Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers

by Stewart F. Lane

  After a couple of years with their own business in receivership, the Shuberts were able to buy back the organization under the name Select Theaters and come back strong, thanks to the Ziegfeld Follies pro ductions.

  The Jewish people knew about persecution, and this new generation was not about to let the theater suffer because of it. A generation earlier, actors and playwrights had fled Eastern Europe to enjoy the freedom of the United States. This generation was determined to withstand any adversity they might face. The children of the immigrants had largely assimilated into the American mainstream, and while they would still embrace their Jewish culture, they were far more secular than their ancestors. For many, theater remained a safer haven than more traditional industries, one in which skills and talent largely overshadowed religious affiliation and one in which the Jews had already gained a foothold through the many Jewish theater owners. While attendance fell off during the depression years, theater remained a place to escape and enjoy entertainment, much as it was during the heyday of Yiddish theater. No matter how bad things got, theater always had its place in Jewish culture.

  A LIGHT IN DARK TIMES

  Throughout the 1930s, the Jewish composers wrote up-tempo music in a very somber time. The lyricists, meanwhile, wrote about love, about 49

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  life and about country in patriotic songs. If nothing else, they used their musical talents to compose songs of hope and dreams, and in some cases significant shows about minority acceptance such as Show Boat and Porg y and Bess. Often poignant messages about social acceptance showed up in both the storyline and the music itself, but guised in another frame-work, and not about Jewish acceptance, especially during the 1930s.

  None theless, these composers and lyricists wrote timeless melodies and intimate lyrics for musicals that grew richer in storylines and away from the revues and follies of the 1920s.

  While the number of shows opening on Broadway each year during the 1930s dropped, there as still quite a disproportionate number of musicals featuring Jewish composers and/or lyricists. One explanation for the many Jewish composers was that traditional Jewish religious music was typically led by a single singer, a cantor, while Christian music was usually sung by a chorus. In fact, many of the composers were the sons, or grand sons, of cantors, some emanating from several generations of cantors, and most had pianos in their homes. “Jewish homes had pianos and the children learned how to play. That was standard, no matter what the economic situation,” says Ellen Adler, of life in the 1930s.5

  Many of the composers and lyricists of this era honed their skills in what was known as Tin Pan Alley, from which sheet music and later recordings originated and were hawked by shrewd salesmen. It all took place in the area of Manhattan around West 28th Street, a neighborhood that music publishers called home from the late 19th century up through the 1930s. It was there that the Jewish musical legends of Broadway worked and collaborated, including Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Vincent Youmans, as well as non–Jewish musical geniuses such as Cole Porter.

  Irving Berlin

  Israel Baline, who came to be known as Irving Berlin, may very well have been the most influential American songwriter of the 20th century. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Berlin, who rose to fame in 1911, remarkably never faded from prominence. Like many of the compos -

  ers in this section, it’s difficult to condense the accomplishments of Irving Berlin, especially considering that his career spanned many decades.

  Nonetheless, we’ll try to encapsulate some of his many accomplishments.

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  3. The Music of Broadway

  Berlin and his family arrived in America in 1893, when we was just five years of age, escaping the persecution of the Jewish people in Russia.

  He was the youngest of eight children. Like so many immigrant families, the Balines lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His father was a cantor, but unable to find full-time work in the United States, he also worked at a local market.

  When Israel’s father passed away, he took to street-singing for money while only eight years of age. Later, while in his teens, he became a singing waiter at several local cafés where he generated attention and in a short time became very popular. It was during this time that Israel teamed up with a pianist on a song called “Marie of Sunny Italy.” The song was published but the printer, in error, wrote the name Berlin on the page, and Baline adapted the new name.

  In the early years, Irving Berlin mostly wrote lyrics, while other composers wrote the music, since he did not play the piano. In time, he would start coming up with melodies and have arrangers turn them into songs. One of his earliest lyrics was “Sadie Salome, Go Home,” made popular by Fanny Brice, and a huge hit in 1909. But it was a couple years later that Alexander’s Ragtime Band would follow, and Irving Berlin was immortalized.

  By 1914, Berlin would write the first of more than 20 Broadway scores for a show called Watch Your Step starring the dance team of Vernon and Irene Castle, who were quite well known at the time. The show opened at the New Amsterdam Theater and ran for 175 performances.

  At nearly 30 years of age, Berlin was drafted into the army in 1917.

  He was, however, stationed in New York where he composed an all-soldier review called Yip Yip Yaphank, including the hit song “Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.” The show raised thousands of dollars for an army camp service center, and the grand finale had actual United States soldiers literally marching from the stage to the troop carrier to depart for destinations worldwide. While the show was a success, Berlin decided not to use one of the songs he had written, a tune that would become an American classic some 21 years later.

  By the mid 1930s, Irving Berlin was a household name. He even had a Broadway theater, The Music Box, built in his honor, where he staged several Music Box Revues, writing tunes not unlike those he had written for the Ziegfeld Follies earlier in his career. The 30s were also 51

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  unique in that Berlin teamed with a couple of the greatest Jewish talents of the century. Berlin would collaborate with Moss Hart and George S.

  Kaufman on Face the Music and again with Hart on As Thousands Cheer.

  As the decade neared an end, with tension escalating overseas, Berlin was asked if he had a patriotic song for Kate Smith to celebrate Armistice Day. He provided the song that had been left out of Yip Yap Yankhank, called “God Bless America.” Of the nearly 1,500 songs written by Berlin,

  “God Bless America” would become the most significant of his 60-year career. It originated as a prayer of sorts, emanating from his mother’s fre quent words “God bless America,” in thanks for providing her family with a home after fleeing Russia. All of the royalties from the song were given to the Boy Scouts of America. Once the war began, Berlin would stage a 12-week run of This Is the Army, which opened on Broadway on the Fourth of July and then moved to Washington, D.C., before going on tour around the world. The money raised was used to help support the Army Emergency Relief Fund. So committed to the cause was Berlin, that he would appear on stages worldwide and sing “Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning.” Over 350 military personnel were included in the 100-plus performances of the musical. Ironically, the integrated cast was the only integrated unit in the army at the time.

  Berlin would also go on to team with Rodgers and Hammerstein, who served as producers, on Annie Get Your Gun. The classic musical featured the show biz anthem “There’s No Business Like Show Business,”

  which, like “God Bless America” in 1917, was almost left out of the show.

  Opening in May of 1946, Annie Get Your Gun became the third-longest-running musical of the 1940s, with over 1,100 performances. Then, while writing the music and lyrics, Berlin would team with Moss Hart as co-producers on Miss Liberty at the end of the ’40s, a show with choreography by Jerome Robbins. Yes, Berlin, in his extended career, would have the pleasure of working with many of the premie
re talents of the 20th century. He would also pen numerous hit songs through the 1940s and

  ’50s, some for films and none bigger than “White Christmas.” As his friend Jerome Kern once noted, “Irving Berlin has no place in American music — he is American music.”6

  Ironically, Berlin did not profess the same musical talent as many of Broadway’s other musical icons. As Alec Wilder noted in his book Amer ican Popular Song, “I heard Berlin play the piano, back in vaudeville 52

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  days and found his harmony notably inept.”7 Yet, those who worked with him over the years recall that he had the melodies in his head, knew exactly what he was looking for, and wasn’t satisfied until the right chords were found.

  In his personal life, Berlin’s first marriage in 1912 was to a Jewish woman, Dorothy Goetz. Tragically, she caught typhoid fever on their honey moon and died shortly thereafter. Berlin’s heartfelt love song

  “When I Lost You” was written for her. Nearly a decade later, Berlin would fall in love again, this time to heiress Ellin MacKay, who was not Jewish. In fact, her wealthy and influential father, Clarance MacKay, did everything he could think of to stop the wedding of his daughter to the already famous Jewish songwriter. Even with the tabloids following their every move, the relationship continued despite his efforts. At one point in an effort to appease her father, Ellin suggested that a Catholic priest preside over the wedding ceremony. Berlin would not go along with this, so a justice of the peace at City Hall in New York City married them.

  Despite MacKay’s dislike of his son-in-law, it was Berlin who helped MacKay when, following the stock market crash of 1929, he was in need of a “bailout” so to speak. Even that only softened MacKay’s dislike of Berlin.

  For more than 60 years, the interfaith marriage would flourish, and Ellin’s father would eventually grow to accept Berlin and love his four granddaughters, who were raised to learn about both religions and both sets of holidays. And yes, the man who wrote White Christmas and Easter Parade took his wife and children to a Reform Jewish temple and celebrated Passover and Yom Kippur with his family throughout the rest of his 101 years.

  If anyone assimilated into the American mainstream, it was Irving Berlin. While he never lost touch with his Jewish roots, Berlin symbolized patriotism and American pride. Along with raising millions of dollars for the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, his contribution to the United States Armed Forces was immeasurable. For his contribution to troop morale, Berlin was awarded the Medal of Merit by President Harry S Truman.

  But his patriotism was also a form of gratitude. Like his mother, Irving Berlin was deeply thankful that America was here to welcome his family and the immigrants who had no place else to go. “God Bless America,” when released in 1938, became a prayer for the nation as well 53

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  as a personal prayer for the Jewish people as news from Nazi Germany became increasingly frightening to American Jews. Even one of Berlin’s daughters would later recount that her father was terrified for the safety of his daughters who were half Jewish.

  Jerome Kern

  Like his good friend Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern was also the son of immigrants, although in his case of German descent. At an early age, his family would leave New York’s Lower East Side and settle across the Hud son River in Newark, New Jersey, where Kern started piano lessons at an early age. By the time he was a teenager, he was already proficient at musical composition and skipped his last year of high school to enroll in the New York College of Music.

  It was evident early in Kern’s life that he was destined to be in the music business. Besides his great talent, he demonstrated that a more traditional job was not in his best interest when he was hired by his father to work in a furniture store. On his first day of work, Kern, with music on his mind, was asked to order two pianos. He accidentally ordered 200

  pianos, and while the deliverymen carried them into the soon-to-be grossly overcrowded store, Jerome and his dad agreed that he was best pursuing a career playing piano rather than ordering them.

  Like many other up and coming composers, Kern wanted to write music for shows “in development” for Broadway, which was one of the best ways to break into the business. However, without credits it was hard to launch such a career, so Kern took off for London where he found work writing for music hall shows.

  Still not even 20 years old, he returned to the States and was asked to write music for a British production called Mr. Wix of Wickham. The production was being altered slightly for Broadway and was in need of some “American” songs. While Mr. Wickham was not a hit, Kern launched a successful career writing additional songs for shows. Some of these shows, such as An English Daisy, The Catch of the Season, The Little Cherub, The Doll Girl and The Girl from Utah, among others, made it to Broadway in the early years of the 20th century. Kern was the composer while various lyricists, such as Schuyler Greene, penned the words.

  Greene teamed with Kern on one of his earliest hit shows, in 1915, a musical called Very Good Eddie which ran on Broadway for 341 perform-54

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  ances. Then two years later, Kern teamed with P.G. Wodehouse for an even longer running musical called Oh, Boy! which played on Broadway for 463 performances, becoming the third longest musical of the 1910s.

  Over the next few years, Kern and Wodehouse would turn out other hit shows, all staged at the Princess Theater. Pretty soon Kern became the composer for the Princess Theater, penning the music for such light musicals.

  It was in the late 1920s, however, that Kern would team with Oscar Hammerstein II for one of Broadway’s groundbreaking musicals, Show Boat, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, based on Jewish novelist Edna Ferber’s story about life along the Mississippi River. Ferber, born in Kala-mazoo, Michigan, in 1885, was a reporter in Wisconsin by the age of 17.

  But her true talent was in creating stories, rather than reporting on them.

  Thus her days as a novelist began several years later with Dawn O’Hara, in 1910. She would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for So Big and proceed to write books for some 50 years, including Cimarron in 1929, the film adaptation of which won Best Picture honors at the Academy Awards in 1931. She would also collaborate with George S. Kaufman on several plays including Dinner at Eight and The Royal Family.

  Ferber’s Show Boat, once made into a musical, featured the classic

  “Ol’ Man River,” among other American standards. It was groundbreaking as it sharply contrasted with the typical light musicals, a style that was becoming all too familiar to theatergoers. Ferber’s story was rich and the Kern and Hammerstein songs were significant and deeply woven into the fabric of the show, which covered a span of over 40 years and touched upon relationships and cultural realities of the era. The issue of racism was brought to light at a time when African Americans were not accepted into most of white American culture.

  Show Boat opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 27, 1927.

  It was proclaimed, the following day, by the New York Times as “an American masterpiece.” The audience left the theater thinking about the story as well as humming the tunes. As a result it was revived several times on Broadway, as well as at the New York City Opera house and three times on film.

  The 1930s would see a number of other Jerome Kern musicals make it to Broadway, including The Cat and the Fiddle, in which he teamed with lyricist Otto Harbach, Music in the Air with Oscar Hammerstein 55

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  II, and Roberta, again with Harbach and featuring the ageless hit “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

  Kern’s melodies were described as pure, timely and timeless. He did not use rhythmic or harmonic contrivances, but instead sought out a beau tiful, and simple, single melody line. He was also a perfectionist, stead fast in his melodies and was not one to change his tune, literally, to fit his lyricist’s wishes. Nonetheless, he collaborated with some of the finest lyricists in the history of
Broadway musicals.

  Oscar Hammerstein II

  Oscar Greeley Clendinning Hammerstein II, the grandson of the legendary opera and theater impresario who built much of Broadway, was born in the summer of 1895 in New York City. His father, William, managed the Victoria Theater, where the senior Hammerstein had built a roof garden years earlier on top of the stately structure. Despite being a vaudeville producer, and despite the family’s great theatrical history, Wil liam Hammerstein did not want his son Oscar taking part in the rough show business lifestyle. However, after his father’s death in 1914, the 19-year-old Hammerstein II began writing and performing in variety shows at Columbia University, where he was attending as a pre-law student. Determined to be part of the theater, and get out of attending law school, Oscar II urged his Uncle Arthur, also a Broadway producer, to give him a job as an assistant stage manager. Arthur, however, did not want to go against his brother’s wishes. After some convincing, Arthur saw the determination of the young Hammerstein and conceded, giving him his first job in the theater.

  By 1919, Hammerstein had gotten married and been promoted by his uncle to production stage manager. It was in this role that he met, and began working with, Otto Harbach. Their first success came with composer Vincent Youmans, who was coming off a relatively unsuccessful show called Little Girls in Blue, with lyrics by a young Ira Gershwin.

  Youmans hired Harbach and Hammerstein to write the lyrics for a show called Wildflowers, produced by Arthur Hammerstein. The musical would premier on Broadway in 1923 and run for 477 performances. From there, it was on to an even bigger hit, also produced by Oscar’s uncle, called Rose-Marie.

  By 1925, Youmans had moved on to write No, No, Nanette, while 56

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  Berlin and George S. Kaufman were working with the Marx Brothers on The Cocoanuts. Hammerstein and Harbach teamed on the show Sunny with composer Jerome Kern. Opening in September of that year, Sunny ran for over 500 performances. It was the first time Hammerstein and Kern had worked together, and they would follow this debut with the legendary musical Show Boat just two years later, which opened at the Ziegfeld Theater just two days after Christmas.