Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Jimmy Van Heusen
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Life and career== Born in [[Syracuse, New York]], Edward Chester Babcock began writing music while in high school. He renamed himself to Jimmy Van Heusen at age 16, after the shirt makers [[PVH Corp.|Phillips-Van Heusen]], to use as his on-air name during local shows. His close friends called him "Chet".<ref name = book>Coppula, C. (2014). ''Jimmy Van Heusen: Swinging on a Star''. Nashville: Twin Creek Books.</ref> Jimmy was raised [[Methodist]].<ref>Jimmy Van Heusen - Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com › archive-march-2015-jimmy-van-heusen “Jimmy,” Van Heusen's good friend and occasional lover Angie Dickinson recalls ... Jessica Lange Breaks Down Her Career, from King Kong to American Horror Story .... He had been born in 1913, in Syracuse, New York, to rock-ribbed Methodists ... “Jimmy was a really interesting composer,” says Sammy Cahn's son, jazz ...</ref> Studying at [[Cazenovia Seminary]] and [[Syracuse University]], he became friends with Jerry Arlen, the younger brother of [[Harold Arlen]]. With the elder Arlen's help, Van Heusen wrote songs for the [[Cotton Club]] revue, including "Harlem Hospitality". He then became a staff pianist for some of the [[Tin Pan Alley]] publishers, and wrote "It's the Dreamer in Me" (1938) with lyrics by [[Jimmy Dorsey]]. Collaborating with lyricist [[Eddie DeLange]], on songs such as "Heaven Can Wait", "So Help Me", and "[[Darn That Dream]]", his work became more prolific, writing over 60 songs in 1940 alone. It was in 1940 that he teamed up with the lyricist [[Johnny Burke (lyricist)|Johnny Burke]]. Burke and Van Heusen moved to [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]] and wrote for stage musicals and films throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, winning an [[Academy Award for Best Original Song]] for "[[Swinging on a Star]]" (1944). Their songs were featured in many [[Bing Crosby]] films of the era, including some of the ''[[Road to ...|Road]]'' installments and ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949 film)|A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'' (1949). He also was a pilot of some accomplishment; he met Joe Hornsby, who worked for the FAA in Los Angeles CA (Hornsby was the son of [[Dan Hornsby]] and the father of [[Nikki Hornsby]]), because of his music career with his interest in flying. Joe Hornsby sponsored Jimmy into an exclusive pilots club called the [[Quiet Birdmen]] which held meetings at ''Proud Bird'' restaurant at LAX; this friendship endured until Hornsby and his wife Dorothea died in short succession the late 1970s. He remained close friend with Nikki Hornsby until his own death. Using his birth name, Van Heusen also worked as a part-time [[test pilot]] for [[Lockheed Corporation]] during [[World War II]]. Van Heusen then teamed up with lyricist [[Sammy Cahn]]. Their three Academy Awards for Best Song were won for "[[All the Way (Frank Sinatra song)|All the Way]]" (1957) from ''[[The Joker Is Wild]]'', "[[High Hopes (1959 song)|High Hopes]]" (1959) from ''[[A Hole in the Head]]'', and "[[Call Me Irresponsible]]" (1963) from ''[[Papa's Delicate Condition]]''. Their songs were also featured in ''[[Ocean's Eleven (1960 film)|Ocean's Eleven]]'' (1960), which included [[Dean Martin]]'s version of "[[Ain't That a Kick in the Head]]", and in ''[[Robin and the 7 Hoods]]'' (1964), in which [[Frank Sinatra]] sang the Oscar-nominated "[[My Kind of Town]]". Cahn and Van Heusen also wrote "[[Love and Marriage]]" (1955), "To Love and Be Loved", "[[Come Fly with Me (1957 song)|Come Fly with Me]]", "[[Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely|Only the Lonely]]", and "[[Come Dance with Me (song)|Come Dance with Me]]" with many of their compositions being the title songs for [[Frank Sinatra]]'s albums of the late 1950s. Van Heusen wrote the music for five [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] [[musical theater|musicals]]: ''Swingin' the Dream'' (1939); ''Nellie Bly'' (1946), ''[[Carnival in Flanders (musical)|Carnival in Flanders]]'' (1953), ''[[Skyscraper (musical)|Skyscraper]]'' (1965), and ''[[Walking Happy]]'' (1966). While Van Heusen did not achieve nearly the success on Broadway that he did in Hollywood, at least two songs from Van Heusen musicals can legitimately be considered standards:<ref name = book /> "[[Darn That Dream]]" from ''Swingin' the Dream''; "[[Here's That Rainy Day]]" from ''Carnival in Flanders''. He became an inductee of the [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]] in 1971.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C100 |title=Songwriters Hall of Fame, Jimmy Van Heusen |access-date=November 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161106063129/http://songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C100 |archive-date=November 6, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Van Heusen composed over 1000 songs of which 50 songs became standards. Van Heusen songs are featured in over five hundred and eighty films.
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)