Leo Robin

Leo Robin (born April 6, 1900 in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , † December 29, 1984 in Woodland Hills , California ) was an American musician , composer and songwriter . He worked with Ralph Rainger .

Live and act

Leo Robin studied at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Carnegie Tech's drama school . He later worked as a reporter and publicist, but then decided to work as a songwriter. He had his first success in 1926 with "My Cutey's Due at Two-to-Two Today" with the music of Albert Van Tilzer. With Clifford Gray he then wrote lyrics for Vincent Youmans ' Broadway show Hit the Deck (1927); " Hallelujah! “Was a big hit from that show. Other successes were Bubbling Over (1926), and Hello Yourself (1928). In 1932, like many of his colleagues, Robin moved to Hollywood to work in the emerging film industry for musical productions for Paramount studios. His partner at this time was the composer Ralph Rainger ; together they formed one of the leading songwriting duos of the 1930s and early 1940s. They wrote over 50 hits, initially mostly songs for Bing Crosby such as "Please", "Here Live Love" (1932), "June in January" and "With Every Breathe I Take" (1934). A jazz standard , the Billie Holiday interpreted the song "Easy Living" from the eponymous film of 1937. Other achievements " Thanks for the Memory ," written for Bob Hope and Shirley Ross ( The Big Broadcast of 1938 , 1938 ). Robin wrote the hit “Kinda Lonesome” from 1939 with Hoagy Carmichael and Sam Coslow.

Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger worked together until Rainger's sudden accidental death when he crashed in an airplane on October 23, 1942. Robin then continued his songwriting activity with a variety of composers such as Vincent Youmans , Sam Coslow , Richard Whiting and Nacio Herb Brown . With Harry Warren he wrote the music for the film "The Gang's All Here". For the 1945 film Der Wundermann ( Wonder Man ), he contributed the Oscar-nominated song So in Love together with David Rose . In 1946, in collaboration with Jerome Kern, he wrote the classic “In Love in Vain” for the film Centennial Summer , with Harold Arlen the song “ For Every Man There's a Woman ” for the film Casbah - Verbotene Gassen (1948). In the same year Robin returned to Broadway to work on the musical Gentleman Prefer Blondes , which was filmed in 1953 under the same title (German distribution title Blondes preferred ); for this he wrote the songs "Bye Bye Baby", "Just a Kiss Apart" and the Marilyn Monroe classic " Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend " with Jule Styne . In 1955, after working on the film My Sister Eileen with Jule Styne, Leo Robin retired.

Leo Robin received the Oscar in the Best Song category in 1938 for the song "Thanks for the Memory" written with Rainger . The song was sung by Bob Hope in the film The Big Broadcast (1938). He received an Oscar nomination nine times, the first in 1935, the last in 1954.

Robin was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972 .

Leo Robin died at the age of 84 in Woodland Hills, California and is buried in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City , California .

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

• Entry into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Leo Robin in the Internet Movie Database (English)