| Frank Loesser | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Frank Henry Loesser |
| Born | June 29, 1910 New York City, New York, USA |
| Died | July 28, 1969 (aged 59) New York City, New York, USA |
| Genres | Musical theatre |
| Occupations | composer, lyricist, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1936–1969 |
Frank Henry Loesser (June 29, 1910 – July 28, 1969) was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and music to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the latter. He also wrote numerous songs for films and Tin Pan Alley, many of which have become standards, and was nominated for five Academy Awards for best song, winning once, for "Baby, It's Cold Outside".
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Loesser was born in New York City to Henry Loesser, a pianist, and Julia Ehrlich. He left City College of New York in 1925 after one year. After trying various jobs, by 1935 he was performing in a club with singer Lynn Blankenbaker Garland, whom he married in 1936.[1]
After signing with Universal Pictures in 1936 he moved to Hollywood, and then worked for Paramount Pictures. He wrote the lyrics for many songs during this period, including "Two Sleepy People" and “I Hear Music.” He stayed in Hollywood until World War II, when he joined the Army Air Force.[1]
One of the early films he worked on was Destry Rides Again (1939), for which he wrote the lyrics to "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have", sung by Marlene Dietrich.
During World War II, while enlisted as a song writer, Loesser wrote the popular war songs Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition (1942) and The Ballad of Rodger Young (1943), among others. Loesser had started out his career writing lyrics for other composers, and Praise the Lord was the first song for which he wrote the melody as well as the lyrics.
In 1944, Loesser worked as the lyricist on a little known musical intended to be performed by and for US soldiers abroad, titled Hi Yank!, the music for which was composed by Alex North. Hi Yank! was produced by the U.S. Army Office of Special Services as a "blueprint special" to boost the morale of soldiers located where USO shows could not visit. The "blueprint" was a book containing a musical script with instructions for staging the show, using materials locally available to deployed soldiers. A document located at the US Army Centre for Military History states, "A touring company has been formed in Italy to tour a production of "Hi, Yank!"".[2]
This unique Hi Yank! show, without stars or a conventional theater run, was generally forgotten until 2008, when the PBS History Detectives TV show researched the case of a long-saved radio transcription disc.[3] The disc has two songs and a promotional announcement for the show's Fort Dix premiere in August 1944, when the disc was broadcast there.[4]
In 1948, Broadway producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin asked Loesser to write both music and lyrics to George Abbott's book for an adaptation of the Brandon Thomas play Charley's Aunt. That musical, Where's Charley? (1948), starred Ray Bolger, and ran for a successful 792 performances. This led to his next musical, Guys and Dolls (1950), based on the stories of Damon Runyon, and again produced by Feuer and Martin. Guys and Dolls became a hit and earned Loesser two Tony Awards.[5]
He wrote the book, music and lyrics for his next two musicals, The Most Happy Fella (1956) and Greenwillow (1960). He wrote the music and lyrics for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), which ran for 1,417 performances and won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and for which he received two more Tonys.
The last musical that he worked on, Pleasures and Palaces (1965), closed during out-of-town tryouts.
Another unproduced musical, Señor Discretion Himself, premiered after his death. He started working on a musical version of the Budd Schulberg short story Señor Discretion Himself in 1966, but stopped working on it after 2 years. A version was presented in 1985 at the New York Musical Theatre Works. With the support of Jo Loesser, a completed version was presented at the Arena Stage, Washington, DC, in 2004, reworked by the group Culture Clash and director Charles Randolph-Wright.[6]
Loesser divorced his first wife, Lynn, in 1957.[7] They had two children together: John Loesser and Susan Loesser, an author who wrote her father's biography A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life: A Portrait by His Daughter (1993, 2000).
He married his second wife Jo Sullivan (born Elizabeth Josephine Sullivan) on April 29, 1959.[8] Loesser was introduced to Jo by his first wife Lynn. Jo Sullivan had played a lead in The Most Happy Fella.[1] They had two children, Hannah and Emily. Emily is a performer who is married to Don Stephenson.[9]
Loesser died of lung cancer at age 59 in New York City.[10]
Loesser was the lyricist of over 700 songs.[11]
Loesser received Tony Awards for music and lyrics for each of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Guys and Dolls. He was nominated for the Tony Award for book, music and lyrics for The Most Happy Fella and as Best Composer for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Loesser was awarded a Grammy Award in 1961 for Best Original Cast Show Album for How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.
He won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song, "Baby, It's Cold Outside". He was nominated four more times:
In 2006 the PBS documentary, Heart & Soul: The Life and Music of Frank Loesser was released.[12]
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