Jack Lawrence

:"For the artist see Jack Lawrence (artist), for the Irish cricketer, see Jack Lawrence (cricketer)"

Jack Lawrence (born Jacob Schwartz April 7 1912 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American Academy Award-nominated songwriter who was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Background

Lawrence born to an Orthodox Jewish family of modest means as the third of four sons. He wrote songs while still a child, but because of parental pressure after he graduated Thomas Jefferson High School, he enrolled in the First Institute of Podiatry. He got his doctoral degree in 1932, the same year that his first song was published, and immediately decided that songwriting, rather than podiatry, would be his career. That song, "Play, Fiddle, Play," won international fame and he became a member of ASCAP that year at only 20.

In the early 1940s Lawrence and several of his fellow hit makers formed a sensational review called "Songwriters On Parade", performing all across the Eastern seaboard on the Loew's and Keith circuits.

Lawrence joined the United States Merchant Marine during World War II and wrote their official song, "Heave Ho! My Lads, Heave Ho!" as a lieutenant in 1943, while stationed at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

One of the first major songs he wrote upon getting out of the service was "Yes, My Darling Daughter," introduced by Dinah Shore on Eddie Cantor's radio program, which was Shore's first record. Another Jack Lawrence song that introduced a new artist was "If I Didn't Care," which introduced the world to The Ink Spots. And, although Frank Sinatra was already a well-known big band singer, Lawrence's "All or Nothing at All" was Sinatra's first solo hit.

Lawrence also wrote the lyrics for "Tenderly," Rosemary Clooney's trademark song (in collaboration with composer Walter Lloyd Gross), as well as the English language lyric to "Beyond the Sea" (based on Charles Trenet's French language song "La mer"), the trademark song for Bobby Darin. Another French song for which Lawrence wrote an English lyric was "La goualante de pauvre Jean," becoming "The Poor People of Paris."

Together with Richard Myers he wrote "Hold My Hand," which was nominated for the 1954 Academy Award for Best Song.

Work on Broadway

*"Follow Thru" (1929) - musical - actor for the role of "Country Club Boy"
*"Courtin' Time" (1951) - musical - co-composer and co-lyricist
*"Ziegfeld Follies of 1957" (1957) - revue - featured lyricist for "Bring on the Girls" and "Music for Madame"
*"Maybe Tuesday" (1958) - play - co-producer
*"I Had a Ball" (1964) - musical - co-composer and co-lyricist
*"Lena Horne: "The Lady and Her Music" (1981) - concert - co-producer
*"Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" (1982) - play - co-producer
*"The Golden Age" (1984) - play - owner of the Jack Lawrence Theatre
*"Quilters" (1984) - musical - owner of the Jack Lawrence Theatre
*"So Long on Lonely Street" (1986) - play - owner of the Jack Lawrence Theatre

External links

* [http://www.jacklawrencesongwriter.com/mybio.html Jack Lawrence bio]
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