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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZFAIN, Sammy(b Samuel Feinberg,17 June '02 NYC; d 7 Dec. '89, LA) Composer, singer, pianist. Staff pianist for Jack Mills Publishers, also singer/pianist in radio, vaudeville. First published song 'Nobody Knows What A Red Headed Mama Can Do' '25, lyrics by Irving Mills and Al Dubin. Met main collaborator Irving Kahal '27 (b 5 March '03, Houtzdale PA; d 7 Feb. '42, NYC); their first hit 'Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella' '27 (in film It's A Great Life '30). 'Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine' '29 was a hit for the Four Aces 25 years later. In film The Big Pond '30 Maurice Chevalier invented rum-flavoured chewing gum and sang 'You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me'. Wrote 'When I Take My Sugar To Tea' '31: hit for the Boswell Sisters, featured in Marx Bros film Monkey Business, in show Everybody's Welcome (which also introduced classic 'As Time Goes By' by Herman Hupfield, b 1 Feb. 1894, Montclair NJ; d there 8 June '51). Fain appeared in show Dames '34 as a songwriter. Right This Way '38 was Broadway debut of Joe E. Lewis, had two of their finest ('I'll Be Seeing You' and 'I Can Dream Can't I'), still ran only two weeks. They wrote music for vaudeville-styled Hellzapoppin, the biggest commercial hit of the decade; also 'Are You Havin' Any Fun?' (sung by the Three Stooges) and 'Something I Dreamed Last Night' for George White's Scandals Of 1939. Hit film Anchors Aweigh '45 had score by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, but Fain wrote 'The Worry Song' for the famous sequence with Gene Kelly and cartoon mouse Jerry, with Ralph Freed (b 1 May '07, Vancouver BC; d 13 Feb. '73, LA). Show Flahooley '51 with Yip Harburg featured Yma Sumac; songs for Disney features Alice In Wonderland '51, Peter Pan '53 with Cahn. Hit 'That Old Feeling' ('38) featured in biopic of singer Jane Froman With A Song In My Heart '52. With Paul Francis Webster (b 20 Dec. '07, NYC) wrote score for film Calamity Jane '53: Doris Day had no. 1 hit with Oscar-winning 'Secret Love' and also sang 'There's A Rising Moon' in Young At Heart '55; they won another Oscar '55 with title song from Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing; others nominated: 'April Love' '57 (title song of Pat Boone film, no. 1 hit), 'A Certain Smile' '58 (no. 14 hit by Johnny Mathis), 'A Very Precious Love' '58 (from film Marjorie Morningstar), 'Tender Is The Night' '61 (from film of F. Scott Fitzgerald novel), others. Kahal wrote almost solely with Fain, but did 'The Night Is Young And You're So Beautiful' '36 with Billy Rose and Dana Suesse; Webster worked with Hoagy Carmichael ('Memphis In June', others), Duke Ellington ('I Got It Bad'), film composer Dmitri Tiomkin: 'Friendly Persuasion' '56, 'The Green Leaves Of Summer' (from The Alamo '60) etc. |