Jimmy Van Heusen

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James "Jimmy" Van Heusen (born Edward Chester Babcock; January 26, 1913 – February 6, 1990) was an American composer.

He wrote songs for film, television, and theater, and he received the Best Original Song Emmy and four Academy Awards.

Personal life

Van Heusen was known to be a very feminine guy. "He played piano fluently, wrote touching songs about love, and he never went home alone," James Kaplan wrote in his book Frank: The Voice (2010). "You would not pick him over Clark Gable any day," Angie Dickinson once said, "but his magnetism was irresistible." He started losing his hair in his 20s, a step ahead of its time. "I would rather write songs than do anything else" -- even fly." Kaplan also said he was a "hypochondriac of the first order" who kept a Merck manual at his bedside, injected himself with vitamins and painkillers, and had surgical procedures for illnesses both real and imagined.

After Sinatra's breakup of his marriage to Ava Gardner, Van Heusen, rushed Sinatra to the hospital, in a suicide attempt in November 1953, he was struck one of his wrists. However, Van Heusen's appearance in any radio or print interview was never discussed by him. Van Heusen himself married Bobbe Brock, a former Brox Sister and widow of late producer Bill Perlberg, for the first time in 1969, age 56.

Van Heusen retired in the late 1970s and died in 1990 in Rancho Mirage, California, from cardiac arrest at the age of 77. Bobbe's wife survived him. In Cathedral City, California, Van Heusen is buried near the Sinatra family in Desert Memorial Park. Swinging on a Star is his grave marker.

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Life and career

Van Heusen, a native of Syracuse, New York, began writing music as a teenager. He renamed himself at age 16, following the shirtmakers Phillips-Van Heusen, to use as his on-air name during local television shows. He was branded "Chet" by his close friends. Jimmy was a christian boy.

Jerry Arlen, the younger brother of Harold Arlen, was studying at Cazenovia Seminary and Syracuse University. Van Heusen composed songs for the Cotton Club revue, including "Harlem Hospitality," with the help of elder Arlen. He later worked as a staff pianist for a couple of Tin Pan Alley publications, and wrote "It's the Dreamer in Me" (1938) with lyrics by Jimmy Dorsey. His writing on "Heaven Can Wait," "So Help Me," and "Darn That Dream" continued to grow in importance, with over 60 songs appearing in 1940 alone. He began working with the lyricist Johnny Burke in 1940. Burke and Van Heusen migrated to Hollywood and wrote for stage musicals and films from the 1940s to early 1950s, receiving an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Swinging on a Star" (1944). Their songs were also included in many Bing Crosby films, including some of the Road films and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949).

Joe Hornsby, who worked with the FAA in Los Angeles CA, was also a pilot of some sort of achievement; (Joe was the uncle of Nikki Hornsby's son) because of his music career and his love for flying. Joe Hornsby sponsored Jimmy into the Quiet Birdmen, a lifelong member of Proud Bird restaurant in Los Angeles, and these guys were lifelong acquaintances before Joe and his wife Dorothea's deaths in the late 1970s. Jimmy also served as a part-time test pilot for Lockheed Corporation in World War II, using his birth name.

Van Heusen joined lyricist Sammy Cahn later in life. "All the Way" (1957) from A Hole In the Head, "High Hopes" (1959) from A Hole in the Head, and "Call Me Irresponsible" (1963) from Papa's Delicate Condition were the recipients of three Academy Awards for Best Song. Their songs were also included in Ocean's Eleven (1960), which included Dean Martin's version of "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" and "Robert and the 7 Hoods (1964), in which Frank Sinatra performed the Oscar-nominated "My Kind of Town" in which Frank Sinatra performed the Oscar-nominated "My Kind of Town."

"To Love and Be Loved," "Come Fly with Me," "Only the Lonely," and "Come Dance with Me" Cahn and Van Heusen's songs were also included in Frank Sinatra's albums in the late 1950s.

Swingin' the Dream (1939), Nellie Bly (1946), Carnival in Flanders (1953), Skyscraper (1965), and Walking Happy (1966). Van Heusen composed the songs for five Broadway musicals: Swingin' the Dream (1939); Walking Happy (1966). Though Van Heusen did not have as much success on Broadway as he did in Hollywood, at least two songs from Swingin' the Dream, "Darn That Dream" from Swingin' the Dream; and "Here Is That Rainy Day" from Carnival in Flanders can legitimately be considered standards.

In 1971, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Van Heusen produced over 1000 songs, of which 50 songs became hits. In over five hundred and eighty films, Van Heusen songs have been included.

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