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Frank Loesser,

book cover: "The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser
Robert Kimball and Steve Nelson,
The Complete Lyrics of Frank Loesser

Basic Information

Born: Frank Henry Loesser, June 29, 1910, New York City

Died: July 28, 1969 (age 59), New York City

Primary songwriting roles: lyricist and composer; also pianist, singer and music publisher

Co-writers: Chiefly, Loesser wrote both words and music for his Broadway shows. Otherwise, his co-writers featured on Cafe Songbook include Harry Akst, Louis Alter, Hoagy Carmichael, Burton Lane, Eddie De Lange, Matty Malneck, Joseph Meyer, Jimmy McHugh, Jule Styne, Victor Schertzinger, Arthur Schwartz, Jule Styne, and Victor Young. For songs written with these co-writers and others, view a database of 28 Frank Loesser co-writers.

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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
Frank Loesser

Overview in progress
book cover: Max Wilk, "They're Playing Our Song"
Max Wilk, They're Playing Our Song: Conversations with America's Classic Songwriters (originally published 1973 as They're Playing Our Song: From Jerome Kern to Stephen Sondheim—The Stories behind the Words and Music of Two Generations), New York and Stratford, CT: Easton Studio Press, 2008.

Composer Jule Styne recounts that [in 1941] he was working at Republic Pictures, not one of the more glamorous Hollywood studios, where he was supposed to to write songs, but wound up doing just about everything else. When he finally did get the chance to compose, the Republic people asked him who he wanted to write the lyrics. He said, "'Frank Loesser.' 'Where's he?' "Paramount.' So they made a trade. They swapped John Wayne [who was at that time under contract to Republic] for a picture to get Frank Loesser; that was the deal." When Loesser got there, Styne recalls, "He hated me because I'd degraded him" ( Wilk, pp. 182-183).

Loesser's first published song was "In Love with a Memory of You" music by William Schuman (Wilk 320) and first professionally performed lyric was for "A Waltz Was Born in Vienna" music by Frederick Loewe from 1936 (Wilk 317).

Ed's. note: As it turned out the two of them didn't really score big together until Styne got traded to Paramount and the two collaborated to write songs for the 1942 movie Sweater Girl, which included what became an American standard song, "I Don't Want To Walk without You, Baby."

 

Where's Charley, Loesser's first Broadway show, for which he wrote both words and music, opened on October 11, 1948. Max Wilk quotes Ernie Martin, a Hollywood music director who encouraged Loesser to go to New York to write the show:

It [Where's Charley] didn't make much of a splash at the beginning, we didn't get great notices at all. But there were telegrams from all the other composers -- Rodgers, Hammerstein, Cole Porter -- congratulating him on his brilliant work. Cole was always so starry-eyed about other people's work. With Loesser, he used to sit there and say, "How can he have thought of a thing like that?" . . . . Arthur Schwartz wrote a piece in The New York Times Sunday section saying that Frank was the greatest undiscovered composer in America . . . . Then people started to pay attention (Wilk, p. 325).

album cover: "Where's Charley?" (London Cast)Where's Charley?
(original London cast
1958 )

iTunes || Amazon

Loesser reversed the bicoastal trajectory of most songwriters who started on Broadway and then made their way to Hollywoood to write for the movies. Loesser had become an established lyricist in California when the opportunity to do the words for the songs in a Broadway show, Where's Charley, the music for which was to be written by Harold, came his way. When Arlen's wife became ill and he remained on the West Coast, Loesser came to New York and wrote both words and music for the show. The rest of which, as they say, is history, or in other words, Guys and Dolls, A Most Happy Fella, etc.
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Cafe Songbook
Music-Video Cabinet:
Frank Loesser


album cover: "An Evening with Frank Loesser"
An Evening with
Frank Loesser

( An Evening with Frank Loesser "contains performances associated with three Frank Loesser shows [with Loesser himself doing much of the performing] — Guys and Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, and How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" --from the iTunes review. Click album cover for the remainder.)

Amazon || iTunes


Tribute to Frank Loesser from Opera Omaha (2010).

Heart & Soul: The Life and Music of
Frank Loesser
,
DVD


Vivian Blaine, performing "Adelaide's Lament" (words and music by Loesser) in the 1955 movie version of Guys and Dolls, in which she plays opposite Frank Sinatra as Nathan Detroit.

album cover: Frank Sings Loesser
Frank Sings Loesser

(Frank Loesser singing many of his lesser known songs.)

Amazon || iTunes



Don Ameche and Mary Martin sing "I Never Let a Day Pass By" (music by Victor Schertzinger, words by Frank Loesser) from the 1941 movie, Kiss the Boys Goodbye -- the film for which it was written. This song is not included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog but is certainly worth hearing. Another Schertzinger/Loesser song written for the film,
"Sand in My Shoes," is in the catalog.

book cover: A Most Remarkable Fellow
Susan Loesser
A Most Remarkable Fella
(Frank Loesser and the
Guys and Dolls in His Life
),
New York: Donald I Fine
1993

 


Frank Loesser performs for Faye Emerson on her
TV show c. 1951. Among other numbers he plays and
sings two of his songs: "On a Slow Boat to China" and "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year."

 

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Frank Loesser Songs
currently included in the
Cafe Songbook Catalog of
The Great American Songbook
  1. Baby It's Cold Outside
  2. Cant' Get Out of This Mood
  3. Heart and Soul
  4. How Sweet You Are
  5. I Believe in You
  6. I Don't Want To Walk without You, Baby
  7. I Hear Music
  8. I Wish I Didn't Love You So
  9. If I Were a Bell
  10. I've Never Been in Love Before
  11. The Lady's in Love with You
  12. Let's Get Lost
  13. Moments Like This
  14. Never Will I Marry
  15. On a Slow Boat to China
  16. Once in Love with Amy
  17. Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition
  18. Sand in My Shoes
  19. Say It (over and over again)
  20. Says My Heart
  21. Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat
  22. Small Fry
  23. Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year
  24. They're Either Too Young or Too Old
  25. Two Sleepy People
  26. What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?
Click here for a database of songs written or co-written by Frank Loesser.
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Thomas L. Riis
Frank Loesser
(Yale Broadway Masters Series)
New Haven and London:
Yale University Press,
2008

 


Research Resources:
Frank Loesser

Frank Loesser
research resources on the web (listed alphabetically by web source):
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Frank Loesser
research resources in print (listed chronologically):
 
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Credits

(Frank Loesser page)

 

Credits for Videomakers of videos used on this page:

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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.

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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

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Borodin, Alexander

Bowman, Brooks

Boyd, Elisse

Brent, Earl K.

Bricusse, Leslie

Brooks, Harry

Brooks, Shelton

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Brown, Lew

Brown, Nacio Herb

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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

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Cory, George

Coslow, Sam

Creamer, Henry

Crosby, Bing

Cross, Douglas

Daniels, Charles N.
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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

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L. E. Freeman

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