Jimmy Van Heusen
Jimmy Van Heusen | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Edward Chester Babcock |
Born | Syracuse, New York, United States | January 26, 1913
Died | February 6, 1990 Rancho Mirage, California, United States | (aged 77)
Genres | Popular music |
Occupation(s) | Songwriter, pianist |
Years active | Mid 1930s–Late 1970s |
James Van Heusen (born Edward Chester Babcock; January 26, 1913 – February 6, 1990
Life and career
Born in
Studying at
He was also a pilot of some accomplishment; He met Joe Hornsby, who worked for the FAA in Los Angeles CA (Hornsby was the son of Dan Hornsby and the brother of Nikki Hornsby), because of his music career with his interest in flying. Joe Hornsby sponsored Jimmy into an exclusive pilots club called the Quiet Birdmen which held meetings at Proud Bird restaurant at LAX and these men were lifelong friends until Joe and his wife Dorothea's death in the late 1970s. Using his birth name, Jimmy also worked as a part-time test pilot for Lockheed Corporation in World War II.
Van Heusen then teamed up with lyricist
Cahn and Van Heusen also wrote "
Van Heusen wrote the music for five
He became an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.[5]
Van Heusen composed over 1000 songs of which 50 songs became standards. Van Heusen songs are featured in over five hundred and eighty films.
Personal life
Van Heusen was known to be quite popular among women.
I took song writing seriously when I discovered girls.[7]
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 suicide attempt in November 1953.[8] However, this event was never mentioned by Van Heusen in any radio or print interviews given by him. Van Heusen himself married for the first time in 1969, at age 56, to Bobbe Brock, originally one of the Brox Sisters and widow of the late producer Bill Perlberg.
Death
Van Heusen retired in the late 1970s and died in 1990 in Rancho Mirage, California, from complications following a stroke at the age of 77.[9] His wife, Bobbe, survived him. Van Heusen is buried near the Sinatra family in Desert Memorial Park, in Cathedral City, California.[1][10] His grave marker reads Swinging on a Star.[11]
Academy Awards
Van Heusen was nominated for the
- Wins
- 1944 – "Swinging on a Star" (lyrics by Johnny Burke) for Going My Way
- 1957 – "All the Way" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for The Joker Is Wild
- 1959 – "High Hopes" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for A Hole in the Head
- 1963 – "Call Me Irresponsible" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for Papa's Delicate Condition
- Nominations
- 1945 – "Sleigh Ride in July" (lyrics by Johnny Burke) from the film Belle of the Yukon
- 1945 – "Aren't You Glad You're You?" (lyrics by Johnny Burke) from the film Bells of St. Mary's
- 1955 – "(Love Is) The Tender Trap" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) introduced by Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds in the film The Tender Trap
- 1958 – "To Love and Be Loved" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Some Came Running
- 1960 – "The Second Time Around" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film High Time
- 1961 – "Pocketful of Miracles" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Pocketful of Miracles
- 1964 – "Where Love Has Gone" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Where Love Has Gone.
- 1964 – "My Kind of Town" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Robin and the 7 Hoods
- 1967 – "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Thoroughly Modern Millie
- 1968 – "Star" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Star!
Emmy Award
He won one
Other awards
He was nominated for a
He was also nominated for three Tony awards:
- Best Musical in 1966 for Skyscraper
- Best Musical in 1967 for Walking Happy
- Best Composer and Lyricist in 1967 Walking Happy
He was nominated three times for a
- 1965 – "Where Love Has Gone" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Where Love Has Gone
- 1968 – "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Thoroughly Modern Millie.
- 1969 – "Star" (lyrics by Sammy Cahn) for the film Star!.
He won a Christopher Award in 1955 for the song "Love and Marriage".
Namesakes
- Bob Hope's character in The Road to Hong Kong (1962) is named Chester Babcock, in reference to Van Heusen's birth name.
Songs
With lyricist Sammy Cahn
- "A Horse on a Merry go round"
- "Ain't That a Kick in the Head"
- "All My Tomorrows"
- "All the Way"
- "B-r-a-n-e"
- "Call Me Irresponsible"
- "Come Blow Your Horn"
- "Come Dance with Me"
- "Come Fly with Me"
- "Eee-O Eleven"
- "An Elephant never forgets"
- "Everybody Has the Right to Be Wrong!"
- "A Faraway Land"
- "H-e-a-r-t"
- "High Hopes"
- "I'll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her"
- "Incurably Romantic"
- "I Wouldn't Trade Christmas"
- "If you're gonna be a witch, be a witch"
- "Keep a Happy Thought"
- "Last Dance"
- "Let's Make Love"
- "Love and Marriage"
- "(Love Is) The Tender Trap"
- "Mr. Booze"
- "My Kind of Town"
- "N-e-r-v-e"
- "Only the Lonely"
- "Pocketful Of Miracles"
- "Return to the Land of Oz"
- "Ring-a-Ding Ding!"
- "The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World"
- "The Second Time Around"
- "The Secret of Christmas"
- "September of My Years"
- "Sleigh Ride in July"
- “Specialization”
- “Star!”
- “Style”
- "That Feeling for Home"
- "There's Love and There's Love and There's Love"
- "Thoroughly Modern Millie"
- "To Love and Be Loved"
- "Where Love Has Gone"
- "Who Was That lady?"
- "You have only You"
With lyricist Johnny Burke
- "Aren't You Glad You're You?"
- "But Beautiful"
- "Busy Doing Nothing"
- "Going My Way"
- "Here's That Rainy Day" (from Carnival in Flanders)
- "Imagination"
- "It Could Happen to You"
- "It's Always You"
- "Like Someone in Love"
- "Life Is So Peculiar"
- "Moonlight Becomes You"[7]
- "Oh, You Crazy Moon"
- "Personality"
- "Polka Dots and Moonbeams"
- "Sunday, Monday, or Always"
- "Swinging on a Star"
- "That Christmas Feeling"
- "Welcome To My Dream"
- "(We're Off on the) Road to Morocco"
- "You Lucky People You"
- "You May Not Love Me"
- "A Friend Of Yours"
- "You're In Love With Someone"
With lyricist Eddie DeLange
- "All I Remember Is You"
- "All This and Heaven Too"
- "Darn That Dream"
- "Deep in a Dream"
- "Heaven Can Wait"
- "I'm Good for Nothing (But Love)"[13]
- "Shake Down the Stars"
- "So Help Me"
With others
- "Blue Rain" (lyrics by Johnny Mercer)
- "Far Away" (lyrics by David Kapp)
- "I Could Have Told You" (lyrics by Carl Sigman)
- "I Thought About You" (lyrics by Johnny Mercer)
- "It's the Dreamer in Me" (lyrics by Jimmy Van Heusen; music by Jimmy Dorsey)
- "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)" (lyrics by Phil Silvers)
- "Not as a Stranger" (lyrics by Buddy Kaye)
- "Sha-Sha" King / Kutz (minor hit for The Andrews Sisters and Jimmy Dorsey 1938)
Independent
- "It's 1200 miles from Palm Springs to Texas"[14]
Notes
- ^ a b "Palm Springs Cemetery District, "Interments of Interest"" (PDF). Pscemetery.com. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
- ^ a b "Academy Awards Database, Jimmy Van Heusen". Oscars.org. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
- ^ a b Coppula, C. (2014). Jimmy Van Heusen: Swinging on a Star. Nashville: Twin Creek Books.
- ^ Jimmy Van Heusen - Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com › archive-march-2015-jimmy-van-heusen “Jimmy,” Van Heusen's good friend and occasional lover Angie Dickinson recalls ... Jessica Lange Breaks Down Her Career, from King Kong to American Horror Story .... He had been born in 1913, in Syracuse, New York, to rock-ribbed Methodists ... “Jimmy was a really interesting composer,” says Sammy Cahn's son, jazz ...
- ^ "Songwriters Hall of Fame, Jimmy Van Heusen". Archived from the original on November 6, 2016. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
- ^ a b "The King Of Ring-A-Ding-Ding". Vanityfair.com. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
- ^ OCLC 31611854. Tape 1, side A. Van Heusen interviewed 1971 July 22
- hMag. January 29, 2016. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
- ^ "Jimmy Van Heusen Collection of Musical Works and Papers". UCLA Libraries. Archived from the original on March 9, 2012. Retrieved April 13, 2011.
- OCLC 70284362.
- ^ James "Jimmy" Van Heusen at Find a Grave
- ^ "Best Musical Contribution – 1956". Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Retrieved July 26, 2012.
- ^ Online Archive of California (OAC). Finding Aid for the Jimmy Van Heusen Collection of Musical Works and Papers 1853-1994, bulk 1939-1972.
- OCLC 498384972
References
- James Kaplan (2010). Frank: The Voice, pp. 49, 666–669.
- Wilfred Sheed(2007). The House That George Built, "Jimmy Van Heusen: On The Radio With Bing and Frank" pp. 225–251.
- Alec Wilder (1990). American Popular Song, "The Great Craftsmen: Jimmy Van Heusen" pp. 442–451.
- William Ruhlmann (2001). "Van Heusen, James “Jimmy” (originally, Babcock, Edward Chester)." Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Gale.
- Songwriters Hall Of Fame Website
- New York Times Obituary, February 8, 1990