Dorothy Fields
Encyclopedia
Dorothy Fields was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 librettist
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 and lyricist
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

.

She wrote over 400 songs for Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 musicals and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s. Along with Ann Ronell
Ann Ronell
Ann Rosenblatt, known as Ann Ronell was an American composer and lyricist best known for the jazz standard "Willow Weep for Me" .- Biography :...

, Dana Suesse
Dana Suesse
Dana Suesse , full name Nadine Dana Suesse, was an American musician, composer and lyricist.-Biography:While still a child, Suesse toured the Midwest vaudeville circuits with an act centered on dancing and piano playing. During the recital, she would ask the audience for a theme, and then proceed...

, Bernice Petkere
Bernice Petkere
Bernice Petkere was an American songwriter. She was dubbed the "Queen of Tin Pan Alley" by Irving Berlin.Born in Chicago, Illinois, she began performing in vaudeville as a child. "Starlight " , her first published song, was recorded by Bing Crosby. She also wrote radio themes for CBS...

, and Kay Swift
Kay Swift
Kay Swift was an American composer of popular and classical music, the first woman to score a complete musical. Written in 1930, Fine and Dandy includes some of her best known songs; the title song has become a jazz standard. "Can't We Be Friends?" was another important hit...

, she was one of the first successful Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...

 and Hollywood female songwriters.

Biography

Fields was born in Allenhurst, New Jersey
Allenhurst, New Jersey
Allenhurst is a Borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 496.Allenhurst was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 26, 1897, from portions of Ocean Township...

, and grew up in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Her father, Lew Fields
Lew Fields
Lew Fields , born as Moses Schoenfeld, was an American actor, comedian, vaudeville star, theatre manager and producer....

, an immigrant from Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, was a vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 comedian and later became a Broadway producer. Her career as a professional songwriter took off in 1928, when Jimmy McHugh
Jimmy McHugh
James Francis McHugh was a U.S. composer. One of the most prolific songwriters from the 1920s to the 1950s, he composed over 270 songs...

, who had seen some of her early work, invited her to provide some lyrics for him for Blackbirds of 1928
Blackbirds of 1928
Blackbirds of 1928 was a hit Broadway revue with music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Dorothy Fields. It contained the songs "Diga Diga Do", the duo's first hit, "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", and "I Must Have That Man" all sung by Adelaide Hall....

. Fields and McHugh teamed up until 1935. Songs from this period include "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby
I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby
"I Can't Give You Anything but Love" is an American popular song and jazz standard by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields .The song was introduced by Adelaide Hall at Les Ambassadeurs Club in New York in January 1928 in Lew Leslie's Blackbird Revue, which opened on Broadway later that year as the...

", "Exactly Like You", and "On the Sunny Side of the Street
On the Sunny Side of the Street
"On the Sunny Side of the Street" is a song with music composed by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, which was introduced in the Broadway musical Lew Leslie's International Revue, starring Harry Richman and Gertrude Lawrence....

."

In the mid-1930s, Fields started to write lyrics for films and collaborated with other composers, including Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

. With Kern, she worked on the movie version of Roberta
Roberta (1935 film)
Roberta is a 1935 musical film by RKO starring Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Randolph Scott. It was an adaptation of a 1933 Broadway theatre musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller...

, and also on their greatest success, Swing Time. The song "The Way You Look Tonight
The Way You Look Tonight
"The Way You Look Tonight" is a song featured in the film Swing Time, originally performed by Fred Astaire. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1936. The song was sung to Ginger Rogers as Penelope "Penny" Carroll by Astaire's character of John "Lucky" Garnett while Penny was busy...

" earned the Fields/Kern team an Academy Award for Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...

 in 1936.

Fields returned to New York and worked again on Broadway shows, but now as a librettist, first with Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer.Schwartz supported his legal studies at New York University and postgraduate studies at Columbia University by playing piano before concentrating his talents on vaudeville, Broadway theatre and Hollywood.Among his Broadway musicals are The...

 on Stars In Your Eyes. (They re-teamed in 1951 for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (musical)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a musical with a book by George Abbott and Betty Smith, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and music by Arthur Schwartz....

.) In the 1940s, she teamed up with her brother Herbert Fields
Herbert Fields
Herbert Fields was an American librettist and screenwriter.Born in New York City, Fields began his career as an actor, then graduated to choreography and stage direction before turning to writing. From 1925 until his death, he contributed to the libretti of many Broadway musicals...

, with whom she wrote the books for three Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...

 shows, Let's Face It!
Let's Face It!
Let's Face It! is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields is based on the 1925 play The Cradle Snatchers by Russell Medcraft and Norma Mitchell....

, Something for the Boys
Something for the Boys
Something for the Boys is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and a book by Herbert Fields and Dorothy Fields. Produced by Mike Todd, the show opened on Broadway in 1943 and starred Ethel Merman in her fifth Cole Porter musical.-Productions:...

, and Mexican Hayride
Mexican Hayride
Mexican Hayride is a 1948 film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. The film is based on Cole Porter's Broadway musical Mexican Hayride starring Bobby Clark...

. Together, they wrote the book for Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun (musical)
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...

, a musical inspired by the life of Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley , born Phoebe Ann Mosey, was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Oakley's amazing talent and timely rise to fame led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, which propelled her to become the first American female superstar.Oakley's most famous trick is perhaps...

. They intended for Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

 to write the music, but when he died, Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...

 was brought in. The show was a success, and ran for 1,147 performances.

In the 1950s, her biggest success was the show Redhead
Redhead (musical)
Redhead is a musical with music composed by Albert Hague and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, who with her brother, Herbert, along with Sidney Sheldon and David Shaw wrote the book/libretto...

(1959), which won five Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

s, including Best Musical. When she started collaborating with Cy Coleman
Cy Coleman
Cy Coleman was an American composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist.-Life and career:He was born Seymour Kaufman on June 14, 1929, in New York City to Eastern European Jewish parents, and was raised in the Bronx. His mother, Ida was an apartment landlady and his father was a brickmason...

 in the 1960s, her career took a new turn. Their first work together was Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria...

. Her last hit was from their second collaboration in 1973, Seesaw
Seesaw (musical)
Seesaw is a musical with a book by Michael Bennett, music by Cy Coleman, and lyrics by Dorothy Fields.Based on the William Gibson play Two for the Seesaw, the plot focuses on a brief affair between Jerry Ryan, a young lawyer from Nebraska, and Gittel Mosca, a kooky, streetwise dancer from the Bronx...

. Its signature song was "It's Not Where You Start, It's Where You Finish". Fields died of a stroke the next year at the age of 68.

Fields was the sister of writers Herbert
Herbert Fields
Herbert Fields was an American librettist and screenwriter.Born in New York City, Fields began his career as an actor, then graduated to choreography and stage direction before turning to writing. From 1925 until his death, he contributed to the libretti of many Broadway musicals...

 and Joseph
Joseph Fields
Joseph Albert Fields was an American playwright, theatre director, screenwriter, and film producer.-Life and career:Fields was born in New York City, the son of vaudevillean Lew Fields...

.

Trivia

Thirty-five years after her death, Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

, in his inauguration
Inauguration
An inauguration is a formal ceremony to mark the beginning of a leader's term of office. An example is the ceremony in which the President of the United States officially takes the oath of office....

 speech as 44th President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 on January 20, 2009, echoed lyrics by Fields when he said, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America". This alludes to the song "Pick Yourself Up
Pick Yourself Up
"Pick Yourself Up" is a popular song composed in 1936 by Jerome Kern, with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. It has a verse and chorus, as well as a third section, though the third section is often omitted in recordings...

" from the 1936 film Swing Time, for which Jerome Kern had written the music, in which Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....

 and Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...

 sang Fields's words "Pick yourself up; dust yourself off; start all over again".

External links

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