Gershwin left school at 15 to join one of Tin Pan Alley's music publishers as a song-plugger. Interested in music from early childhood, he studied music under Charles Hambitzer in New York. In 1916, he published his first song, When You Want 'Em You Can't Get 'Em, which didn't go very well and over the next couple of years he toured the vaudeville circuit as a pianist while continuing to compose. In 1919, he produced his first Broadway show, La, La, Lucille, which was fairly successful, running for a hundred performances, but even more importantly, Al Jolson used Gershwin's Swanee on his tour and the recording was an instant success. Gershwin worked with George White on his Scandals for the next five years and both his fame and fortune grew. In 1922, he produced Blue Monday, a one-act opera which showed that Gershwin was equally adept at serious music. His brother Ira, already a successful lyricist, joined George and together they became the most prolific songwriting team in America. During the 20's and 30's, Gershwin went from success to success with musicals such as Strike Up the Band, Girl Crazy, Delicious, Of Thee I Sing, Lady Be Good and Porgy and Bess. Of Thee I Sing even won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for musical drama. In 1935, he moved to Hollywood and began to write for films, producing Shall We Dance and A Damsel in Distress for Fred Astaire. At the beginning of 1937, he began to experience severe headaches and olfactory sensations. He lapsed into a coma in July and a brain tumour was diagnosed which proved to be fatal and he died after the operation, a couple of months short of his 39th birthday. In addition to the hundreds of songs he produced in his altogether short career, Gershwin wrote some extremely memorable serious music such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Piano Concerto in F (1925), American in Paris and Cuban Overture (1932). |
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