Bert Kalmar

Bert Kalmar (February 10, 1884 – September 18, 1947) was a New York City-born songwriter, composer, book writer, screenwriter, and Broadway performer. Born to Kopel (Charles) Kalvarinsky and Julia Kalvarinsky, he left school at an early age to work in vaudeville, where he performed as a magician in tent shows and as a comedian and dancer before a knee injury ended his performing career and redirected him toward songwriting. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Before establishing himself as a songwriter, Kalmar had accumulated sufficient resources to launch a music publishing company called Kalmar and Puck, through which he worked with several collaborators including Harry Puck (1891–1964) and Harry Ruby. The firm also operated under the name Kalmar, Puck, Abrahams, Consolidated, Inc., with Maurice Abrahams (1883–1931), husband of Belle Baker, as the other named partner. By 1918, Kalmar and Ruby had formed a permanent songwriting partnership. Their earliest notable success was a tune co-written with Irving Berlin and performed by Fanny Brice in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1920. Kalmar served as a featured co-songwriter on that production for the song "I'm a Vamp from East Broadway."

Kalmar's Broadway career as a composer and lyricist spanned several decades and encompassed a wide range of productions. He and Ruby scored their first Broadway show together in 1923 with Helen of Troy, New York, for which they served as co-composer and co-lyricist, and that same year Kalmar contributed as a featured lyricist for "Society Bud" in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1923. In 1924, the pair returned as co-composer and co-lyricist on No Other Girl, followed by Kalmar's work as book editor on Holka Polka in 1925. The Ramblers (1926) saw Kalmar and Ruby collaborate as co-composers, co-lyricists, and co-bookwriters. In 1927, Kalmar co-wrote Lucky alongside Otto Harbach, Harry Ruby, and Jerome Kern, and that same year he served as lyricist, with Ruby as composer, on The Five O'Clock Girl, which featured the song "Thinking of You" — later recorded by Sarah Vaughan in 1950, after which it became one of her most requested numbers. Kalmar also co-wrote the book for She's My Baby (1928) with Ruby, and co-wrote and co-produced Top Speed (1929) with Ruby and Guy Bolton.

Among the most significant Broadway productions in Kalmar's career was Animal Crackers (1928), for which he and Ruby wrote the musical score for the Marx Brothers' stage production. The show introduced "Hooray for Captain Spaulding," the song written for Groucho Marx's character that later served as the theme for Groucho's television program You Bet Your Life. Kalmar and Ruby's Broadway work continued into the 1940s with High Kickers (1941), on which they served as co-composers, co-lyricists, and co-bookwriters alongside George Jessel. Kalmar's final Broadway credit as a performer came in 1943, when he appeared as an actor in The Corn Is Green, playing the role of Will Hughes. His work was also represented posthumously in the 1999 revue Fosse, which featured his song "Who's Sorry Now?" as a lyricist credit.

The songwriting partnership between Kalmar and Ruby produced a substantial catalog of enduring standards. "Who's Sorry Now?" (1923), written with Ted Snyder, was their first major hit. "I Wanna Be Loved by You" (1928) was popularized by Helen Kane, known as the "Boop-Boop-a-Doop" girl, and was later performed by Marilyn Monroe in the 1959 film Some Like It Hot. "Three Little Words" (1930), written for the Amos and Andy film Check and Double Check and performed by Bing Crosby with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, became their biggest hit. Additional notable songs include "My Sunny Tennessee," the team's first hit song; "Nevertheless" (1931), recorded by Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallée, the Mills Brothers, and Frank Sinatra; and "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" (1935), co-written with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. That song was featured in the 1951 film The Strip as performed by Louis Armstrong, earning a Best Song Academy Award nomination, and Armstrong remained closely associated with it thereafter. Other songs from their catalog include "I Love You So Much," "Everyone Says I Love You," "Hail, Hail Freedonia" from Duck Soup (1933), and songs from Horse Feathers (1932) including "I'm Against It" and "I Always Get My Man."

After Kalmar and Ruby relocated to Hollywood in 1930, Kalmar also worked as a screenwriter. His screenplay credits include Duck Soup, Bright Lights (1935) starring Joe E. Brown, Look for the Silver Lining (1949), a biopic of Marilyn Miller, and The Kid from Spain (1932) starring Eddie Cantor. Their songs appeared in five Marx Brothers films, among them Horse Feathers (1932), Duck Soup (1933), and A Night in Casablanca (1946). The Kalmar-Ruby partnership was depicted in the 1950 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical Three Little Words, starring Fred Astaire as Kalmar and Red Skelton as Ruby.

On September 20, 1910, Kalmar married Jessie Brown, a vaudeville performer, in San Francisco, California. Born Jessica, she had debuted as a specialty dancer in 1907 and later performed toe dancing. She and Kalmar appeared together in Nurseryland (1916) before she retired from performing in the late 1910s. She was portrayed by Vera-Ellen in Three Little Words and died in January 1985 in Sherman Oaks, California. The couple had two children: Bert Kalmar Jr., born Irving Albert Kalmar in 1913, who died in 1997; and Margaret "Peggy" Kalmar, born in 1928, who married Robert Allison in 1950 and died in 1964. Bert Kalmar died in Los Angeles, California on September 18, 1947, at the age of 63, and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.