Dorothy Fields Centennial

[Haydnseek]

One of the great song lyricists was born 100 years ago, July 15, 1905. Here is a link to an excellent website dedicated to her:

http://dorothyfields.co.uk/index.htm

And a short biography:

Fields, Dorothy
(1905-1974), songwriter

Born on July 15, 1905, in Allenhurst, New Jersey, Dorothy Fields was the daughter of Lew M. Fields of the vaudeville comedy team of Weber and Fields. After graduating from high school in New York City she taught drama and published a few poems in magazines before she found her career. Her lyrics for Jimmy McHugh's song "Our American Girl" led to their successful collaboration on Blackbirds of 1928, a lavish Cotton Club show featuring "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby" and "Diga Diga Doo."

For International Revue in 1930 Fields and McHugh wrote "On the Sunny Side of the Street" and "Exactly Like You," and for that year's Vanderbilt Review they wrote "Blue Again." They wrote songs for the movies Love in the Rough in 1930, Singin' the Blues and Cuban Love Song in 1931, Dinner at Eight and Clowns in Clover in 1933, and Every Night at Eight ("I'm in the Mood for Love") and Hooray for Love in 1935, among others. In 1936 they wrote the score for Swingtime, including the songs "A Fine Romance," "Waltz in Swing Time," and the Academy Award-winning "The Way You Look Tonight." Fields also collaborated with her older brother Herbert on a number of screenplays.

Dorothy Fields worked with such songwriters as Jerome Kern and Cole Porter on music for several movies. In 1945 Herbert and Dorothy Fields wrote the book and Dorothy wrote the lyrics to Sigmund Romberg's melodies for the very successful Up in Central Park. Their book, Irving Berlin's music, and Ethel Merman's performance made Annie Get Your Gun the great Broadway hit of 1946. Most of their Broadway shows also became motion pictures.

In 1951 Fields wrote lyrics to Arthur Schwartz's music for the Broadway production of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and collaborated with Schwartz and Harold Arlen on songs for Excuse My Dust and Texas Carnival. In 1954 she and Herbert Fields wrote the book and she wrote the lyrics for By the Beautiful Sea (music by Arthur Schwartz), and in 1959, with composer Albert Hague, they produced the hit Redhead. With composer Cy Coleman she produced the hit show Sweet Charity (1965) and Seesaw and PIN-UPS (both 1973). Dorothy Fields was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971. She died in New York, New York, on March 28, 1974.

Copyright © 1999 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Fields_Dorothy.html

[Ted]

I Can't Give You Anything But Love • Don't Blame Me
On The Sunny Side Of The Street • A Fine Romance
I'm In The Mood For Love • The Way You Look Tonight
Big Spender • If My Friends Could See Me Now

And so many others

Great post H
Of course, most folks here do not share our passion for the American Songbook
t

[pizza]

Of course, most folks here do not share our passion for the American Songbook
t

Says who?

[Haydnseek]

I Can't Give You Anything But Love • Don't Blame Me
On The Sunny Side Of The Street • A Fine Romance
I'm In The Mood For Love • The Way You Look Tonight
Big Spender • If My Friends Could See Me Now

And so many others

Great post H
Of course, most folks here do not share our passion for the American Songbook
t

The body of work in the first half of the twentieth century by Kern, Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Arlen, Warren, Waller, Rogers, Blake, McHugh, Carmichael, Donaldson, and so many others, plus the fine lyricists they worked with, must be our nation's greatest contribution to written music to date. I know I'd prefer to listen to Rogers and Hart's "Isn't it Romantic" or Kern's "All the Things you Are" over any German Lied I've ever heard.

I was watching a 1938 film called "Joy of Living" the other day on TCM that featured the charming and not so well-known Kern and Fields song "You Couldn't be Cuter." It's been playing in my head continously ever since and I don't mind it a bit.

[Ralph]

Thanks for the reminder. I love those songs.

[Haydnseek]

I was driving home just a few minutes ago listening to a Big Band radio show and the host played some recordings by Frances Langford who passed away just a couple of days ago at the age of 92. He included her signature piece, the McHugh-Fields song “I’m in the Mood for Love” which she sang to thousands of soldiers in World War II and Korea. It was an outstanding recording of an outstanding song and especially moving when heard in remembrance.