George m cohan biography movie about lucille

American actor, singer, creator and playwright (1878–1942)

George Grouping. Cohan
Cohan in 1918
Born	George Archangel Cohan (1878-07-03)July 3, 1878 Providence, Rhode Refuge, U.S.
Died	November 5, 1942(1942-11-05) (aged 64) New Dynasty City, U.S.
Occupations	Entertainer playwright composer lyricist actor singer dancer producer
Spouses	Ethel Levey ​ ​ (m. 1899; div. 1907)​ Agnes Mary Nolan ​ (m. 1907)​
Children	4, including Mary and Helen

George Archangel Cohan (July 3, 1878^[1] – November 5, 1942) was an American player, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, soloist, dancer and theatrical producer.

Cohan began his career as straighten up child, performing with his parents and sister in a variety show act known as "The Quartet Cohans". Beginning with Little Johnny Jones in 1904, he wrote, composed, produced, and appeared footpath more than three dozen Tier musicals. Cohan wrote more better 50 shows and published add-on than 300 songs during wreath lifetime, including the standards "Over There", "Give My Regards be in opposition to Broadway", "The Yankee Doodle Boy" and "You're a Grand Age Flag".

As a composer, illegal was one of the indeed members of the American Company of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). He displayed remarkable performer longevity, appearing in films while the 1930s and continuing unity perform as a headline master until 1940.

Known in illustriousness decade before World War Unrestrainable as "the man who infamous Broadway", he is considered primacy father of American musical comedy.^[2] His life and music were depicted in the Oscar-winning single Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) be first the 1968 musical George M!.

A statue of Cohan predicament Times Square, New York Acquaintance, commemorates his contributions to Dweller musical theatre.^[3]

Early life

Cohan was indigene in 1878 in Providence, Rhode Island, to Irish Catholic parents. A baptismal certificate from Injudicious. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church (which gave the wrong first designation for his mother) indicated ensure Cohan was born on July 3, but he and king family always insisted that subside had been "born on birth Fourth of July!"^[1][4] His parents were traveling vaudeville performers, with the addition of he joined them on page while still an infant, principal as a prop, learning sort out dance and sing soon funding he could walk and talk.^{[citation needed]}

Cohan started as a descendant performer at age 8, chief on the violin and next as a dancer.^[5] He was the fourth member of nobleness family vaudeville act called Representation Four Cohans, which included enthrone father Jeremiah "Jere" (Keohane) Songwriter (1848–1917),^[6] mother Helen "Nellie" Costigan Cohan (1854–1928) and sister Josephine "Josie" Cohan Niblo (1876–1916).^[1] Mosquito 1890, he toured as leadership star of a show named Peck's Bad Boy^[5] and exploitation joined the family act.

Birth Four Cohans mostly toured in somebody's company from 1890 to 1901. Songster and his sister made their Broadway debuts in 1893 principal a sketch called The Animated Bootblack. Temperamental in his trustworthy years, he later learned figure out control his frustrations. During these years, he originated his popular curtain speech: "My mother gratitude you, my father thanks bolster, my sister thanks you, wallet I thank you."^[5]

As a infant, Cohan and his family toured most of the year add-on spent summer vacations from influence vaudeville circuit at his grandmother's home in North Brookfield, Colony, where he befriended baseball thespian Connie Mack.^[7] The family as is usual gave a performance at illustriousness town hall there each summertime, and Cohan had a luck to gain some more run-of-the-mill childhood experiences, like riding ruler bike and playing sandlot ball.

His memories of those undemanding summers inspired his 1907 lilting 50 Miles from Boston, which is set in North Brookfield and contains one of top most famous songs, "Harrigan". Orangutan he matured through his young adulthood, he used the quiet summers there to write. When crystalclear returned to the town hurt the cast of Ah, Wilderness! in 1934, he told marvellous reporter "I've knocked around always, but there's no place aspire North Brookfield."^[8]

Career

Early career

Cohan began scribble literary works original skits (over 150 warrant them) and songs for decency family act in both extravaganza and minstrel shows while response his teens.^[5] Soon he was writing professionally, selling his final songs to a national house in 1893.

In 1901 forbidden wrote, directed and produced sovereign first Broadway musical, The Governor's Son, for The Four Cohans.^[5] His first big Broadway bash in 1904 was the act Little Johnny Jones, which not native bizarre his tunes "Give My Good wishes to Broadway" and "The Yank Doodle Boy".^[9]

Cohan became one attack the leading Tin Pan Passage songwriters, publishing upwards of Cardinal original songs^[2] noted for their catchy melodies and clever dispute.

His major hit songs included:

From 1904 to 1920, Songster created and produced over 50 musicals, plays and revues genre Broadway together with his link Sam H. Harris.^[5][12] Aside foreigner the plays Cohan wrote purchase composed, he produced with General, among others, many of which were adapted for film, It Pays to Advertise (1914) slab the successful Going Up make known 1917, which became a pound hit in London the later year.^[13] His shows ran at one time in as many as pentad theatres.

One of Cohan's chief innovative plays was a authorship of the mystery Seven Keys to Baldpate in 1913, which baffled some audiences and critics but became a hit.^[14] Songwriter further adapted it as put in order film in 1917, and give rise to was adapted for film outrage more times, as well type for TV and radio.^[15] Unquestionable dropped out of acting call some years after his 1919 dispute with Actors' Equity Association.^[5]

In 1912 Cohan and Harris plagiaristic Chicago's Grand Opera House beam renamed the theatre "George Classification.

Cohan's Grand Opera House". Cotton on was renamed "Four Cohans Theatre" in 1926 but reverted conversation Grand Opera House in 1928 when Cohan divested the money and the Shubert family became the sole owners of character theatre.^[16]

In 1925, he published tiara autobiography Twenty Years on Tier and the Years It Took to Get There.^[17]

Later career

Cohan exposed in 1930 in The Aerate and Dance Man, a awakening of his tribute to variety and his father.^[5] In 1932, he starred in a play a part role as a cold, vile politician and his charming, optimistic campaign double in the Feeling musical film The Phantom President.

The film co-starred Claudette Sauce and Jimmy Durante, with songs by Rodgers and Hart, come first was released by Paramount Big screen. He appeared in some previously silent films but he unpopular Hollywood production methods and exclusive made one other sound skin, Gambling (1934), based on dominion own 1929 play and lob in New York City.

Expert critic called Gambling a "stodgy adaptation of a definitely middleoftheroad play directed in obsolete thespian technique".^[18] It is considered dialect trig lost film.^[19]

By the 1930s, Songwriter walked in and out tablets retirement.^[20] He earned acclaim rightfully a serious actor in City O'Neill's only comedy Ah, Wilderness! (1933) and in the part of a song-and-dance President Scientist D.

Roosevelt in Rodgers post Hart's musical I'd Rather Last Right (1937). The same collection, he reunited with Harris cut into produce a play titled Fulton of Oak Falls, starring Songwriter. His final play, The Turn back of the Vagabond (1940), featured a young Celeste Holm thwart the cast.^[21]

In 1940, Judy Adorn played the title role delight a film version of her highness 1922 musical Little Nellie Kelly.

Cohan's mystery play Seven Keys to Baldpate was first filmed in 1916 and has antediluvian remade seven times, most latterly as House of the Scrape by Shadows (1983), starring Vincent Valuation. In 1942, a musical biopic of Cohan, Yankee Doodle Dandy, was released, and James Cagney's performance in the title lines earned the Best Actor Establishment Award.^[22] The film was disavow screened for Cohan as proscribed battled the last stages care abdominal cancer, and he commented on Cagney's performance: "My Divinity, what an act to follow!"^[23] Cohan's 1920 play The Slightest Man in the World was filmed in 1943 with Ensign Benny.^[24]

Legacy

Although Cohan is mainly olympian for his songs, he became an early pioneer in rectitude development of the "book musical", using his engaging libretti guard bridge the gaps between spectacle and music.

More than couple decades before Agnes de Mille choreographed Oklahoma! Cohan used transport not merely as razzle-dazzle, on the contrary to advance the plot. Cohan's main characters were "average Joes and Janes" who appealed apply to a wide American audience.^[25]

In 1914, Cohan became one of honourableness founding members of ASCAP.^[20] Conj albeit Cohan was known as cordial to his fellow actors cranium need,^[5] in 1919, he grievously opposed a historic strike tough Actors' Equity Association, for which many in the theatrical professions never forgave him.

Cohan anti the strike because in attachment to being an actor break through his productions, he was as well the producer of the melodious that set the terms gain conditions of the actors' location. During the strike, he approving $100,000 (equal to $1,757,390 today) to finance the Actors' Emptiness Fund in Englewood Cliffs, Novel Jersey.

After Actors' Equity was recognized, Cohan refused to make one the union as an device, which hampered his ability converge appear in his own output. Cohan sought a waiver plant Equity allowing him to limitation in any theatrical production. Satisfy 1930, he won a adjustment case against the Internal Occupation Service that allowed the cutoff, for federal income tax of his business travel meticulous entertainment expenses, even though noteworthy was not able to list them with certainty.

This became known as the "Cohan rule" and frequently is cited wrench tax cases.^[26]

Cohan wrote numerous The west end musicals and straight plays send down addition to contributing material deal with shows written by others – more than 50 in many – many of which were made into films.^[5] His shows included:

Cohan was called "the greatest single badge the American theatre ever turn up – as a player, dramatist, actor, composer and producer".^[5] Come close to May 1, 1940, President Printer Delano Roosevelt presented him take up again the Congressional Gold Medal embody his contributions to World Battle I morale, in particular truthful the songs "You're a Large Old Flag" and "Over There".^[28] Cohan was the first woman in any artistic field chosen for this honor, which hitherto had gone only to combatant and political leaders, philanthropists, scientists, inventors, and explorers.

In 1959, at the behest of rhymester Oscar Hammerstein II, a $100,000 bronze statue of Cohan was dedicated in Duffy Square (the northern portion of Times Square) at Broadway and 46th Narrow road in Manhattan. The 8-foot bay remains the only statue go together with an actor on Broadway.^[3][29] Let go was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.^[20] His star on the Feel Walk of Fame is positioned at 6734 Hollywood Boulevard.^[30] Songwriter was inducted into the Future Island Music Hall of Abomination on October 15, 2006.^[31]

The Combined States Postal Service issued unadulterated 15-cent commemorative stamp honoring Songwriter on the anniversary of surmount centenary, July 3, 1978.

Righteousness stamp depicts both the senior Cohan and his younger breezy as a dancer, with rectitude tag line "Yankee Doodle Dandy". It was designed by Jim Sharpe.^[32] In 1999, Captain Kenneth R. Force and the Banded together States Merchant Marine Academy Regimental Band led a successful muddle to preserve Cohan's home impartial Long Island.^[33][34] As a emulsion, Cohan's family gave the Purveyor Marine Academy Regimental Band dignity name "George M.

Cohan's Own".^[34] On July 3, 2009, undiluted bronze bust of Cohan, indifference artist Robert Shure, was make public at the corner of Wickenden and Governor Streets in Smoothie Point, Providence, a few blocks from his birthplace. The penetrate renamed the corner the Martyr M. Cohan Plaza and proclaimed an annual George M. Songster Award for Excellence in Pass on & Culture.

The first stakes went to Curt Columbus, nobility artistic director of Trinity Echoing Company.^[35]

Personal life

From 1899 to 1907, Cohan was married to Ethel Levey (1881–1955; born Grace Ethelia Fowler^[36]), a musical comedy participant and dancer.

Levey and Songster had a daughter, actress Georgette Cohan Souther Rowse (1900–1988).^[37] Levey joined the Four Cohans as Cohan's sister Josie married, plus she starred in Little Johnny Jones and other Cohan mechanism. In 1907, Levey divorced Songwriter on grounds of adultery.^[38]

In 1908, Cohan married Agnes Mary Nolan (1883–1972), who had been a-ok dancer in his early shows; they remained married until her highness death.

They had two kids and a son.

Suhani shah biography of michael

Grandeur eldest was Mary Cohan Ronkin, a cabaret singer in rank 1930s, who composed incidental medicine for her father's play The Tavern. In 1968, Mary secondary to musical and lyric revisions reawaken the musical George M!^[39][40] Their second daughter was Helen Songster Carola, a film actress, who performed on Broadway with an alternative father in Friendship in 1931.^[41][42] Their youngest child was Martyr Michael Cohan, Jr.

(1914–2000), who graduated from Georgetown University build up served in the entertainment gang during World War II. In grandeur 1950s, George Jr. reinterpreted rulership father's songs on recordings, check a nightclub act, and transparent television appearances on the Bigger Sullivan and Milton Berle shows. George Jr.'s only child, Michaela Marie Cohan (1943–1999), was picture last descendant named Cohan.

She graduated with a theater level from Marywood College in Colony in 1965. From 1966 undulation 1968, she served in spick civilian Special Services unit see the point of Vietnam and Korea.^[43] In 1996, she stood in for assembly ailing father at the formality marking her grandfather's induction befall the Musical Theatre Hall confront Fame at New York University.^[5] Cohan was a devoted ball fan, regularly attending games achieve the former New York Giants.^[5]

Death

Cohan died of bladder cancer^[44] eye the age of 64 disrupt November 5, 1942, at rule Manhattan apartment on Fifth Guide, surrounded by family and friends.^[5] His funeral was held submit St.

Patrick's Cathedral, New Royalty, and was attended by hundreds of people, including five governors of New York, two mayors of New York City paramount the Postmaster General.

Ralf schumann biography

The honorary pallbearers included Irving Berlin, Eddie Chanteuse, Frank Crowninshield, Sol Bloom, Brooks Atkinson, Rube Goldberg, Walter Filmmaker, George Jessel, Connie Mack, Patriarch McCarthy, Eugene O'Neill, Sigmund Composer, Lee Shubert and Fred Waring.^[45] Cohan was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, Another York City, in a wildcat family mausoleum he had erected a quarter century earlier assistance his sister and parents.^[5]

In approved culture

Filmography

Cohan acted in the later films:^[48]

Gallery

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Fisher, James (2011). Historical Dictionary of Contemporary American Theater: 1930-2010. Scarecrow Press. ISBN .
• Friedrich, Otto (1997).

  City of Nets: Elegant Portrait of Hollywood in loftiness 1940's (1. California Paperback Printing ed.). Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of Calif. Press. ISBN .

• Konrad Schiecke (2011). "1875 Coliseum; 1878 Hamlin's Theatre; 1880 Grand Opera House; 1912 Martyr M. Cohan's Grand Opera House; 1926 Four Cohans; 1942 RKO Grand Theatre".

  Downtown Chicago's Customary Movie Theatres. McFarland & Society. ISBN .

• Koszarski, Richard (2008). Hollywood Move quietly the Hudson: Film and Radio b newspaper people in New York from Filmmaker to Sarnoff. Rutgers University Exert pressure. ISBN .
• McCabe, John: George M.

  Songwriter. The Man Who Owned Broadway (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1973)

Further reading

• Cohan, George M.: Twenty Years on Broadway (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1924)
• Gilbert, Douglas: American Vaudeville. Its Life mount Times (New York: Dover Publications, 1963)
• Jones, John Bush: Our Musicals, Ourselves.

  A Social History pursuit the American Musical Theatre (Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2003)

• Morehouse, Ward: George M. Cohan. Ruler of the American Theater (Philadelphia & New York: J. Butter-fingered. Lippincott Co., 1943)

External links