Show Walter Winchell BROADWAY B R 0 AD A Y G GOSSIP 0 S SIP Words Word and Music Rut But ut No Music Theres There's nothing harder to kill than a Broadway belief Take the belief about song writers Th The Tin Part Pan an Aile Alley historians will vill ask you rou to believe that the lyric builders are people who move their lips when the they read and think the they have topped Keats and Shelley when the they marry love to above Sometimes they're right but you youcan youcan youcan can can tell b by a peck at some of the wow songs of the past few years ears that lots of ot smoothies are using I their education to write the nations nation's ditties Only last week the dispatches stated that the Prince of Wales tore lore off oU a for lor bagpipes Maybe Mabe youve you've got to be P. P of or W. W to write anything for the bagpipes but you youcan youcan youcan can see that the job has wo worked ked It Itself Itself it It- self sel into the higher brackets Then too the genteel Winchell who broadcasts under the name of to tossed a radio party for Jerome Kern which included greetings greetings greet greet- ings by Ethel Barrymore Alice Duer Miller tiller Kathleen Norris Noel Coward and others who dont don't reach dont reach for a pronouncing dictionary when they run into a two-syllable two word Song writers arent aren't outcasts any more The feeling that these versifiers are short on schooling was started b by tales of Irving Berlin We all know Berlin got his start warbling for or throw money while working as ac a waiter in Ghetto places And because ome others had starts just justas as lowly the legend grew that that's where they all came from Incidentally Berlin can rip of oft off as tidy a piece of as the new sophisticates when he wants to The one that I think of or offhand isa isa is isa a o of books to lo read where Its It's peaceful from I Want to Be BeLaZ LaZ Lazy That's v very ry el classy y riveting Some of ot the lyricists are educated enough to scare you Brian Hooker who wh is probably the dean of ot the present crop He bulges with learning Who in the Thear ter ler advises you that he wrested an A. A B. B from Yale back in 1902 and then hung around to catch an anAM anAM AM t. two years ears later And then for fora a time lime and how do you like this you cynics he taught English at Columbia Hows How's that for a song songwriters songwriter's songwriters songwriter's songwriters songwriter's writers writer's apprenticeship Of Ot course the do vo-deo-do- Hooker doesn't write doh num numbers rs but the chants he turned out for The Va Vagabond abond Kin King etc were barked plentifully in the gay a spots Cole Porter the present prescot top of ot the Is another lad who came out of Yale Vale with his head ringing with lyrics lyriC His present crop of ot songs in Anything Goes cs csare are the gems of oC the season Its It's pretty pretty pretty pret pret- ty well vell established that the first of ot the smart lyrics were churned out by P. P G. G the witty forehead way up to here and his biography shows him to be an alumnus of Dulwich college in m England England England En En- gland a London columnist and onetime dramatic critic for Vanity Fair His songs written for the old 1 Bolton Kern musicals of ot ofa ota a decade and more ago are still the favorites for parlor meowing at parties Dorothy Parker is another ex- ex critic for Vanity Fair who can devIse devise devise de de- de- de vise a swell lyric lyrie when she settles to it She had a song seng in Round the Town revue called Ive nevet never Been Kept Waiting Kept Waiting which was very nau naughty and She wrote another for a flicker dunn during her first gallop in Hollywood but when she turned it in she sho ran like a Cavalcade Ca all the way back to Manhattan Probably the most startling background back ground for a Broadway song car penter is that of Paul Jones Warburg Warburg Warburg War War- burg who with his hl wife ex-wife Kay Wa Warburg burg an A. A B. B from irom Harvard is a banker who was go good id d enough to lb get gel a job as financial adviser to the world economic congress in London a few ew years ears back He didn't write any songs about that though I r Newman Levy the barrister flees lees h his is law books every now and then to commit lyrics He is smart enough one hears to rhyme whereas but he draws up his garnishment papers in strai straight ht prose John Golden amassed the nest egg that made him a producer fretting over a legitimate partner for June Incidentally the late Ring Lardner Lardner Lard Lard- ner who used to provide lyrics for is largely responsible for forthe for the suspicion that lyric writers are backward children He and George Geore Kaufman made a ashow show that lively hit June Moon out of 01 the legend that lyric Iric writers have to be stupid to succeed when the they both knew better Especially Kaufman whose income tax lax from musical shows puts puls him among those who never heard of a depression sion |