Dorothy Fields

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Dorothy Fields with Arthur Schwartz working on A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951)

Dorothy Fields (born July 15, 1905 in Allenhurst, New Jersey , † March 28, 1974 in New York City ) was an American songwriter and playwright .

Dorothy Fields comes from a Jewish New York theater family. She is the sister of Herbert Fields and Joseph Fields , who also became known as authors. Her father Lew Fields was a famous vaudeville comedian and Broadway producer.

Life

Her writing career began in 1927 through her acquaintance with the composer Jimmy McHugh , for whom she wrote the lyrics. Fields and McHugh initially wrote for revues for the Harlem Cotton Club . Her first success was the hit " I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby " from the Delmar's Revels . With that hit, they moved to Broadway for their first show, the Blackbirds of 1928 . Another song from that show was Diga Diga Doo . In the same year, their father produced their first “ book musical ” Hello, Daddy , for which their brother Herbert Fields wrote the book . More shows followed, including a. the International Revue of her father in 1930, for the song " On the Sunny Side of the Street " and " Exactly Like You arisen".

Because of the global economic crisis and related difficulties on Broadway, but also because of the cinema boom alternated Fields and McHugh early 1930s to Hollywood. They worked out the scores for several films; In 1935 the song "I'm In the Mood For Love" was created for the film For Every Night at Eight . Their professional partnership ended in the same year. Dorothy Fields then wrote lyrics for several other composers, but had her greatest success working with Jerome Kern . For the title " The Way You Look Tonight " from the musical film Swingtime from 1936, Fields and Kern received the Oscar for best song .

In 1939 Fields returned to New York, where she worked with Arthur Schwartz on the musical Stars In Your Eyes that same year . At the beginning of the 1940s she began working with her brother Herbert, which also made her a playwright. The Fields wrote the books for the Cole Porter musicals Let's Face It! (1941), Something for the Boys (1943) and Mexican Hayride (1944). In 1946 the book for the extremely successful musical Annie Get Your Gun with the music of Irving Berlin followed . Field's last work with her brother (he died in 1958) was for the musical Redhead , for which both won a Tony Award for best musical in 1959 .
After the death of her brother, Dorothy Fields worked again as a songwriter. With the composer Cy Coleman , she wrote the songs for the musicals Sweet Charity (1966) and Seesaw (1973).

literature

  • Charlotte Greenspan: Pick yourself up: Dorothy Fields and the American musical , New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-511110-1

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fields, Dorothy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American songwriter, playwright, and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Allenhurst, New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1974
Place of death New York City