Editing Irving Caesar (section)

==Biography==
Caesar, the son of Morris Keiser, a Romanian Jewish lawyer and [[Socialism|socialist]], was born in New York City, United States.<ref name="Larkin"/> His older brother [[Arthur Caesar]] was a successful [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] screenwriter. Around 1901, Caesar composed his first poem—which can be ascribed to his exposure to literature in the environment of his father's bookstore.<ref>https://www.ascapfoundation.org/irving-caesar/about</ref> The Caesar brothers spent their childhood and teen years in [[Yorkville, Manhattan|Yorkville]], the same [[Manhattan]] neighborhood where the [[Marx Brothers]] were raised. Caesar knew the Marx Brothers during his childhood. He was educated at [[Chappaqua Mountain Institute]] in [[Chappaqua, New York]].

In his career, Caesar collaborated with a wide variety of composers and songwriters, including [[Rudolf Friml]], [[George Gershwin]], [[Sigmund Romberg]], [[Victor Herbert]], [[Ted Koehler]] and [[Ray Henderson]].<ref name=HoF/> Two of his best known numbers, "[[I Want to Be Happy]]" and "Tea for Two", were written with [[Vincent Youmans]] for the 1925 musical ''[[No, No, Nanette]]''.<ref name="Larkin"/> Another of his biggest hits, "[[Animal Crackers in My Soup]]", was popularized by [[Shirley Temple]] in her 1935 film ''[[Curly Top]].''<ref name="Larkin"/> "[[Just a Gigolo (song)|Just a Gigolo]]", his 1929 adaptation of an Austrian song, was a hit for [[Louis Prima]] in the 1950s and again for [[David Lee Roth]] in the 1980s.

In the late 1930s, along with composer [[Gerald Marks]], he wrote a famous series of children's songs focusing on safety. Caesar made hundreds of appearances in schools performing the "Sing a Song of Safety," "Sing a Song of Friendship" (a United Nations-inspired series focusing on world peace, racial tolerance and friendship) and "Songs of Health" collections.<ref name=HoF/>

Caesar served on the songwriters' [[Performance rights organisation|performance-rights organization]] [[ASCAP]] board of directors from 1930 to 1946 and again from 1949 to 1966. He was a founder of the [[Songwriters Guild of America]].<ref name=HoF/> He died, aged 101, in New York on December 18, 1996, at which point he had been married to Christina Ballestros—a caretaker of his—for two years.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/18/arts/irving-caesar-lyricist-of-timeless-hits-like-tea-for-two-dies-at-101.html | title=Irving Caesar, Lyricist of Timeless Hits Like 'Tea for Two,' Dies at 101 | work=The New York Times | date=December 18, 1996 | last1=Severo | first1=Richard }}</ref><ref name="Larkin"/>