Saturday, February 15, 2014

Happy Birthday, Harold Arlen!

 
Composer Harold Arlen.
 


Frank Sinatra Singing “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)”
 

 

That’s likely Bill Miller tinkling the ivories.

Upload by M Thomas.
 

By Nicholas Stix
Updated on February 16, 2014, at 12:13 a.m.

Hyman Arluck was born a cantor’s son on February 15, 1905, in Buffalo. He was the greatest composer of torch songs, including “Blues in the Night,” “Stormy Weather,” “The Man That Got Away,” and “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” His most famous song of all was “Over the Rainbow.”

Early in Arlen’s career, he and a beautiful, carefree dancer named Anya Taranda, fell in love and married. She was 22, he was 35. As a PBS documentary tells it, they had several years of wedded bliss, until she started suffering migraines and acting erratically. He continued writing hits, but fled to his club, and long, liquid days.

Then doctors discovered that she had a bran tumor. They operated, removed the tumor, and it was as if the Arlens were newlyweds again. Six months into their second honeymoon, on March 9, 1970, Anya Arlen dropped dead.

Harold Arlen would live for another another 16 years, dying on April 23, 1986, but would write no more torch songs.

I punched in “Arlen” at IMDB, but Harold Arlen did not appear. Instead, the following luminaries are listed as having been born today. Who, indeed, is Harold Arlen to compete with the Jessica De Gouws of the world?


Born Today


Jessica De Gouw (26)


Jane Seymour (63)


Alex Borstein (43)


Christopher McDonald (59)


Sarah Wynter (41)

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