| Jimmy Van Heusen | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Edward Chester Babcock |
| Born | January 26, 1913 Syracuse, New York, United States |
| Died | February 6, 1990 (aged 77) |
| Genres | Popular music |
| Occupations | Songwriter, Pianist |
Jimmy Van Heusen (January 26, 1913 - February 6, 1990[1]), was an American composer. He wrote songs mainly for films and television (but also for the theater), and won an Emmy and four Academy Awards for Best Original Song.
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Born Edward Chester Babcock in Syracuse, New York, he began writing music while at high school. He renamed himself at age 16, after the famous shirt makers, Phillips-Van Heusen, to use as his off-air name during local shows. His close friends called him "Chet."
Studying at Cazenovia Seminary and Syracuse University, he became friends with Jerry Arlen, the younger brother of Harold Arlen. With the elder Arlen's help, Van Heusen wrote songs for the Cotton Club revue, including "Harlem Hospitality."
He then became a staff pianist for some of the Tin Pan Alley publishers, and wrote "It's the Dreamer in Me" (1938) with lyrics by Jimmy Dorsey.
Collaborating with lyricist Eddie DeLange, on songs such as "Heaven Can Wait", "So Help Me", and "Darn That Dream", his work became more prolific, writing over 60 songs in 1940 alone. It was in 1940 that he teamed up with the lyricist Johnny Burke.
Burke and Van Heusen moved to Hollywood writing for stage musicals and films throughout the '40s and early '50s, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Swinging on a Star" (1944). Their songs were also featured in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949).
He was also a pilot of some accomplishment; he worked, using his birth name, as a part-time test pilot for Lockheed Corporation in World War II.
Van Heusen then teamed up with lyricist Sammy Cahn. Their three Academy Awards for Best Song were won for "All the Way" (1957) from The Joker Is Wild, "High Hopes" (1959) from A Hole in the Head, and "Call Me Irresponsible" (1963) from Papa's Delicate Condition. Their songs were also featured in Ocean's Eleven (1960) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), which featured the Oscar-nominated "My Kind of Town."
Cahn and Van Heusen also wrote "Love and Marriage" (1955), "To Love and Be Loved", "Come Fly with Me", "Only the Lonely", and "Come Dance with Me" with many of their compositions being the title songs for Frank Sinatra's albums of the late 50's.
Van Heusen wrote the music for five Broadway musicals: Swingin' the Dream (1939); Nellie Bly (1946),Carnival in Flanders (1953), Skyscraper (1965), and Walking Happy (1966). While Van Heusen did not achieve nearly the success on Broadway that he did in Hollywood, at least three songs from Van Heusen musicals can legitimately be considered standards - "Darn That Dream" from Swingin' the Dream; "Here's that Rainy Day" from Carnival in Flanders and "I Only Miss Her When I Think of Her" from "Skyscraper".
He became an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.
Van Heusen composed over 800 plus songs of which 50 songs became standards. Van Heusen songs are featured in over one hundred eighty films.
Van Heusen's personality and life are described in James Kaplan's book about Frank Sinatra, "Frank: The Voice."
He was close friends throughout life with the crooner and saw him through a number of personal trials in his life. It was well-known in Hollywood and many other circles that his marriage to actress Ava Gardner was often on the rocks. The first time Gardner and Sinatra had marital troubles was in 1951 when the crooner took up temporary lodgings in Van Heusen's home, trying to take a break.
According to a new book out, after returning early from an engagement, Van Heusen saved the singer from suicide by natural gas poisoning late in 1951 after Gardner hurt him deeply early in their relationship.
Surviving the suicide attempt, and taking any number of cues from him, Sinatra wrote the famous torch song I'm a Fool to Want You as a result, using an arrangement which reveals many stylistic influences from the composer.
Six years later, when Gardner broke his heart one last time after a tumultuous six-year marriage, Sinatra was staying at Van Heusen's New York flat once again, when the Academy Award-winning composer would also rescue the Grammy-winning crooner from suicide, this time by slicing of the wrists. Once again, returning early from an engagement and finding the despondent singer sprawled on the floor, Van Heusen saved him from bleeding to death.
At Van Heusen's insistence, Sinatra included the song on his 1957 outing for Capitol Records Where Are You? and the experience proved to be cathartic.
Although not a handsome man by conventional standards, he was known as a ladies man. Kaplan wrote, "He played piano beautifully, wrote gorgeously poignant songs about romance...he had a fat wallet, he flew his own plane; he never went home alone." Van Heusen was once described by Angie Dickinson, "You would not pick him over Clark Gable any day, but his magnetism was irresistible." In his 20's he began to shave his head when he started losing his hair, a practice ahead of its time. He once said "I would rather write songs than do anything else -- even fly." Kaplan also reported that 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 ailments real and imagined."
It was Van Heusen who rushed Sinatra to the hospital after Sinatra, in despair over the breakup of his marriage to Ava Gardner, slashed one of his wrists in a failed suicide attempt in November, 1953. However, this event was never mentioned by Van Heusen in any radio or print interviews given by him.
Van Heusen retired in the late 1970s, and died in Rancho Mirage, California in 1990 from complications following a stroke, at the age of 77.[2] He is buried in the Sinatra family burial plot in Desert Memorial Park,[1] in Cathedral City, California. His grave marker reads Swinging On A Star.
Van Heusen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song 14 times in 12 different years (in both 1945 and 1964 he was nominated for two songs), and won 4 times: in 1944, 1957, 1959, and 1963.
He won one Emmy Award for Best Musical Contribution, for the song "Love and Marriage"(1955) (lyrics by Sammy Cahn), written for the 1955 Producers' Showcase production of Our Town.
He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1965 for Best Musical Score Written for a Motion Picture or TV show "Robin and the Seven Hoods"
He was also nominated for 3 Tony awards:
He was nominated three times for a Golden Globe Award.
He won one Christoper Award in 1955 for the song "Love and Marriage".
The bridge section of Paul Desmond's iconic jazz anthem, "Take Five" is a direct homage to Van Heusen's "Sunday, Monday or Always".
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