Lorenz Hart

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Lorenz "Larry" Hart (May 2, 1895 - November 22, 1943) was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. Some of his more famous lyrics include, "Blue Moon", "Isn't It Romantic?", "Mountain Greenery", "The Lady is a Tramp", "Manhattan", "Where or When", "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", "Falling in Love with Love" and "My Funny Valentine".

Hart was born in Harlem to Jewish immigrant parents. He attended Columbia University, where a friend introduced him to Richard Rodgers, and the two joined forces to write songs for a series of amateur and student productions. In 1919, the team's song "Any Old Place With You" was included in the Broadway musical comedy A Lonely Romeo. The smashing success of their score for the 1925 Theatre Guild production, The Garrick Gaieties, brought them great acclaim. They continued working together until Hart's death in 1943, along the way producing scores for a series of hit shows and making a substantial contribution to the Great American Songbook. Hart also translated plays for the Schubert brothers while continuing to collaborate with Rodgers. As a lyricist Hart was an advocate of inner rhyming and multisyllabic rhyming, and his lyrics have often been praised for their wit and technical sophistication.

Hart struggled with homosexuality in an era when such a sexual orientation was socially unacceptable and with alcoholism, which contributed to his death.

Hart also suffered great emotional turmoil toward the end of his life. His personal problems were often the cause of friction between him and Rodgers, and in fact led to a brief breakup in 1943, at which time Rodgers started working with Oscar Hammerstein II, a school friend of Hart.

Rodgers and Hart teamed a final time in the fall of 1943 for a revival of A Connecticut Yankee. Five days after this show opened, Hart died of pneumonia from exposure. He is believed to have died alone. He is buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens County, New York.

Selected list of works

1925 The Garrick Gaieties
1927 A Connecticut Yankee, based on the Mark Twain novel
1928 Present Arms
1935 Jumbo
1936 On Your Toes
1937 Babes in Arms
1938 The Boys from Syracuse, based on William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors
1938 I Married an Angel
1938 Too Many Girls
1940 Pal Joey, based on John O'Hara's work
1942 By Jupiter

External links

References

Nolan, Frederick. Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway. New York: Oxford University Press (1994). ISBN 0-19-510289-4

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