Bert Kalmar - Biography

Bert Kalmar (February 10, 1884 - September 18, 1947) was a Jewish American lyricist.

He was born in New York, New York. He ran away from home at the age of 10 to become a magician at a tent show, and retained an interest in magic all his life. He never got much of an education, but decided to make a career in show business. He earned enough money as a vaudeville performer to start a music publishing company, Kalmar and Puck. He hired Harry Ruby as a song plugger, and as a result of a knee injury that stopped him from dancing professionally, turned to writing song lyrics full-time. Ruby, who had got a job at the firm of "'Waterson, Berlin and Snyder'," got Kalmar a job at the same firm writing song lyrics. Before World War I he had begun to write lyrics for a number of different composers. One of them, Ruby, who had also had a number of collaborators, saw a strong compatibility between the two, and by 1920 Kalmar and Ruby recognized that they should form a permanent songwriting team. Their partnership resulted in some of the most well-known songs featured in the Marx Brothers' Broadway production of Animal Crackers (1928) as well as the film of the same name. Kalmar and Ruby's songs were also featured in the Marx Brothers' films Horse Feathers (1932) and Duck Soup (1933).

Kalmar's partnership with Harry Ruby is portrayed in the 1950 MGM musical Three Little Words starring Fred Astaire and Red Skelton. He sometimes worked with other songwriters as well, including Oscar Hammerstein II and Ted Snyder.

Kalmar is also credited with writing some melodies, and wrote or co-wrote some Broadway theater play scripts, especially musical comedy.

Bert Kalmar worked in Tin Pan Alley, and wrote for movies and some early television.

He died in Los Angeles, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. On Kalmar's death, Ruby almost totally ceased writing songs, though he lived 27 more years.

Bert Kalmar is an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Personal life

Bert Kalmar was married to Jessie Brown, the marriage producing a son, Bert, Jr. and a daughter, Margaret. The couple were later divorced.

Well-known or hit songs by Kalmar and Ruby

• "Who's Sorry Now?" (1923): Kalmar and Ruby's first big hit.
• "I Wanna Be Loved by You" (1928): a hit for Helen Kane, known as the "Boop-boop-a-doop girl" and sung by Marilyn Monroe in the film Some Like It Hot
• "I Love You So Much" (1928)
• "Three Little Words" (1930): Their biggest hit.
• "Nevertheless" (1931): A hit for both Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee, later done by The Mills Brothers and Frank Sinatra.
• "I'm Against It," "I Always Get My Man," and "Everyone Says I Love You," "Horsefeathers," 1932
• "Hail, Hail Fredonia," "Duck Soup," 1933
• "What A Perfect Combination" (1932): lyrics by Kalmar and Irving Caesar, music by Ruby and Harry Akst, written for the Broadway show The Kid, which starred Eddie Cantor.
• "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" (1935): His last hit.

Work for Broadway

Note: All works are musicals unless otherwise noted.

• Ziegfeld Follies of 1920 (1920) - revue - featured co-songwriter for "I'm a Vamp from East Broadway"
• Helen of Troy, New York (1923) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Harry Ruby
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1923 (1923) - revue - featured lyricist for "Society Bud"
• No Other Girl (1924) - co-composer and co-lyricist with Harry Ruby
• Holka Polka (1925) - book-editor
• The Ramblers (1926) - co-composer, co-lyricist, and co-bookwriter with Harry Ruby
• Lucky (1927) - co-writer with Otto Harbach, Harry Ruby and Jerome Kern
• The Five O'Clock Girl (1927) - lyricist (music by Harry Ruby)
  • Revived in 1981
• She's My Baby (1928) - co-bookwriter with Harry Ruby
• Top Speed (1929) - co-writer and co-producer with Harry Ruby and Guy Bolton
• High Kickers (1941) - co-composer, co-lyricist with Harry Ruby and co-bookwriter with Ruby and George Jessel
• The Corn is Green (1943) - actor in the role of "Will Hughes"

Posthumously:

• Fosse (1999) - revue - featured lyricist for "Who's Sorry Now?"

External links

• Bert Kalmar at the Internet Broadway Database