Jule Styne

Jule Styne

Birth : 1905-12-31, London, England

Death : 1994-09-20

History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jule Styne (/ˈdʒuːli staɪn/; December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was a British-American song writer and composer known for a series of Broadway musicals, which include several famous and frequently revived shows. Styne was born to a Jewish family in London, England as Julius Kerwin Stein to immigrants from Ukraine, the Russian Empire who ran a small grocery. At the age of eight, he moved with his family to Chicago, where at an early age he began taking piano lessons. He proved to be a prodigy and performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies before he was ten years old. Styne attended Chicago Musical College, but before then, he had already attracted attention of another teenager, Mike Todd, later a successful film producer, who commissioned him to write a song for a musical act that he was creating. It was the first of over 1,500 published songs Styne composed in his career. His first hit, "Sunday", was written in 1926. In 1929, Styne was playing with the Ben Pollack band. Styne was a vocal coach for 20th Century Fox, until Darryl F. Zanuck fired him because vocal coaching was "a luxury, and we're cutting out those luxuries", and told him he should write songs, because "that's forever". Styne established his own dance band, which brought him to the notice of Hollywood, where he was championed by Frank Sinatra and where he began a collaboration with lyricist Sammy Cahn. He and Cahn wrote many songs for the movies, including "It's Been a Long, Long Time", "Five Minutes More," and the Oscar-winning title song for Three Coins in the Fountain (1954). He collaborated on the score for the 1955 musical film My Sister Eileen with Leo Robin. Ten of his songs were nominated for the Oscar, many written with Cahn, including "I've Heard That Song Before" (#1 for 13 weeks for Harry James and His Orchestra in 1943), "I'll Walk Alone", "It's Magic" (a #2 hit for Doris Day in 1948), and "I Fall in Love Too Easily". In 1947, Styne wrote his first score for a Broadway musical, High Button Shoes, with Cahn, and over the next several decades wrote the scores for many Broadway shows, most notably Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Peter Pan (additional music), Bells Are Ringing, Gypsy, Do Re Mi, Funny Girl, Sugar, and the Tony-winning Hallelujah, Baby!. His collaborators included Sammy Cahn, Leo Robin, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Stephen Sondheim, and Bob Merrill. Styne died of heart failure in New York City at the age of 88. His archive - including original hand-written compositions, letters, and production materials - is housed at the Harry Ransom Center. Styne was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972 and the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981, and he was a recipient of a Drama Desk Special Award and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1990. Additionally, Styne won the 1955 Oscar for Best Music, Original Song for "Three Coins in the Fountain", and "Hallelujah, Baby!" won the 1968 Tony Award for Best Original Score.

Profile

Jule Styne

Movies

Funny Girl
Musical
The life of Fanny Brice, who rose from the Lower East Side of New York to become one of Broadway's biggest stars under producer Florenz Ziegfield. While she was cheered onstage as a great comedian, offstage she faced a doomed relationship with the man she loved.
Gypsy
Musical
Gypsy's mother Rose dreams of a life in show business for her daughters, but Louise becomes a huge burlesque star. Stage musical loosely based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee.
Peter Pan Live!
Songs
Following in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful The Sound of Music LIVE! - which drew over 18 million viewers - comes this musical masterpiece that tells the beloved story of Peter Pan, the mischievous little boy who ran away to Neverland. Get ready for show-stopping stars, stunning costumes, extravagant sets and delightful music that will have everyone in your home singing along. From Executive Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron comes a soaring holiday event guaranteed to take viewers on a magical and musical journey to the second star to the right.
Gypsy
Music
A television adaptation of the classic Broadway musical.
Funny Girl
Songs
The story of the life of comedienne Fanny Brice, from her early days in the Jewish slums of the Lower East Side, to the height of her career with the Ziegfeld Follies, including her marriage to and eventual divorce from her second husband, Nick Arnstein.
The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood
Songs
Everyone knows the story of Red Riding Hood. But every story has two sides and now the wolf has finally told his. This original musical comedy special, with songs by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, first aired on November 28, 1965 on ABC.
The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood
Music
Everyone knows the story of Red Riding Hood. But every story has two sides and now the wolf has finally told his. This original musical comedy special, with songs by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, first aired on November 28, 1965 on ABC.
Gypsy
Music
Mama Rose lives to see her daughter June succeed on Broadway by way of vaudeville. When June marries and leaves, Rose turns her hope and attention to her elder, less obviously talented, daughter Louise. However, having her headlining as a stripper at Minsky's Burlesque is not what she initially has in mind.
Gypsy
Conductor (uncredited)
Mama Rose lives to see her daughter June succeed on Broadway by way of vaudeville. When June marries and leaves, Rose turns her hope and attention to her elder, less obviously talented, daughter Louise. However, having her headlining as a stripper at Minsky's Burlesque is not what she initially has in mind.
Gypsy
Original Music Composer
Mama Rose lives to see her daughter June succeed on Broadway by way of vaudeville. When June marries and leaves, Rose turns her hope and attention to her elder, less obviously talented, daughter Louise. However, having her headlining as a stripper at Minsky's Burlesque is not what she initially has in mind.
Bells Are Ringing
Original Music Composer
Ella Peterson works in the basement office of Susanswerphone, a telephone answering service. She listens in on others' lives and adds some interest to her own humdrum existence by adopting different identities for her clients. They include an out-of-work Method actor, a dentist with musical yearnings, and in particular playwright Jeffrey Moss, who is suffering from writer's block and desperately needs a muse.
Peter Pan
Songs
This SECOND live broadcast aired a year after the success of the first. Utilizing much of the same cast, it nevertheless is its own unique performance which charmed millions of households in 1956.
Peter Pan
Songs
This musical version of the tale of the boy who wouldn't grow up aired live on television on March 7, 1955. It was so popular that it was restaged the following year, and again four years later.
Living It Up
Music
Homer Flagg (Lewis) is a railroad worker in the small town of Desert Hole, New Mexico. One day he finds an abandoned automobile at an old atomic proving ground. His doctor and best friend, Steve Harris (Martin), diagnoses him with radiation poisoning and gives Homer three weeks to live. A reporter for a New York newspaper, hears of Homer's plight and convinces her editor, to provide an all-expenses paid trip to New York.
Anything Goes
Producer
On an ocean liner, a nightclub singer tries to help a fellow American romance an English heiress who is being forced to return home to marry a man she doesn't love. The American must avoid his boss who is traveling on the same vessel and disguises himself as a gangster traveling with a minister who is, in fact, a disguised gangster on the lam.
Romance on the High Seas
Original Music Composer
Georgia Garrett is sent by jealous wife Elvira Kent on an ocean cruise to masquerade as herself while she secretly stays home to catch her husband cheating. Meanwhile equally suspicious husband Michael Kent has sent a private eye on the same cruise to catch his wife cheating. Love and confusion ensues along with plenty of musical numbers.
Cinderella Jones
Lyricist
Judy Jones can claim inheritance only if she marries a genius.
Cinderella Jones
Original Music Composer
Judy Jones can claim inheritance only if she marries a genius.
Knickerbocker Holiday
Songs
The wild and woolly early days of New York -- when it was still known as New Amsterdam -- provide the backdrop for this period musical-comedy. In 1650, Peter Stuyvesant (Charles Coburn) arrives in New Amsterdam to assume his duties as governor. Stuyvesant is hardly the fun-loving type, and one of his first official acts is to call for the death of Brom Broeck (Nelson Eddy), a newspaper publisher well-known for his fearless exposes of police and government corruption. However, Broeck hasn't done anything that would justify the death penalty, so Stuyvesant waits (without much patience) for Broeck to step out of line. Broeck is romancing a beautiful woman named Tina Tienhoven (Constance Dowling), whose sister Ulda (Shelley Winters) happens to be dating his best friend, Ten Pin (Johnnie "Scat" Davis). After Stuyvesant's men toss Broeck in jail on a trumped-up charge, Stuyvesant sets his sights on winning Tina's affections.
Tail Spin
Vocal Coach
Trixie is a female pilot looking to win a big race to advance her career. During one race, however, her plane becomes damaged, and she needs help to repair it. She meets a Navy pilot named "Tex" Price and tries to gain his aid. Tex soon meets another pilot, Gerry, a novice who seeks to win an important upcoming race. Tex, concerned for Gerry's safety, tries to convince her not to race. But Gerry, now a rival of Trixie's, is determined to fly.