Frank Loesser

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Frank Henry Loesser (born June 29, 1910 in New York ; † July 28, 1969 there ) was an American composer and songwriter .

Life

Frank Loesser grew up in a musical, German-Jewish New York family. His father was a piano teacher, his older brother Arthur Loesser a well-known concert pianist and musicologist. However, he himself never received a higher musical education. In the early 1930s, during the Great Depression , he began his professional career with various jobs at newspapers. He also wrote song texts and manuscripts for the radio - from the mid-1930s also for revues by Irving Actman, among others, which attracted Hollywood's attention. He was signed to Hollywood in 1938, where he was mainly involved as a songwriter in a variety of films. Part of the reason for Loesser's success in Hollywood was Burton Lane , who recommended him to Paramount Pictures . His first hit, Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition , was written in 1942. During this time Loesser began to compose his own music. After the Second World War, Broadway producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin brought him in for the musical adaptation of Charley's aunt  - Where's Charley?  - back to New York. Successful musicals such as Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and the film musical success Hans Christian Andersen followed . In addition, Loesser founded the music publisher Frank Music .

Loesser worked with the composers Joseph Meyer , Burton Lane , Jimmy McHugh , Joseph J. Lilley and Arthur Schwartz throughout his career . With Arthur Schwartz, he was nominated for an Oscar in the "Best Song" category at the 1944 Academy Awards for the song They're Either Too Young or Too Old from the film Thank Your Lucky Stars . Another nomination for an Oscar came in 1953 for the song Thumbelina from the film Hans Christian Andersen and the Dancer .

Two of his compositions were able to advance to jazz standards : On a Slow Boat to China , published for the first time in 1948, became world famous in the same year through the interpretation of Charlie Parker ; He achieved another global success in 1964 with John Coltrane's interpretation of The Inch Worm, which was composed in 1952 . Frank Loesser died of lung cancer on July 26, 1969 in New York at the age of 59.

Musicals, music films

Well-known songs

Awards

literature

  • Ken Bloom: The American Songbook - The Singers, the Songwriters, and the Songs . Black Dog & Leventhal, New York City 2005, ISBN 1-57912-448-8

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Loesser, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Loesser, Frank Henry (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH New York , NY , United States
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1969
Place of death New York , NY , United States