Jimmy Van Heusen
Jimmy Van Heusen (January 26,
1913 - February 7, 1990), was an American composer. He wrote songs
mainly for films and television (but also for the theater), and won
four Academy Awards for Best Original Song, and an Emmy.
Born Edward Chester Babcock in
Syracuse, New York, he began writing music while at high school. He
renamed himself at age 16, after the famous shirt makers, Phillips-Van
Heusen, to use as his on-air name during a local radio show.
Studying at Cazenovia Seminary and
Syracuse University, he became friends with Jerry Arlen, the younger
brother of Harold Arlen. With the elder Arlen's help, Van Heusen wrote
songs for the Cotton Club revue, including "Harlem Hospitality."
He then became a staff pianist for
some of the Tin Pan Alley publishers, and wrote "It's the Dreamer in
Me" (1938) with lyrics by Tommy Dorsey.
Collaborating with lyricist Eddie
DeLange, on songs such as "Heaven Can Wait", "So Help Me", and "Darn
That Dream", his work became more prolific, writing over 60 songs in
1940 alone. It was in 1940 that he teamed up with the lyricist Johnny
Burke.
Burke and Van Heusen moved to
Hollywood writing for stage musicals and films throughout the '40s and
early '50s, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song for
"Swinging on a Star" (1944). Their songs were also featured in A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949).
He was also a pilot of some
accomplishment; he worked, using his birth name, as a part-time test
pilot for Lockheed Corporation in World War II.
Van Heusen then teamed up with
lyricist Sammy Cahn. Their three Academy Awards for Best Song were won
for "All the Way" (1957) from The Joker Is Wild, "High Hopes" (1959)
from A Hole in the Head, and "Call Me Irresponsible" (1963) from Papa's
Delicate Condition. Their songs were also featured in Rear Window
(1954), Ocean's Eleven (1960) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), which
featured the Oscar-nominated "My Kind of Town."
Cahn and Van Heusen also wrote "Love
and Marriage" (1955), "To Love and Be Loved", "Come Fly with Me", "Only
the Lonely", and "Come Dance with Me" with many of their compositions
being the title songs for Frank Sinatra's albums of the late 50's.
Van Heusen wrote the music for at
least three Broadway musicals: Carnival in Flanders (1953), Skyscraper
(1965), and Walking Happy (1966).
He became an inductee of the
Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.
Van Heusen composed over 800 plus
songs of which 50 songs became standards. Van Heusen songs are featured
in over one hundred eighty films.
Van Heusen retired in the late 1970s,
and died in Rancho Mirage, California in 1990, at the age of 77. He was
close friends throughout life with Frank Sinatra. He is buried in the
Sinatra family burial plot in Desert Memorial Park, in Cathedral City,
California. His grave marker reads Swinging On A Star.