Roger Edens

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Roger Edens (born November 9, 1905 in Hillsboro , Texas , † July 13, 1970 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American composer , film composer and film producer .

Life

Edens spent most of his childhood in Richmond . From the late 1920s he was initially active as a pianist on Broadway and later became the arranger for Ethel Merman . When Merman moved to Hollywood in 1932 with a film contract with Paramount Pictures , she took Edens with her. In 1935 he moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where he worked for the first time with the film producer Arthur Freed in 1939 (on music is our world ). In the following years, both worked on a large number of films together - with stars like Fred Astaire , Judy Garland and Gene Kelly - in which Edens worked as musical director and in some cases also as a composer and lyricist - including classics of the dance film like You should be my lucky star and an American in Paris . In the early 1940s, Freed made him his co-producer. Between 1940 and 1948 Edens was nominated four times for an Oscar , but did not receive the award. For the next three years he received an Oscar every year.

In the 1950s he worked on Broadway with Judy Garland and contributed music, lyrics and arrangements for their specials . In the mid-1950s he left MGM and went back to Paramount, where he shot the musical A Sweet Face with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire with director Stanley Donen . This film was to be his last major success as the "great film musical" went out of fashion. His next two films, Gold Digger Molly and Hello, Dolly! , were far less commercially successful.

Edens died in 1970 at the age of 65.

Filmography (selection)

music

production

Broadway

  • 1932-1933: Take a Chance
  • 1951–1952: Judy Garland at the Palace "Two-A-Day"
  • 1956–1957: Judy Garland
  • 1959: Judy Garland
  • 1985-1986: Singin 'in the Rain

Awards

  • 1940: Oscar nomination for music is our world
  • 1941: Oscar nomination for Hot Rhythms in Chicago
  • 1943: Oscar nomination for For Me and My Gal
  • 1948: Oscar nomination for Good News
  • 1949: Oscar for Easter Walk
  • 1950: Oscar for This is New York
  • 1951: Oscar for a duel in the ring

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