Lorenz Hart
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Lorenz "Larry" Hart (May 2, 1895 – November 22, 1943) was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. Some of his more famous lyrics include, "Blue Moon", "Isn't It Romantic?", "Mountain Greenery", "The Lady Is a Tramp", "Manhattan", "Where or When", "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", "Falling in Love with Love", and "My Funny Valentine".
Hart was born in Harlem to Jewish immigrant parents. He attended Columbia University, where a friend introduced him to Richard Rodgers, and the two joined forces to write songs for a series of amateur and student productions. In 1919, the team's song "Any Old Place With You" was included in the Broadway musical comedy A Lonely Romeo. The smashing success of their score for the 1925 Theatre Guild production, The Garrick Gaieties, brought them great acclaim.
They continued working together until Hart's death in 1943, along the way producing scores for a series of hit shows and making a substantial contribution to the Great American Songbook. Hart also translated plays for the Schubert brothers while continuing to collaborate with Rodgers.
As a lyricist, Hart was an advocate of inner rhyming and multisyllabic rhyming, and his lyrics have often been praised for their wit and technical sophistication.
Hart struggled with homosexuality in an era when such a sexual orientation was socially unacceptable, and with alcoholism, which contributed to his death.
Hart also suffered great emotional turmoil toward the end of his life. His personal problems were often the cause of friction between him and Rodgers, and in fact led to a brief breakup in 1943, at which time Rodgers started working with Oscar Hammerstein II, a school friend of Hart.
Rodgers and Hart teamed a final time in the fall of 1943 for a revival of A Connecticut Yankee. Five days after this show opened, Hart died of pneumonia from exposure. He is believed to have died alone. He is buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens County, New York.
[edit] Selected list of works
- 1925 The Garrick Gaieties
- 1927 A Connecticut Yankee, based on the Mark Twain novel
- 1928 Present Arms
- 1935 Jumbo
- 1936 On Your Toes
- 1937 Babes in Arms
- 1938 The Boys from Syracuse, based on William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors
- 1938 I Married an Angel
- 1938 Too Many Girls
- 1940 Pal Joey, based on John O'Hara's work
- 1942 By Jupiter
[edit] External links
- That Old Feeling:Heart to Hart- Time Magazine essay
- Internet Broadway Database page for Lorenz Hart
- Notable Names Database page for Lorenz Hart
- Lorenz Hart at the Internet Movie Database
- Bio from Songwriters Hall of Fame
[edit] References
- Nolan, Frederick. Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway. New York: Oxford University Press (1994). ISBN 0-19-510289-4
