Welcome to

Cafe Songbook

Internet Home of the
Songs, Songwriters and Performers of

The Great American Songbook

Madison Square logo, top of page cafe songbook sign for logo

Search Tips: 1) Click "Find on This Page" button to activate page search box. 2) When searching for a name (e.g. a songwriter), enter last name only. 3) When searching for a song title on the catalog page, omit an initial "The" or "A". 4) more search tips.

Arthur Freed

DVD cover: Singin' in the Rain -- 60th Ann. Collector's Edition
Singin' In The Rain:
60th Anniversary Collector's Edition
(Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

movie produced by and
lyrics for the title song written by
Arthur Freed

Basic Information

Born: Arthur Grossman, September 9, 1894, Charleston, South Carolina

Died: April 12, 1973 (age 78), Los Angeles, California

Primary songwriting role: lyricist; also, movie producer, brother to Ralph Freed

Co-writers: chiefly Nacio Herb Brown -- plus Gus Arnheim, Al Hoffman, and Harry Warren.
See also a database of 17 Arthur Freed co-writers.

Page Menu

Basic Songwiter Information
Overview and Commentary
Music-Video Cabinet
Songs by This Songwriter
in the Cafe Songbook Catalog
of The Great American Songbook
Web Research Resources
Print Research Resources
Visitor Comments
Master List of Songwriters
Credits

Overview and Commentary:
Arthur Freed


book cover: The Arathur Freed Unit: MGM's Greatest Musicals
Hugh Fordin
M-G-M's Greatest Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit
, Da Capo Press, 1996 (unabridged reprint of The World of Entertainment!: Hollywood's Greatest Musicals, New York Doubleday, 1975.

 


book cover: "Reading Lyrics" Ed. by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball
Reading Lyrics,
Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.

Although Arthur Freed created an impressive catalog of songs as a lyricist, he became even better known as a producer of movie musicals at MGM, eventurally heading up The Freed Unit. It was from him and out of the MGM division that bore his name, that the great MGM musicals such as The Wizard of Oz, Babes on Broadway, Cabin in the Sky, Meet me in St. Louis, Easter Parade, Singin' in the Rain, An American in Paris, Gigi (the last two both being Oscar winners) and many other landmark musical films came. By the way, the title song for Singin' in the Rain was written by Freed and his most important songwriting collaborator, Nacio Herb Brown, almost twenty-five years before the movie came out when they were a songwriting team in Los Angeles -- even before they were hired by MGM. Once Brown and Freed came to work on the MGM lot, they wrote the songs for musicals such as The Broadway Melody (1929),Broadway Melody of 1936 and Broadway Melody of 1938, Hollywood Revue (1929) and Going Hollywood (1932). As Hugh Fordin, in his book MGM's Greatest Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit put it, "On the sound stages he watched his songs being staged, rehearsed and photographed. He watched intently, absorbed much and leared a great deal" (Fordin, p. 1).

When in 1952 the Freed Unit undertook Singin' in the Rain, Freed pulled the title song out of his trunk along with "All I Do Is Dream of You" and others he and Brown had written years before because they came from the era that coincided with the time period depicted in "Singin' in the Rain." So Freed, who lived through and left his mark on both the era the film was about and the era in which it was made, wound up breathing new life into his old songs, sending them out of that past on their and his movie's way to a future life he probably couldn't have imagined.

Freed was born in Charleston South Carolina in 1894, raised in Seattle and educated at Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. That his life's work took place in southern Calfiornia made him an American who lived in all four corners of the country, just as his songs and movies lived throughout the nation, and for that matter the world. His father Max Freed was a successful art dealer who along with his wife Rosa, whom Fordin describes as a "highly intelligent, articulate vibrant lady," provided their eight children with a cosmopolitan, cultured, traveled and musical upbringing. All of the children, six brothers and one sister, entered the world of music as adults with the oldest Arthur and the youngest Ralph Freed becoming lyricists.

During WWI, Arthur staged musicals for the troops and afterwards was involved in vaudeville with Gus Edwards and The Marx Brothers. This led to other show business enterprises including producing his own musical revue, until he went to Hollywood eventually landing with MGM as a songwriter. Ironically as Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball point out, despite his enormous success as a producer, "he may be best remembered for a few of his songs, and for the movie, Singin' in the Rain, based on them." The same commentators describe his lyrics as neither "elaborate or sophisticated" but rather "high-level examples of Tin Pan Alley twenties' and thirties' style transplanted to the movies" (Reading Lyrics, p. 168).

Gary Marmorstein characterizes Freed at the end of his career at MGM as that of a man who unlike most of the people he worked with during his and MGM's golden age of musicals as a figure who perhaps stayed too long:

Freed hung around as movie elder, a nagging reminder that the golden era of the movie musical had passed. . . . He died in April 1973, two months after his younger brother Ralph [The lyricist who wrote "How About You"] Say it with Music, Freed's long-time pet project built around Irving Berlin's song catalog, remained unfilmed. It was the era of the independent writer-director, as well as the rock 'n' roll soundtrack, and the Arthur Freed brand of musical was widely regarded as quaint. (Gary Marmorstein, Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900-1975, pp. 273-274, hard cover Ed.).


book cover: Gary Marmorstein "Hollywood Rhapsody Movie Music and Its Makers 1900-1975"

Gary Marmorstein
Hollywood Rhapsody: Movie Music and Its Makers, 1900-1975,
New York: Schirmer Books, 1997

Marmorstein describes Freed's lyrics as more of a foreshadow of his role as a studio exectuive:

As a lyricist, [Arthur Freed] had had the touch of a business man. From "Singin' in the Rain" to "Good Morning," his words stroll through their clichés wih a shrug; they're cued to cheerful, romantic sentiment ("You Are My Lucky Star," "All I Do Is Dream of You," ) without achieving much depth , or even cleverness. Freed's writing lacked the dazzle and specificity of his brother Ralph's lyrics for say, "How About You?" or "You Leave me Breathless."

As a producer Marmorstein draws Freed as an aloof man but very distinctly no-nonsense. He quotes various colleagues who knew Freed at work describing him as wearing armor, and "very closed," and as an overseer of other people's writing he was "an intuitive and merciless editor who wasn't inlcined to wrestle with complexity." He knew what he liked and what he didn't, "possessed a keen and an unerring eye" "and . . . wasn't impressed by celebrity though he openly admired talent."

Marmorstein captures a sense of Freed's presence at MGM when he writes:

On the Culver City lot, Freed deferred to no one except Mayer. . . . The two were in touch by intercom several times a day. The studio line went: "If you want to shave Freed, you've got to lather L. B. Mayer's ass." Freed was aware that Mayer granted lhim an autonomy that few other men in motion picutres enjoyed; Mayer knew that Freed, given a free hand, would produce profitable films for the studio.

(Marmorstein, pp. 241-244, 273, hard cover Ed.)

(1961/1963)
Judy Garland

Album: Judy at Carnegie Hall

Amazon iTunes

notes: Recorded live at Carnegie Hall, New York City, April 23, 1961. (includes a live recording of "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart" but obviously not that first audition from 1935.)

Judy Garland's career famously began when she auditioned for Arthur Freed at MGM in September, 1935 with her father, Frank Gumm as her accompanist. When she had barely started, Freed interrupted the audition instructing Roger Edens (one of the most important music people at the studio) to replace Mr. Gumm whispering, "that guy is the worst piano player I ever heard, Roger go over and do a song with the little girl." Judy then sang, "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart." Freed and Edens were so astonished that they ran across the MGM lot to Louis B. Mayer's office, bypassed his secretary to grab him and drag him back to the sound stage to listen. After Garland had sung several more songs," Hugh Fordin tells us, "Mayer had tears in his eyes. Freed walked back with him to his office. 'What did I tell you boss? She's going to be a big star!'" (Fordin, p. 5).

DVD cover: The Wizard of Oz (Two-Disc 70th Anniversary Edition)
The Wizard of Oz
(Two-Disc 70th Anniversary Edition)

When Arthur Freed had settled most of the initial matters concerning the script for The Wizard of Oz (1938-1939), he turned his attention to the score for which he had not yet even selected the songwriters. He had spoken to Jerome Kern who was a close friend and interested in the project and who most likely would have worked with Dorothy Fields for the lyrics, but they were not to be chosen. As Hugh Fordin notes, it was Freed's constant need to reach for "the best" that caused him to look elsewhere for his songwriting team. This didn't mean, of course, that Kern and Fields were not good enough for him but that he "became convinced that the style of Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg had the right sparkle and lightness for this story," that they would be best for this movie. He kept thinking of a song they had written for their 1937 Broadway collaboration, Hooray for What! The song was "In the Shade of the New Apple Tree," which Freed, a world-class songwriter himself, thought of as "fanciful and beguiling, yet unsentimental," and it was those qualities of that song that led Freed to hire Arlen and Harburg instead of Kern and Fields to write the songs for The Wizard of Oz. (Fordin, MGM, p. 13.)

Ed.'s note: Hooray for What! had more of an effect on The Wizard of Oz than just including the song that made Freed choose Arlen and Harburg. The melody for The Wizard of Oz song "If I Only Had a Brain / a Heart / The Nerve" was originally written by Arlen for Hooray for What!, with the Harburg title "I'm Hanging On to You" and a completely different lyric. The song was dropped from that show, but Harburg gave it a new lyric and it was added to The Wizard of Oz as "If I Only Had a . . ."
P.S. Jonathan Schwartz has often wondered out loud on his radio show what The Wizard of Oz would have been like with a score by Kern and Fields -- and for that matter what the world would have been like without the Arlen/Harburg score.

back to top of page

Cafe Songbook
Music-Video Cabinet:
Arthur Freed


The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo /
Torch Song)

The Arthur Freed/ Nacio Herb Brown song "All I Do Is Dream of You" was written for Sadie McKee
(Movie, 1934). It was later used in the movie Singin' in the Rain (1952).
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)



Bing Crosby sings "Temptation" (music by Nacio Herb Brown, lyrics by Arthur Freed)
from the 1933 movie "Going Hollywood."
To catch Arthur Freed receiving the Oscar for best picture (Gigi) in 1959, watch (at YouTube) Jerry Lewis introduce Cary Grant who introduces Ingrid Bergman who presents the award to Mr. Freed.)
back to top of page


Arthur Freed Songs
currently included in the
Cafe Songbook Catalog of
The Great American Songbook
  1. All I Do Is Dream of You
  2. Good Morning
  3. I Cried for You
  4. Should I? (reveal exactly how I feel)
  5. Singin' in the Rain
  6. This Heart of Mine
  7. You Are My Lucky Star
Click here for a database of songs written or co-written by Arthur Freed.
back to top of page

 


Research Resources:
Arthur Freed

Arthur Freed research resources on the web (listed alphabetically by web source):
back to top of page
Arthur Freed research resources in print (listed chronologically):
 
back to top of page

Visitor Comments

Submit comments on songs, songwriters, performers, etc.
Feel free to suggest an addition or correction.
Please read our Comments Guidelines before making a submission.
(Posting of comments is subject to the guidelines.
Not all comments will be posted.)
To submit a comment, click here.

Posted Comments on Arthur Freed:

 

No comments as yet posted

back to top of page

Credits

(this page)

 

Credits for Videomakers of videos used on this page:

  • Gene Raymond "All I Do Is Dream of You": LordWham and Turner Classic Moves
  • Crosby/"Temptation": nicoley133

Borrowed material (text): The sources of all quoted and paraphrased text are cited. Such content is used under the rules of fair use to further the educational objectives of CafeSongbook.com. CafeSongbook.com makes no claims to rights of any kind in this content or the sources from which it comes.

 

Borrowed material (images): Images of CD, DVD, book and similar product covers are used courtesy of either Amazon.com or iTunes/LinkShare with which CafeSongbook.com maintains an affiliate status. All such images are linked to the source from which they came (i.e. either iTunes/LinkShare or Amazon.com).

 

Any other images that appear on CafeSongbook.com pages are either in the public domain or appear through the specific permission of their owners. Such permission will be acknowledged in this space on the page where the image is used.

 

For further information on Cafe Songbook policies with regard to the above matters, see our "About Cafe Songbook" page (link at top and bottom of every page).

Cafe Songbook
Master List
of Great American Songbook Songwriters

Names of songwriters who have written at least one song included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook are listed below.

 

Names of songwriters with two or more song credits in the catalog (with rare exceptions) are linked to their own Cafe Songbook pages, e.g. Fields, Dorothy.

 

Names of songwriters with only one song credit in the catalog are linked to the Cafe Songbook page for that song, on which may be found information about the songwriter or a link to an information source for him or her.

 

Please note: Cafe Songbook pages for songwriters are currently in various stages of development.

A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N-O P-Q R S T-U
V W X-Y-Z
back to top of page

Adair, Tom

Adams, Lee

Adams, Stanley

Adamson, Harold

Ager, Milton

Ahbez, Eden

Ahlert, Fred

Akst, Harry

Alexander, Van

Allen, Lewis

Allen, Steve

Alter, Louis

Altman, Arthur

Anderson, Maxwell

Andre, Fabian

Arlen, Harold
Arnheim, Gus

Arodin, Sid

Atwood, Hub

Astaire, Fred

Austin, Gene

Ayer, Nat D.

Barbour, Dave

Barnes, Billy

Barris, Harry

Bassman, George

Belle, Barbara

Bennett, Dave

Bergman, Alan and Marilyn

Berlin, Irving

Bernie, Ben

Bernstein, Leonard

Best, William "Pat"

Blackburn, John

Blackwell, Otis (a.k.a. John Davenport)

Blake, Eubie

Blane, Ralph

Blitzstein, Marc

Bloom, Rube

Bock, Jerry

Block, Martin

Boland, Clay

Borne, Hal

Borodin, Alexander

Bowman, Brooks

Boyd, Elisse

Brent, Earl K.

Bricusse, Leslie

Brooks, Harry

Brooks, Shelton

Brown, Les

Brown, Lew

Brown, Nacio Herb

Brown, Seymour

Burke, Joe

Burke, Johnny

Burke, Sonny

Burnett, Ernie

Burns, Ralph

Burwell, Cliff

Bushkin, Joe

 

A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N-O P-Q R S T-U
V W X-Y-Z
back to top of page

 

Caesar, Irving

Cahn, Sammy

Caldwell, Anne

Campbell, Jimmy

Carey, Bill (William D.)

Carmichael, Hoagy

Carroll, Harry

Carter, Benny

Casey, Kenneth

Casucci, Leonello

Chaplin, Charlie

Chaplin, Saul

Charlap, Moose

Clare, Sidney

Chase, Newell

Churchill, Frank

Clarke, Grant

Clifford, Gordon

Clinton, Larry

Coates, Carroll

Coleman, Cy

Comden, Betty and Adolph Green

Conley, Larry

Connelly, Reginald

Conrad, Con

Cooley, Eddie

Coots, J. Fred

Cory, George

Coslow, Sam

Creamer, Henry

Crosby, Bing

Cross, Douglas

Daniels, Charles N.
Davenport, John (See Otis Blackwell.)

David, Mack

Davis, Benny

Davis, Jimmy

Dee, Sylvia

De Lange, Eddie

Denniker, Paul

Dennis, Matt

De Paul, Gene

De Rose, Peter

De Sylva, B.G. (Buddy)

DeVries, John

Dietz, Howard

Distel, Sacha

Dixon, Mort

Donaldson, Walter

Dorsey, Jimmy

Dougherty, Doc

Drake, Ervin
Drake, Milton

Dreyer, Dave

Dubin, Al

Duke, Vernon

Edens, Roger

Edwards, Michael

Egan, Raymond B.

Eliscu, Edward

Ellington, Duke

Elman, Ziggy

Engvick, William

Evans, Ray

Evans, Redd

Eyton, Frank

 

A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N-O P-Q R S T-U
V W X-Y-Z
back to top of page

 

Fain, Sammy

Fetter, Ted

Fields, Dorothy

Fischer, Carl

Fisher, Dan

Fisher, Fred

Fisher, Mark

Fisher, Marvin

Forrest, George

Freed, Arthur

Freed, Ralph

L. E. Freeman

Gaines, Lee

Gallop, Sammy

Gannon, Kim

Garner, Errol

Gaskill, Clarence

Gensler, Lewis E.

George, Don

Gershwin, George

Gershwin, Ira

Gillespie, Haven

Golden, John

Goodman, Benny

Goodwin, Joe

Gordon, Irving

Gordon, Mack

Gorney, Jay

Gorrell, Stuart

Goulding, Edmund

Grainger, Porter

Grand, Murray

Grant, Ian

Gray, Chauncey

Gray, Timothy

Grever, Maria

Grey, Clifford
Green, Adolph and Betty Comden

Green, Bud

Green, Freddie

Green, Johnny

Gross, Walter

Haggart, Bob

Hamilton, Arthur

Hamilton, Nancy

Hamm, Fred

Hammerstein, Arthur

Hammerstein II, Oscar

Hampton, Lionel

Handy, W. C.
Hanighen, Bernie

Hanley, James F.

Harbach, Otto

Harburg, E. Y. (Yip)

Harling, W. Franke

Harline, Leigh

Hart, Lorenz

Henderson, Jimmy

Henderson, Ray

Herbert, Victor

Herman, Woody

Herron, Joel S.

Herzog Jr., Arthur

Heyman, Edward

Heyward, Dubose

Higginbotham, Irene

Higgins, Billy

Hilliard, Bob

Hirsch, Walter

Hodges, Johnny

Holiday, Billie

Holiner, Mann

Hollander, Frederick

Holofcener, Larry

Homer, Ben

Hopper, Hal

Howard, Bart

Hubbell, Raymond

Hupfeld, Herman

 

A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N-O P-Q R S T-U
V W X-Y-Z
back to top of page

 

I-J

Jacobs, Jacob

Jaffe, Moe

James, Freddy (Pseud. for Teddy Powell)

James, Harry

James, Paul

Jenkins, Gordon

Johnson, James P.

Johnston, Arthur

Johnston, Patricia

Jolson, Al

Jones, Isham

Kahal, Irving

Kahn, Gus

Kahn, Roger Wolfe

Kalmar, Bert

Keith, Marilyn
Kent, Walter

Kern, Jerome

Kisco, Charles

Kitchings, Irene

Koehler, Ted

Kosma, Joseph

Kramer, Alex

Kramer, Joan Whitney

Kurtz, Manny

Laine, Frankie

Lamare, Jules (a.k.a Charles N.

Daniels and Neil Moret)

Lane, Burt
Landesman, Fran

Latouche, John

Lawrence, Eddie

Lawrence, Jack

Layton, Turner

Lee, Peggy

Leigh, Carolyn

Leonard, Anita

Lerner, Alan Jay
Leslie, Edgar

Levant, Oscar

Lewis, Morgan

Lewis, Sam M.

Link, Harry

Lippman, Sidney

Livingston, Fud

Livingston, Jay

Livingston, Jerry

Loeb, John Jacob

Loesser, Frank

Loewe, Frederick

Lombardo, Carmen

Lowe, Ruth

Lown, Bert
Lyman, Abe

 

A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N-O P-Q R S T-U
V W X-Y-Z
back to top of page

 

M

MacDonald, Ballard

Magidson, Herb
Malneck, Matty

Mancini, Henry

Mandel, Frank

Mandel, Johnny

Mann, David

Marks, Gerald

Martin, Hugh

Maschwitz, Eric

Mayer, Henry
McCarey, Leo

McCarthy, Joseph

McCarthy, Jr., Joseph

McHugh, Jimmy

McCoy, Joe

Mellin, Robert

Mercer, Johnny

Merrill, Bob

Mertz, Paul Madeira

Meyer, Joseph

Miles, Dick

Miller, Glenn

Miller, Nathan Ned

Mills, Irving
Mitchell, Sidney D.

Moll, Billy

Monaco, Jimmy

Moret, Neil (aka Charles N. Daniels)

Morey, Larry

Moross, Jerome

Mundy, Jimmy

Muse, Clarence

Myrow, Josef

Nemo, Henry

Newley, Anthony

Nichols, Alberta

Noble, Ray

Norman, Pierre
Norton, George A.

Oakland, Ben

Overstreet, Benton W.

Palmer, Jack

Palmer, Bee

Parish, Mitchell

Parker, Dorothy

Parker, Sol

Parsons, Geoffrey

Perkins, Frank S.

Phillipe-Gérard M(ichel)

Pinkard, Maceo

Porter, Cole

Prima, Louis

Prince, Graham

Prince, Hughie

 

A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N-O P-Q R S T-U
V W X-Y-Z
back to top of page

Rainger, Ralph

Raksin, David

Ram, Buck

Ramirez, Roger (Ram)

Rand Lionel

Raye, Don

Razaf, Andy

Reardon, Jack

Redmond, John

Rene, Leon T.

Rene, Otis

Revel, Harry

Reynolds, Ellis

Reynolds, Herbert

Rhodes, Stan

Robin, Leo

Robin, Sid

Robison, Willard

Rodgers, Richard

Romberg, Sigmund

Rome, Harold

Ronell, Ann
Rose, Billy

Rose, Fred

Rose, Vincent

Ruby, Harry

Ruby, Herman

Ruskin, Harry

Russell, Bob

Sampson, Edgar

Sanicola, Henry

Santly, Lester

Savitt, Jay

Secunda, Sholom

Segal Jack
Schertzinger, Victor
Schwandt, Wilbur

Schwartz, Arthur

Scott, Bertha

Shapiro, Ted

Shavers, Charlie

Shay, Larry

Shearing, George

Sherman, Jimmy

Sherwin, Manning

Sigman, Carl

Signorelli, Frank

Silvers, Phil

Simons, Seymour

Sinatra, Frank

Sissle, Noble

Skylar, Sunny

Snyder, Ted

Sondheim, Stephen

Sour, Robert
Spence, Lew

Springer, Philip

Stept, Sam H.

Stock, Larry

Stordahl, Axel

Strachey, Jack

Strayhorn, Billy

Strouse, Charles

Styne, Jule

Suessdorf, Karl

Suesse, Dana

Sullivan, Henry

Swan, Einar Aaron

Swift, Kay

Symes, Marty

 

A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N-O P-Q R S T-U
V W X-Y-Z
back to top of page

 

T-U

Tauber, Doris

Teagarten, Jack

Thompson, Kay
Tobias, Charles

Tobias, Harry

Tormé, Mel

Tracey, William G.
Trent, Jo

Troop, Bobby

Turk, Roy

Turner, John

Van Heusen, Jimmy (James)

Vimmerstedt, Sadie

Waller, Fats

Warfield, Charles

Warren, Harry

Washington, Ned
Watson, Johnny

Webb, Chick

Webster, Paul Francis

Weill, Kurt

Weiss, George David

Wells, Robert

Weston, Paul

Whiting, Richard A.

Whiting, George A.

Wilder, Alec

Wiley, Lee

Wilkinson, Dudley


Williams, Clarence

Williams, Spencer

Wodehouse, P. G.

Wolf, Donald E.

Wolf, Jack

Wolf, Tommy

Wood, Guy B

Woods, Harry M.

Wright, Lawrence

Wright, Robert

Wrubel, Allie

Yellen, Jack

Youmans, Vincent

Young, Joe

Young, Trummy

Young, Victor

A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N-O P-Q R S T-U
V W X-Y-Z
back to top of page
back to top of page