Word: hollywood
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...boldest front-page headlines the tradesheet Variety last week chronicled the dearth of Broadway musical shows, fixed the blame on the Hollywood songwriting mills' which offer big pay and security to the tunesters who got their start in Manhattan's Tin Pan Alley. When Jiibilee and At Home Abroad closed fortnight ago, only four musicomedies remained on Broadway, the mid-season low since the beginning of the War. Simultaneously. Variety's radio log showed that the tune most played on the air was I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket, one of Irving Berlin...
Biggest of the big music names in Hollywood now is that of slender, raven-haired Irving Berlin, who wrote his first song 29 years ago when he was a singing waiter in a Bowery saloon. But cinema studios were turning out tunes by the gross long before the little dean of the Alley allied himself with pictures. Elaborate music departments sprang up in Hollywood in 1927 when sound films first came in. Hundreds of tunesmiths bummed their way West, found jobs overnight, collected huge salaries. After the first flood of musical films, deflation came fast, and there was a rush...
...musical setup in Hollywood is saner now than New Yorkers might gather from the stage parody in Boy Meets Girl, in which a prankster buzzes for a composer, demands and gets a roundelay in 15 minutes. Composers and lyricists now attend conferences with producers and directors, receive specific assignments that take into consideration the personalities of the performers. One constant reminder is that a song must be catchy enough to impress on first hearing, as did Cheek to Cheek in Top Hat, Alone in One Night at the Opera...
...present crop of Hollywood songwriters was chosen with more discretion than when the first gold rushers went West. Each studio has proven experts on its staff, men who really earn salaries running as high as $1,500 per week. RKO not only lured Berlin away from Broadway but it also has a special contract with Jerome Kern (Roberta, I Dream Too Much), pays so well for his curving melodies that he has already recovered the fortune he lost in Depression. Despite their rich earnings, Berlin and Kern have remained unaffected by Hollywood's glitter. Kern still refuses...
...went Nacio Herb Brown and his teammate, dandified Arthur Freed, who has been known to order 25 suits at a time. As a youth, Composer Brown sang in a Los Angeles church choir, worked week days as a tailor's apprentice. When success first came to him in Hollywood he bought a lavish estate at Malibu Beach, four big automobiles. Brown's big song hits have been Singing in the Rain, Wedding of the Painted Dolls, Pagan Love Song, Broadway Melody, All I Do Is Dream of You, You Are My Lucky Star...