Lorenz Hart

Sigmund Freud was one of the greatest personalities of our times and he literally changed our way of thinking. There were, however, side-effects to his influence: the fact that everybody and their dog feels qualified to analyze everybody else; we've all been witnesses to incredibly lame attempts at pop psychology. Lorenz Hart was definitely a victim of many such attempts.

Nonsense #1: "he turned to homosexuality because women rejected him." I won't even discuss this, it's too homophobically stupid.

Nonsense #2: "Milton "Doc" Bender, a stage-struck dentist who had been Hart's friend since their college days and would often serve as his procurer of chorus boys and male prostitutes, was responsible for leading Hart to homosexuality and ruin." This is even more homophobically stupid. Sexuality does not require an external motivator, and to suggest otherwise is to buy into bigotry.

Nonsense #3: because Hart was short (under 5 feet) and considered unattractive, he was "too insecure to pursue social equals, so he limited his sexual attentions to chorus boys and male prostitutes". Gay men's fascination with the working class male has been a feature of gay life for hundreds of years. Christopher Isherwood offers a very good description of it in "Christopher And His Kind." The reasons for which a person is attracted to a certain type are many and too complex too be used so lightly. The same goes for:

Nonsense #4: "He became an alcoholic because of his secretive and tormented erotic life." We are quite medically confident nowdays that neither alcoholism, nor psychotic manifestations happen because "something" caused them. That "something" may trigger an existing predisposition, but it's definitely not the cause.

I got carried away for a moment. Let's get on with the story.

Lorenz Milton Hart (May 2, 1895 – November 22, 1943) was born in Harlem, the elder of two sons, to Jewish immigrant parents, Max M. and Frieda (Isenberg) Hart, of German background. His father, a business promoter, sent Hart and his brother to private schools. (His brother, Teddy Hart, also went into theatre and became a musical comedy star. Teddy Hart's wife, Dorothy Hart, wrote a biography of Lorenz Hart.)

While studying journalism at Columbia University, in 1916, Hart worked for the Shuberts, translating German plays. In 1918, when Hart was 23 years old, he met 16-year-old songwriter Richard Rodgers through a mutual friend. The two soon began to collaborate, writing songs for a number of amateur productions, including Columbia University's 1920 Varsity Show. It was the beginning of what would become a 25-year partnership between the two.

In 1919, the duo's song Any Old Place With You was picked up to be included in the Broadway musical comedy A Lonely Romeo. Here's a version by Stanley Mathis in 1999:

In 1920, six of their songs were used in the musical comedy Poor Little Ritz Girl. Then they were hired to write the score for the 1925 Theatre Guild production The Garrick Gaieties, the success of which brought them acclaim. The latter introduced the song Manhattan to the world. Here is a version by the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald from 1956:

Rodgers and Hart subsequently wrote the music and lyrics for 26 Broadway musicals during a more-than-20-year partnership that ended shortly before Hart's early death. Their "big four" were Babes in Arms, The Boys From Syracuse, Pal Joey, and On Your Toes. The Rodgers and Hart songs have been described as intimate and destined for long lives outside the theater. Many of their songs are standard repertoire for singers and jazz instrumentalists. Notable singers who have performed and recorded their songs have included Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Blossom Dearie, and Carly Simon. Hart has been called "the expressive bard of the urban generation which matured during the interwar years.".

Babes in Arms, a smash 1937 Broadway play that became a hugely successful 1939 movie that starred Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and was directed by Busby Berkeley, was the source of many evergreens. Among them, Where Or When, first performed by Ray Heatherton and Mitzi Green.

Peggy Lee recorded it in 1941 with the Benny Goodman Trio:

Dion and the Belmonts also released a successful remake of the song, which reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1960.

Another evergreen from this musical is My Funny Valentine. It was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green. The song became a popular jazz standard, appearing on over 1300 albums performed by over 600 artists, including Chet Baker, Bill Evans, Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Andy Williams, Shirley Bassey, Miles Davis, Etta James, Harry James, Nico, Chaka Khan, Elvis Costello, Melanie C and Rickie Lee Jones. In 2015 it was announced that the Gerry Mulligan quartet featuring Chet Baker's version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry for the song's "cultural, artistic and/or historical significance to American society and the nation’s audio legacy". Here's this version:

Here's Sarah Vaughan's version, live in 1969:

Johnny One Note was also in this musical. Here's Judy Garland in the 1948 film Words And Music:

Also in the movie Words And Music, here's another classic from the Broadway show Babes in Arms, the incomparable The Lady Is A Tramp, sung by Lena Horne:

It was also one of Frank Sinatra's biggest hits. Here he is, live in 1965:

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga recorded a version of this song for his 2011 album Duets II.

The Boys From Syracuse included Falling in Love with Love. Here's Bernadette Peters (1997):

It also included This Can't Be Love. Here's Nat King Cole's version (1954):

Pal Joey included I Could Write a Book. Here's Dinah Washington's version:

It also included Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. Here's Barbra Streisand's version from 1963:

... And here's Linda Ronstadt's version:

In 2003 the song was released as a duet by Rod Stewart & Cher:

On Your Toes introduced us to There's a Small Hotel. This version by Hal Kemp with vocals by Maxine Grey was one of the biggest hits in 1936:

It also introduced us to Glad to Be Unhappy. The Mamas & Papas version reached #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1967:

Another popular number from this was Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. The choreography here is performed by Vera-Ellen and Gene Kelly for the 1948 movie Words and Music.

One of the best known songs to come out of the Rodgers and Hart collaboration was Blue Moon. It was originally written in 1933 for an MGM movie called Hollywood Party. The song was not even recorded (nor was the movie released) and the song, originally called Prayer (Oh Lord, Make Me A Movie Star) dated June 14, 1933, was registered for copyright as an unpublished work on July 10, 1933.

Rodgers liked the melody and when MGM asked for a nightclub number for the Clark Gable vehicle Manhattan Melodrama (1934), he had Hart write new lyrics and Prayer (Oh Lord, Make Me A Movie Star) became The Bad In Every Man sung by Shirley Ross. The song made it into the film but did not become a hit.

It was Rodgers & Hart's publisher, Jack Robbins who told them he thought the song would be a hit, if Hart could make it more commercial. Hart was reluctant to write yet another lyric, but Robbins swore he'd plug the song from California to Maine. Hart caved in and wrote Blue Moon. Robbins "gave" it to the "Hollywood Hotel", a radio program that used it as their theme, and on January 15, 1934, he had Connie Boswell record it for Columbia. Blue Moon turned up in at least seven other MGM motion pictures including Marx Brothers At The Circus and Viva Las Vegas.

Mel Tormé had a hit with it in 1949:

Elvis Presley covered it in 1956:

In 1961, Blue Moon became an international number one hit for the doo-wop group the Marcels.

Another classic by Rodgers & Hart is It Never Entered My Mind, a show tune from the 1940 musical Higher and Higher, where it was introduced by Shirley Ross. Here's a version by the Miles Davis Quintet in 1956:

... And here's Julie London's version:

Yet another classic of theirs: Little Girl Blue. Doris Day sang the song in the movie Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962):

This is Nina Simone, who included the song in her 1966 album Let It All Out.

This is Janis Joplin's version, from the This is Tom Jones TV show in 1969:

Though unstoppable in his professional success, Hart suffered from alcoholism and became increasingly unstable. He was known to disappear for days on end, during which times he was typically in a serious alcoholic haze. When an exasperated Rodgers threatened to begin collaborating with Oscar Hammerstein II, Hart endorsed the idea before heading off to Mexico on yet another spree. (Rodgers had his own serious drinking problems, but they did not effect his work habits until his later years.)

On hand for the opening night of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma, Hart was sober and stunned by its unprecedented triumph. He agreed to help Rodgers prepare a revival of A Connecticut Yankee, giving longtime friend Vivienne Segal the new comic showstopper To Keep My Love Alive. But by the time the show was in rehearsal, Hart was drinking heavily. He showed up falling-down drunk for the Broadway opening. There are several published versions of what happened next, but at some point Hart started singing along from the rear of the theatre until he was dragged out by bodyguards. After spending the night on his brother's sofa, he disappeared. Days later, he was found sitting on a street curb – drunk, coatless, and soaked to the skin by an icy November downpour. Pneumonia led to his death a few days later. According to a nurse, Hart's last words were, "What have I lived for?" Would it have comforted him to know people would still be singing and celebrating his songs for generations to come?

F. Scott Fitzgerald called him America’s poet laureate. Stephen Sondheim said he “freed American lyrics from the stilted middle-European operetta technique.” Fred Ebb said he “made all lyricists a little braver.”

Rodgers and Hammerstein became the kings of Broadway in the 1940s and ’50s, bringing serious themes to musical theater, and their greatest hits — Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music — are still frequently performed and have been immortalized on film.

Yet, while Rodgers’s partnership with the earnest, sentimental Hammerstein resulted in better shows, his teaming with the witty, sophisticated Hart produced better songs. Still, both partnerships were part of what was best with 20th century music. Lorenz Hart will be remembered.