Word: mercerizing
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Today Duke lives in a small Harlem apartment where, on a small upright piano, he composes between orchestra dates. His wife, from whom he has been separated for many years, lives in Washington. A 23-year-old son, Mercer (also something of a composer), is now in the Army. Duke's personal popularity among his bandsmen is attested by a turnover incredibly slow for any enterprise. Duke reads the Bible, attends church regularly...
Married. Tom Mercer Girdler, 65, chairman of Republic Steel Corp., Consolidated and Vultee Aircraft Inc.; and Helen Brennan, 36, his ex-secretary; he for the fourth time, she for the first; five days after his third wife divorced him; in Manhattan...
...years Johnny Mercer had been making songs out of bits of casual conversation. People who heard them just couldn't help singing them, they sounded so natural. Eddie Cantor, who ordered a batch of extra choruses to Every Time I Shave, never got around to singing them. But Sidewalk Poet Mercer got a job doing lyrics for the Garrick Gaieties, did another song called Out of Breath and Scared to Death of You. He married a pretty Gaieties chorus girl. One day she looked fondly at him, remarked, "You must have been a beautiful baby." Johnny Mercer reached...
Later Johnny wrote I'm an Old Cowhand, On Behalf of the Visiting Firemen, Jeepers Creepers, Lazy Bones and Skylark. With half the U.S. mumbling his 42nd-Street plain chant in its sleep, Mercer moved on to Hollywood. Blues in the Night, written for a Warner Brothers musical, sold over a million copies. By last week another Mercer opus. Strip Polka (for which the versatile Johnny had written the tune as well as the words), was No. 2 on Variety's list of bestsellers. Its homely refrain...
Today Johnny Mercer lives in a Hollywood bungalow, tailors lyrics to fit the suavely hocketing voice of his friend Bing Crosby, rolls up between $50,000 and $85,000 a year in cinema lyric contracts and ASCAP royalties. A one-finger pianist, he does his composing with the help of Tunesmith Harold Arlen. After a two-hour stretch with Tunesmith Arlen, he usually knocks off for an afternoon of golf. Says Johnny: "If I get a good title and the first couple of lines within two hours, that's a damn good day. . . . Most of my titles and lyrics...