Edward Eliscu, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany

Overview and Commentary Edward Eliscu (This section remains in progress)

Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball inform us that the first important moment in Eliscu's career as a lyricist came in New York where after having been a jack-of-all-trades in the theater, acting, directing, producing and writing, he collaborated with Billy Rose and Vincent Youmans on the songs for the show Great Day! "It only ran about a month but it produced three standards: the title song, "More Than You Know," and "Without a Song" (Gottlieb and Kimball, p. 340).

Eliscu's other career moment as a lyricist came in 1933, when he arrived in Hollywood to join Youmans and with some help from Gus Kahn, "wrote the lyrics for the songs for the first Fred Astaire -- Ginger Rogers film, Flying Down to Rio. The trio created such memorable numbers as 'Orchids in the Moonlight," "Music Makes Me,' and, especially, "The Carioca" which, as Philip Furia says, "launched the film career of the great dance team and set the standard for the finest Hollywood musicals of the Era" (Philip Furia, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley, pp. 82-83, hardcover Ed.).

Eliscu, "a lifelong, outspoken liberal," indeed a polemicist for the causes he espoused, was blacklisted during the fifties but still managed to make a living in television, theater and even film adapting many prestigious stage dramas for live television as well as writing screenplays for more than twenty movies.

• The Carioca
• Great Day!
• More Than You Know
• Without a Song

Research Resources: Edward Eliscu

• Amazon (books by and about, recordings, videos, sheet music, etc.)
• DBOPM (Database Of Popular Music: song list; awards; hit songs; co-writers)
• Discogs.com (songwriting and arranging credits)
• Indiana University Sheet Music Collection (In Harmony): Edward Eliscu
• Internet Broadway Database (Broadway productions and song credits)
• Internet Movie Database (brief biography, filmography, movie song credits)
• New York Public Library (catalog entries for books, personal papers, recordings, scores, etc.)
• The New York Times (articles about or relating to the songwriter)
• New York University, Tamiment Library, Guide to the Edward Eliscu Papers
• Songwriters Hall of Fame (biography and song list)
• Wikipedia (Edward Eliscu article)
• ASCAP Biographical Dictionary of Composers, Authors and Publishers, New York: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (dates, career, shows/movies, songs; 3rd edition, 1966, entry p. 201-202).
• Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball (Eds.), Reading Lyrics, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000 (pp. 340-342, overview plus lyrics to 4 songs).
• Edward Eliscu and David Eliscu. With or Without a Song: A Memoir. Westport, CT: Scarecrow Press, 2001 (Eliscu traces his history from the emigration of his parents to the U.S. through his career in New York theater and Hollywood films)

Notes

• Reading Lyrics , Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.
• Philip Furia, The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America's Great Lyricists , New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Astaire and Rogers Ultimate Collectors Edition
• DVD box set includes Flying Down to Rio
• Still, he is best remembered as a lyricist for songs that will live forever.

Cite this page: Edward Eliscu, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songwriters/e_sws/eliscu_edward.html