- Born
- Died
- Birth nameIsrael Gershowitz
- Height5′ 6″ (1.68 m)
- Legendary, prolific composer, songwriter and author, educated at Townsend Harris Hall, City College of New York, and Columbia University. He began his career as a contributor to newspaper columns, and also worked for a touring carnival. His Broadway stage scores include "Two Little Girls in Blue" (written under the pseudonym 'Arthur Francis'), "Lady Be Good", "Tell Me More", "Tip-Toes", "Oh, Kay", "Funny Face", "Rosalie", "Treasure Girl", "Show Girl", "Strike Up the Band", "Girl Crazy", "Of Thee I Sing" (Pulitzer Prize, 1932), "Let 'Em Eat Cake", "Life Begins at 8:40", "Ziegfeld Follies of 1936", "Lady in the Dark", and "Park Avenue". Joining ASCAP in 1920, his chief musical collaborators was his brother George Gershwin, and also included Lewis Alter, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Jerome Kern, Joseph Meyer, Sigmund Romberg, Arthur Schwartz, Harry Warren, Richard Whiting, Kurt Weill, Burton Lane, Vincent Youmans, Philip Charig, and E. Y. 'Yip' Harburg. His popular-song compositions include "The Real American Folk Song", "Oh, Me! Oh, My!", "Dolly", "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise", "Fascinating Rhythm", "So Am I", "Oh, Lady Be Good", "The Half of It Dearie Blues", "Little Jazz Bird", "The Man I Love", "Kickin' the Clouds Away", "Looking for a Boy", "These Charming People", "That Certain Feeling", "Sweet and Low-Down", "Sunny Disposish", "Dear Little Girl", "Maybe", "Clap Yo' Hands", "Do Do Do", "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Strike Up the Band", "Let's Kiss and Make Up", "Funny Face", "'S Wonderful", "My One and Only", "He Loves and She Loves", "The Babbitt and the Bromide", "How Long Has This Been Going On?", "The One I'm Looking For", "I've Got a Crush on You", "Oh So Nice", "Where's the Boy, Here's the Girl", "Liza", "Soon", "Bidin' My Time", "Could You Use Me?", "Embraceable You", "Sam and Delilah", "I Got Rhythm", "But Not for Me", "Boy! What Love Has Done to Me!", "I Am Only Human After All", "Cheerful Little Earful", "Blah-Blah-Blah", "Wintergreen for President", "Love Is Sweeping the Country", "Of Thee I Sing (Baby)", "Who Cares?", "Hello, Good Morning", "Lorelei", "Isn't It a Pity?", "My Cousin in Milwaukee", "Mine", "You're a Builder-Upper", "Fun to be Fooled", "What Can You Say in a Love Song?", "Let's Take a Walk Around the Block", "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'", "Bess, You Is My Woman Now", "It Ain't Necessarily So", "I Loves You, Porgy", "There's a Boat dat's Leavin' Soon for New York", "Island in the West Indies", "I Can't Get Started", "That Moment of Moments", "By Strauss", "Beginner's Luck", "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off", "Shall We Dance", "They All Laughed", "They Can't Take That Away from Me", "A Foggy Day", "Nice Work if You Can Get It", "I Was Doing All Right", "Love Is Here to Stay", "Love Walked In", "Spring Again", "One Life to Live" and many more.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Hup234!
- Ira Gershwin is an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 20th century.
With George he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me". He was also responsible, along with DuBose Heyward, for the libretto to George's opera Porgy and Bess.
The success the Gershwin brothers had with their collaborative works has often overshadowed the creative role that Ira played. His mastery of songwriting continued after the early death of George. He wrote additional hit songs with composers Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, Harry Warren and Harold Arlen.
His critically acclaimed 1959 book Lyrics on Several Occasions, an amalgam of autobiography and annotated anthology, is an important source for studying the art of the lyricist in the golden age of American popular song.
Three of Ira Gershwin's songs ("They Can't Take That Away From Me" (1937), "Long Ago (And Far Away)" (1944) and "The Man That Got Away" (1954)) were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, though none won.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bazza the Beast
- SpouseLeonore Gershwin(September 14, 1926 - August 17, 1983) (his death)
- RelativesGeorge Gershwin(Sibling)
- Wrote lyrics set to music by his brother George
- Served as best man at the wedding of Vincente Minnelli and Judy Garland. Minnelli and Garland named their daughter Liza Minnelli after Gershwin's song "Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)".
- Mentor to singer Michael Feinstein.
- George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 7083 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
- Won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the musical "Of Thee I Sing" collaborating with George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, and George Gershwin.
- His musical, "Lady in the Dark", performed at the Royal National Theatre, Lyttelton, was nominated for the 1998 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best New Musical of the 1997 season.
- [Of the music written by Ira and George Gershwin, especially 'Summertime'] I never realized how good our music was until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing it.
- Given a fondness for music, a feeling for rhyme, a sense of whimsy and humor, an eye for the unbalanced sentence, an ear for the current phrase, and the ability to imagine oneself a performer trying to put over the number in progress - given all this, I still would say it takes four or five years collaborating with knowledgeable composers to become a well-rounded lyricist.
- I read a book about the occupation of Denmark. The author told all about how the Nazis would do their regular propaganda broadcasts on the radio, with the fanfares and the music, and whenever they'd finished doing their regular stuff, the underground radio would come on immediately afterward and play 'It Ain't Necessarily So'.
- [on DuBose Heyward] All his fine and poetic lyrics were set to music by George with scarcely a syllable being changed - an aspect of this composer's versatility not generally recognized. These many years [later] I can still shake my head in wonder at the reservoir of musical inventiveness, resourcefulness, and craftsmanship George could dip into. And no fraternal entrancement - my wonderment.
- A career of lyric-writing isn't one that anyone can muscle in on; that if the lyricist who lasts isn't a W.S. Gilbert he is at least literate and conscientious; that even when his words at times sound like something off the cuff, lots of hard work and exper9ience have made them so.
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