[ << Back ]
Naked Photos of Irving Berlin are available at MaleStars.com.
They currently feature over 65,000 Nude Pics, Biographies, Video Clips,
Articles, and Movie Reviews of famous stars.
Related
Links:
Chixinflix.com
MenInMovies.com
StarsOfHollywood.com
MaleStars.com
Actresses
who appeared with Irving Berlin on screen:
|
 Irving Berlin
Birthday: December 31, 1969
Birth
Place: Mogilyov, Russia [now in Belarus]
Height: 0' 0"
Below
is a complete filmography (list of movies he's appeared in) for
Irving Berlin. If you have any corrections or additions, please email
us at corrections@actorsofhollywood.com.
We'd also be interested in any trivia or other information you have.
|
|
| Biography
Everyone is fond of quoting Jerome Kern's famous assessment that "Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music." Remarkably, this tribute was made in the mid-1930s, at a point in time when Berlin had already been writing songs for nearly three decades, and still had three more decades' activity ahead of him. Born in a Russian Jewish ghetto to a cantor and his wife, Berlin was five when he and his family emigrated to America. Growing up on New York's Lower East Side, young Berlin sang for pennies on the streets, then moved up the performing scale to become a singing waiter. Though he never learned to read music, Berlin had taught himself piano sufficiently enough to write his first song, "Marie of Sunny Italy," in 1907; his first hit was 1911's "Alexander's Ragtime Band." Because he was only able to compose his songs in the key of F sharp major, he had a special key-transposing piano built to order. Berlin contributed songs to several editions of The Ziegfeld Follies (the 1919 edition featured his "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody"), and to dozens of Broadway musicals. Unlike such composers as Jerome Kern and Rodgers and Hammerstein, Berlin wrote his songs independently of the libretto; as a result, it is possible to compile a list of Berlin's hits without knowing, or caring, what shows they were written for (he would not compose a genuine "integrated" musical—with songs specifically written to advance the plot—until 1945's Annie Get Your Gun). So prolific and successful was Berlin that some of his rivals circulated the rumor that he was not the author of his songs, but that in fact Berlin was exploiting an anonymous, underpaid black composer whom he kept hidden somewhere in Harlem! Berlin's association with movies began literally at the dawn of the talkie era: his "Blue Skies" was performed by Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927). The first of his Broadway musicals to be adapted for films (and the only one without a hit song) was the 1929 Marx Bros. vehicle The Cocoanuts. Berlin wrote both the score and the original story for Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s Reaching for the Moon (1931), but when the producers decided to cut all but one of the songs before the film's release, the experience soured Berlin to the extent that he would not work in Hollywood again for another three years. Fortunately for us all, he returned to pen the tunes for such films as Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936), On the Avenue (1936), Second Fiddle (1939), Easter Parade (1948), and of course Holiday Inn (1942), whence came the composer's most popular song, the Oscar-winning "White Christmas." Though Berlin's life story (his escape from Russia, his rise to fame, the tragic death of his first wife, his later elopement with a WASP heiress, etc.) had enough drama for ten films, he steadfastly refused to allow a biopic to be filmed. As compensation, Hollywood turned out several "catalogue" musicals in which Berlin's previously written songs were presented chronologically to reflect the social and political changes in 20th-century American society: Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Blue Skies (1946), There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). Berlin himself appeared on camera to sing (more or less) his own "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," in This is the Army (1943), a film which also featured Kate Smith singing God Bless America, Berlin's favorite song—and the one for which he never earned a penny (he donated all royalties to the Boy Scouts of America). Berlin's last film work was his title song for 1957's Sayonara; five years later, he retired from Broadway with the disappointing Mr. President. Despite his hermit-like existence in his later years, Berlin continued to govern the activities of his own music-publishing company (formed in 1919) with an iron hand. In 1961, he briefly emerged from his cocoon to unsuccessfully sue the publishers of Mad magazine for printing parody lyrics to several of his more popular works. Twenty-five years later, he showed up in Washington DC to accept the Medal of Liberty from President Reagan. Irving Berlin's last public appearance was at a star-studded celebration given in honor of his 100th birthday.
|
|
|
Movie
Credits
Trivia
- Died of natural causes at age 101.
- When Berlin married Ellin Mackay, the Comstock Lode heiress, the bride's father wrote her out of his will for marrying a Jew. Berlin then assigned the copyright of his popular song, "Always", to her, which yielded very handsome royalties as the years went by. And true to the sentiments of the song, Berlin devoted himself to his lovely wife for the rest of her long life.
- Sang "Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" in _This Is the Army (1943)_ .
- Songwriter.
- Could not read music.
- Only played on the set of black keys. He had a special piano built with pedals that could change the set from F sharp into other keys.
- First met lifelong best friend Fred Astaire on the set of _Top Hat (1935)_ .
- Interred at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York, USA.
- Sent a letter to major radio stations requesting that they not play Elvis Presley's version of "White Christmas" because it had been drastically revamped.
- During the filming of his singing his composition "Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" in This Is the Army (1943), one of the backstage crew was heard to have whispered to another crew worker, "If the guy who wrote this song could hear this guy singing it, he'd roll over in his grave!".
- Was denied a Kennedy Center Honor. By the time he was considered for one, he was too ill to fulfill the requirement that an honoree must attend the award ceremony.
- Although Berlin wrote what is arguably the most popular secular Christmas song ever written, "White Christmas," Christmas was always a bittersweet time for the Berlin family. Irving and Eileen Berlin's only son, Irving, Jr., died at only a few weeks old, of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, on Christmas Day, 1928. Every year, on Christmas Day, the Berlins would lay a Christmas wreath on his grave, a tradition their heirs carry on today.
- Despite the fact that he was one of America's most prolific songwriters, Berlin suffered frequent attacks of writer's block, which could last anywhere from several days to several months.
- Wrote his first ballad hit, "When I Lost You," in his grief over the death of his first wife, Dorothy Goetz. She had died of typhoid, contracted on her honeymoon, just four months after their marriage in 1912.
- One of the few classic pop songwriters of his era to serve as both composer and lyricist of his songs. Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer were among the others who shared this rare talent.
- Brother-in-law of E. Ray Goetz.
- Stepson-in-law of Anna Case.
- In 1963, won a Special Tony Award "for his distinguished contribution to the musical theatre for these many years."
- Father of Mary Ellen Barrett.
- First artist to actually present himself with an Oscar when he won for song "White Christmas" from _Holiday Inn (1942)_
- Was portrayed by 'Keith Allen' in _De-Lovley (2004)_ .
Naked Photos of Irving Berlin are available at MaleStars.com. They
currently feature over 65,000 Nude Pics, Biographies, Video Clips,
Articles, and Movie Reviews of famous stars. |
|
|
