Frank Loesser

Frank Henry Loesser (June 29, 1910 – July 28, 1969) was a New York-born composer, lyricist, and book writer whose Broadway credits include Guys and Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Greenwillow, and Perfectly Frank. His work earned him Tony Awards for Best Musical in 1951, 1958, and 1962, and he shared the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Beyond the stage, Loesser contributed songs to more than 60 Hollywood films and received five Academy Award nominations for Best Song, winning once for "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

Loesser was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan, where he grew up on West 107th Street. His father, Henry Loesser, was a full-time piano teacher who had emigrated from Germany, and his mother was Julia Ehrlich. Despite the household's emphasis on European musical culture, Frank resisted his father's refined tastes and instead wrote his own music and took up the harmonica. He was expelled from Townsend Harris High School and later attended City College of New York, where he was expelled in 1925 after failing every subject except English and gym. Following his father's sudden death on July 20, 1926, Loesser worked a series of jobs to support his family, including positions as a restaurant reviewer, classified ad salesman for the New York Herald Tribune, political cartoonist for The Tuckahoe Record, sketch writer for the Keith Vaudeville Circuit, and city editor for the short-lived New Rochelle News.

His first published song credit, "In Love with the Memory of You," appeared in 1931 with music by William Schuman. Two 1934 songs, "Junk Man" and "I Wish I Were Twins," both with music by Joe Meyer, brought him early recognition; "Junk Man" was first recorded that year by Benny Goodman with Mildred Bailey on vocals. In the mid-1930s, Loesser performed at the Back Drop nightspot on East 52nd Street alongside composer Irving Actman, and by day wrote lyrics at Leo Feist Inc. for $100 per week. His first Broadway credit, The Illustrator's Show, a 1936 revue written with Actman, lasted only four nights. That same year, while still performing at the Back Drop, he met aspiring singer Lynn Garland, whom he married shortly after.

Loesser subsequently signed with Paramount Pictures, where his first song credit was "Moon of Manakoora," written with Alfred Newman for Dorothy Lamour in the film The Hurricane. During his Hollywood years he wrote lyrics for numerous popular songs, among them "Two Sleepy People" and "Heart and Soul" with Hoagy Carmichael, "I Hear Music" with Burton Lane, and "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have" with Friedrich Hollaender, the latter memorably performed by Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again. In 1941 he wrote "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" with Jule Styne, which appeared in the 1942 film Sweater Girl. The Western Writers of America later named his 1942 lyric "Jingle Jangle Jingle" among the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

During World War II, Loesser enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces and continued writing songs, including the widely heard "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" (1942), inspired by the words of Navy chaplain Howell Forgy, as well as "What Do You Do in the Infantry?," "The Ballad of Rodger Young" (1943), and "They're Either Too Young or Too Old" for the 1943 film Thank Your Lucky Stars. In 1944 he served as lyricist on Hi Yank!, a musical produced by the U.S. Army Office of Special Services with music by Alex North and performed by and for soldiers in locations inaccessible to USO shows. That same year he wrote "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which he and Lynn Garland performed informally at parties. In 1948 he sold the song's rights to MGM; the studio used it in the 1949 film Neptune's Daughter, and it went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Loesser's return to Broadway began with Where's Charley? (1948), produced by Cy Feuer and Ernest H. Martin and adapted from the Brandon Thomas play Charley's Aunt, starring Ray Bolger and running for 792 performances. A film version followed in 1952. His next stage work, Guys and Dolls (1950), based on the stories of Damon Runyon and again produced by Feuer and Martin, became a major hit and earned Loesser a Tony Award for Best Musical. A 1955 film version starred Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, and Vivian Blaine. In 1950, Loesser also founded Frank Music Corporation, initially as a vehicle for controlling and publishing his own work; the company eventually supported other writers including Richard Adler, Jerry Ross, and Meredith Willson.

Loesser continued building his Broadway catalog with The Most Happy Fella, which earned him a Tony Award for Best Musical in 1958, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which brought him a third Tony Award for Best Musical in 1962 along with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His additional Broadway credits include Greenwillow and Perfectly Frank. Loesser died on July 28, 1969, in New York City.