Everything about Dorothy Fields totally explained
Dorothy Fields (
July 15,
1905 –
March 28,
1974) was an
American librettist and
lyricist.
She wrote over 400 songs for
Broadway musicals and
films. Along with
Ann Ronell,
Dana Suesse, and
Kay Swift, she was one of the first successful Hollywood and
Tin Pan Alley female songwriters.
Fields was born in
Allenhurst, New Jersey and grew up in
New York City. Her father,
Lew Fields, an
immigrant from
Poland, was a well-known
vaudeville comedian and later became a Broadway producer. Her career as a professional songwriter took off in 1928, when
Jimmy McHugh, who had seen some of her early work, invited her to provide some lyrics for him. Fields and McHugh teamed up until 1935. Songs from this period include "
I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby" and "
On the Sunny Side of the Street."
In the mid-1930s, Fields started to write lyrics for films and collaborated with other composers, including
Jerome Kern. With Kern, she worked on the
movie version of Roberta, and also on their greatest success,
Swing Time. The song "
The Way You Look Tonight" earned the Fields/Kern team an
Academy Award for Best Song in 1961.
Fields returned to New York and worked again on Broadway shows, but now as a librettist, first with
Arthur Schwartz on
Stars In Your Eyes. (They reteamed in 1951 for
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.) In the 1940s, she teamed up with her brother
Herbert Fields, with whom she wrote the books for three
Cole Porter shows,
Let's Face It!,
Something for the Boys, and
Mexican Hayride. Together, they wrote the book for
Annie Get Your Gun, a musical inspired by the life of
Annie Oakley. They had intended for Jerome Kern to write the music, but when he died,
Irving Berlin was brought in. The show, which included the songs "
There's No Business Like Show Business" and "
They Say It's Wonderful", was a success and ran for 1,147 performances.
In the 1950s, her biggest success was the show
Redhead (1959), which won five
Tony Awards, including Best Musical. When she started collaborating with
Cy Coleman in the 1960s, her career took a new turn. Their first work together was
Sweet Charity. Her last hit was from their second collaboration in 1973,
Seesaw. Its title was "It's Not Where You Start, It's Where You Finish."
Fields was the sister of writers
Herbert and
Joseph. She died of a
stroke in New York City at the age of 68.
Further Information
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