Ann Ronell

Ann Ronell, born Ann Rosenblatt on December 25, 1905, in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American composer, lyricist, and book writer whose Broadway credits include the musical Count Me In and the revue Shoot the Works. She died on December 25, 1993.

Ronell graduated from Omaha's Central High School in 1923 and initially enrolled at Wheaton College in Massachusetts before transferring to pursue more rigorous musical training. She ultimately graduated from Radcliffe College, where she studied music under Walter Piston and contributed reviews and interviews to the school's music publication, as well as writing music for college productions. An interview she conducted with George Gershwin led to a lasting friendship; Gershwin hired her as a rehearsal pianist for his show Rosalie and advised her to adopt the professional surname Ronell in place of Rosenblatt.

Her first song placement in a show came in 1929 with Down By the River, followed in 1930 by her first hit, "Baby's Birthday Party," which Famous Music agreed to publish after other publishers declined. In 1932 she composed "Rain on the Roof" and "Willow Weep for Me," the latter dedicated to Gershwin. After relocating to Hollywood in 1933, Ronell co-wrote "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" with Frank Churchill for Disney's animated short Three Little Pigs, making it the studio's first hit song. She was among the few composers of her era to handle both music and lyrics simultaneously, placing her alongside Dorothy Fields, Dana Suesse, and Kay Swift as one of the first successful female composers and librettists in Hollywood and on Tin Pan Alley.

Ronell's film work extended across several decades. She wrote songs for Champagne Waltz (1937) and Blockade (1938), and composed full scores for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), the film adaptation of One Touch of Venus (1948), and the Marx Brothers vehicle Love Happy (1949). The Story of G.I. Joe, produced by her husband Lester Cowan, earned her two Academy Award nominations: one for Best Song for "Linda" and one for Best Score, shared with co-composer Louis Applebaum. That score was also the first for a dramatic film to feature a theme song performed over the credits. She additionally produced the first record derived from a film score, doing so with Ladies in Retirement, and served as musical director for Main Street to Broadway (1953).

On Broadway, Ronell made history in 1942 when Count Me In made her the first woman to write both the music and lyrics for a Broadway show. Her other Broadway credits include Shoot the Works, a revue for which she served as composer and book writer, as well as The Crucible (1953), for which she composed a lullaby, and the 1982 revue Blues in the Night, which featured her song "Willow Weep for Me."

"Willow Weep for Me" became one of the most recorded songs of the twentieth century, with versions by Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand, Nina Simone, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Cab Calloway, Nancy Wilson, Julie London, June Christy, and Chad and Jeremy, whose recording reached the top twenty of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1965. Ronell was married to producer Lester Cowan; the couple had no children.