last West End performance, with a libretto by Hammerstein. The musical, which depicts horse-racing, the circus, and class distinctions, was a failure, running for only two months. In the film Roberta, the song "I Won't Dance" was used. Any British writers opposed to an American writer's essay in a British newspaper; James Agate, doyen of London theatre critics of the day, dismissed it as "American inanity," though Kern and Hammerstein were strong and knowledgeable Anglophils. Kern's last Broadway performance (other than revivals) was Very Warm for May (1939), another show-biz tale and another disappointment, despite the fact that the score included the Kern and Hammerstein classic "All the Things You Are."

Kern returned to Hollywood in 1935, when musical films had returned to Hollywood, where he composed the scores to a dozen more films, although he also worked on Broadway productions. In 1937, he settled in Hollywood permanently. After suffering a heart attack in 1939, he was advised by his doctors to concentrate on film scores, a less challenging challenge since Hollywood songwriters were not as involved in the creation of their works as Broadway songwriters. Kern's second phase of his Hollywood career had a much higher artistic and commercial success than the first. He wrote songs for the film versions of his latest Broadway shows Music in the Air (1934), which starred Gloria Swanson in a rare singing role, and Sweet Adeline (1935). He coproduced the new music for I Dream Too Much (1935), a musical melodrama about the opera world starring Metropolitan Opera diva Lily Pons, with Dorothy Fields. Kern and Fields interspersed the opera numbers with their songs, including "The Swing 'I Got Love,' the lullaby 'The Jockey,' and the entrancing title tune." He co-wrote "I Won't Dance" and "Lovely to Look At" for the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film version of Roberta (1935), which was also a hit, as well as Fields. The song "I'll Be a Struggle" was also included on the program. This was a 1952 remake of Lovely to Look At.

The album "The Way You Look Tonight," which received the Academy Award in 1936 for the best song, was included in Swing Time (1936). "A Fine Romance," "Pick Yourself Up," and "Never Gonna Dance" are among Swing Time's other tracks. Swing Time is "a strong contender for the best of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals," according to the Oxford Companion to the American Musical, although the screenplay was contrived, it "left a lot of space for dance, and all of it was magnificent." ... Although the film is regarded as one of the best dance musicals of the 1930s, it also features one of the finest film scores of the 1930s." Kern and Hammerstein wrote three new songs for the 1936 film version of Show Boat, including "I Have The Room Above Her" and "Ah Still Suits Me." Handsome (1937) was a grand, wide plan and style similar to Show Boat, but it was a box-office failure. Kern songs were also used in the Cary Grant film When You're in Love (1937), and the first Abbott and Costello film, One Night in the Tropics (1940). Hammerstein composed the lyric "The Last Time I Saw Paris" in 1940, in tribute to the French capital, which has since been occupied by the Germans. Kern wrote it, the first time he wrote a pre-written lyric and his only hit song was not published as part of a musical. The song was originally a hit for Tony Martin and later for Nol Coward, and it was also honored in the film Lady Be Well (1941) and received Kern another Award for best song. His 'Mark Twain Suite (1942), Kern's second and last symphonic work, was his.

Kern worked with a number of new and respected partners in his last Hollywood musicals. He performed "a series of hit songs to entertain audiences until the story came to an end" with Johnny Mercer's "You Were Never Lovelier (1942). Astaire and Rita Hayworth appeared in the film, as well as the song "I'm Old Fashioned." Kern's next collaboration was with Ira Gershwin on Cover Girl, starring Hayworth and Gene Kelly (1944), and the hit ballad "Long Ago (and Far Away). Can't Help Singing (1944), a Deanna Durbin Western musical, with lyrics by Harburg, Kern "offered the best original score of Durbin's career," 'Any Moment Now,' 'Swing Your Partner,' 'More and More,' and the lilting title number." For an Academy Award, "More and More" was nominated.

Kern wrote his last film score, Centennial Summer (1946), in which "the songs were as resplendent as the plot and characters were mediocre." ... Oscar Hammerstein, Leo Robin, and E. Y. Harburg all wrote lyrics for Kern's enchanting music, culminating in the 'All Through the Day,' the colorful 'Up With the Lark,' and the torchy 'In Love in Vain.' Another Oscar nominee, "All Through the Day," was on display. Kern's last two films' music is particularly notable in the way it differed from his earlier films. Some of the film companies was too complicated; Kern's biographer, Stephen Banfield, referring to "tonal experimentation... outlandish enharmonics" that the studios insisted on limiting. At the same time, his music came full circle: he helped to bring to an end the reigns of the waltz and operetta, as well as "Up With the Lark," which are the last having a distinct operetta-like style.

Kern and his wife, Eva, enjoyed their yacht Showboat trips. He collected rare books and loved betting on horses. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was filming a fictionalized version of his life, Till the Clouds Roll By, which was released in 1946 and starring Robert Walker as Kern. Kern's songs are performed by Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, June Allyson, Lena Horne, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, and Angela Lansbury, among other things, and Gower Champion and Cyd Charisse appear as dancers in the film. Many of the biographical details are fictionalized.

Kern returned to New York City in the fall of 1945 to oversee auditions for a new showboat revival, and he began to work on the score for Annie Get Your Gun, which would be produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein. On November 5, 1945, when he was 60 years old, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while walking on the corner of Park Avenue and 57th Street. Kern was first admitted to the indigent ward at City Hospital, but it was later transferred to Doctors Hospital in Manhattan, who was only identifiable by his ASCAP card. When Kern's breathing came to a halt, Hammerstein was by his side. Hammerstein hummed or sang "I've Told Little Star" from Music in the Air (a personal favorite of the composer's) into Kern's ear. Hammerstein discovered Kern had died as a result of no response. Rodgers and Hammerstein then assigned the task of composing the score for Annie Get Your Gun by veteran Broadway composer Irving Berlin.

Kern is laid to rest at Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester County, New York, New York. Betty Jane (1913–1996) married Artie Shaw in 1942 and later Jack Cummings. Kern's wife was remarried to George Byron, a singer.

Personal life and death

Kern and his partner, Eva, used to travel by sea on their yacht Showboat. He collected rare books and loved betting on horses. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was filming a fictionalized version of his life, Till the Sun Rolls By, which was released in 1946 starring Robert Walker as Kern. Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, June Allyson, Lena Horne, Lena Horne, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, and Angela Lansbury, among others, appear as dancers in the film, as well as Gower Champion and Cyd Charisse. Many of the biographical facts are fictionalized.

Kern returned to New York City in 1945 to supervise auditions for a new version of Show Boat and began to work on the score for Annie Get Your Gun, which would be produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein. He died of cerebral hemorrhage while walking at the corner of Park Avenue and 57th Street on November 5, 1945. Kern was first admitted to the indigent ward at City Hospital, but later moved to Doctors Hospital in Manhattan, Identifiable only by his ASCAP card. When Kern's breathing was cut, Hammerstein was on his side. Hammerstein hummed or sang the song "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star" from Music in the Air (a personal favorite of the composer's) into Kern's ear. Hammerstein realized Kern had died after receiving no response. The veteran Broadway composer Irving Berlin was then given the challenge of writing the score for Annie Get Your Gun by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Kern is laid to rest at Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester County, New York. Betty Jane (1913-1996) married Artie Shaw in 1942 and Jack Cummings later. Kern's wife later remarried to George Byron, a British singer.

Source

Academy Award for Best Original Song

• 1935 – Nominated for "Lovely to Look At" (lyrics by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh) from Roberta
• 1936 – Won for "The Way You Look Tonight" (lyrics by Dorothy Fields) from Swing Time
• 1941 – Won for "The Last Time I Saw Paris" (lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II) from Lady Be Good
• 1942 – Nominated for "Dearly Beloved" (lyrics by Johnny Mercer) from You Were Never Lovelier.
• 1944 – Nominated for "Long Ago (and Far Away)" (lyrics by Ira Gershwin) from Cover Girl
• 1945 – Posthumously nominated for "More and More" (lyrics by E. Y. Harburg) from Can't Help Singing
• 1946 – Posthumously nominated for "All Through the Day" (lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II) from Centennial Summer.

Academy Award for Best Original Music Score

• 1945 – Posthumously nominated for Can't Help Singing (with H. J. Salter).