July 11, 1937: George Gershwin dies of a brain tumor in Los Angeles. He was 38 years old, and had been complaining about headaches since February. He had also been experiencing mood swings, concerning those who knew him, but he refused to seek medical treatment.
Born Jacob Bruskin Gershowitz on September 26, 1898 in Brooklyn, the late New York Daily News columnist Sidney Zion once mistakenly put him in a group he called "The Century Seven," 7 people who had been born in 1899, at the end of the 19th Century, who shaped American popular culture in the 20th Century. The others were:
* Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, born April 29 in Washington, D.C., jazz composer and bandleader.
* Frederick Austerlitz, a.k.a. Fred Astaire, born May 10 in Omaha, Nebraska, actor-singer-dancer.
* James Francis Cagney Jr., born July 17 in Manhattan, actor-singer-dancer.
* Ernest Miller Hemingway, born July 21 outside Chicago in Oak Park, Illinois, novelist.
* Hoagland Howard "Hoagy" Carmichael, born November 22 in Bloomington, Indiana, songwriter.
* Humphrey DeForest Bogart, born December 25 in Manhattan.
(Zion could also have named film producer Irving Thalberg; or actresses Gloria Swanson and Gertrude Berg; or writers Vladimir Nabokov, E.B. White and Hart Crane, but didn't. Nor did he name Al Capone. Nor did he name another major mover of intoxicating liquor, Gussie Busch, but didn't. He could have stretched it, and named film director Alfred Hitchcock and playwright Noël Coward, 2 Englishmen who did their best work in America, but didn't.)
Jacob Gershowitz changed his first name to "George" and his surname to "Gershwin" when he went into the music business. His siblings followed suit, including his brother Ira, with whom he wrote many of this songs. In spite of the change, he -- as did Israel Baline, a.k.a. Irving Berlin -- became an icon for first-generation American Jews due to his success, beating the establishment at what had been their game.
Like so many New York-based songwriters of the time, he got an office on West 28th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, a block whose sound of cheap pianos earned it the nickname "Tin Pan Alley." Gershwin had his first hit in 1916, and in 1919 wrote the melody for "Swanee," with lyrics by Irving Caesar. Al Jolson, the biggest Broadway star of the time, heard Gershwin sing it at a party, recorded it, and made him a star.
From our perspective in the early 21st Century, it seems as though the term "The Great American Songbook" is pretty much half made up of songs written by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and George Gershwin in the 1920s and '30s. George, mostly but not all with Ira, wrote a lot of musicals that are now almost completely forgotten (and eminently forgettable), except for one or two songs, but those songs survive nearly a century later.
"Fascinating Rhythm" from Lady, Be Good in 1924 (featuring Astaire and his sister and sometime dance partner Adele Astaire). "That Certain Feeling" from Tip-Toes in 1925. "Someone to Watch Over Me" from Oh, Kay! in 1926. "The Man I Love" from Strike Up the Band in 1927. "Funny Face,""S Wonderful" and "Let's Kiss and Make Up" from Funny Face in 1927 (again featuring the Astaires). "(I've Got a) Crush On You" from Treasure Girl in 1928. "Embraceable You,""I Got Rhythm" and "But Not For Me" from Girl Crazy in 1930 (helping to launch the careers of both Ginger Rogers, later Fred Astaire's best-known dance partner, and Ethel Merman). "Who Could Ask for Anything More?" from Of Thee I Sing in 1931. "Summertime,""I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" and "It Ain't Necessarily So" from Porgy and Bess in 1935.
Admit it: You've never heard of most of the musicals, which were cheap to produce, and designed pretty much to market the songs, selling the sheet music and the eventual original cast recordings. But you've heard the songs.
Gershwin knew that those cheap musicals were going to pay the bills, but he also knew that he wanted to make a mark on serious music. In 1924, he debuted his composition Rhapsody in Blue, and it became one of the premier pieces of 20th Century American classical music. Porgy and Bess wasn't just a musical, it was an opera -- with an all-black cast. Maybe the stereotypes look bad, 86 years later, but, for the time, this was a revolutionary production.
Gershwin never married, and, despite the work of a prominent hoaxster claiming to be his son and thus demanding a share of his song royalties, is not known to have had any children. Given these facts, and the nature of Broadway, both musical and nonmusical, it has been suspected that Gershwin was gay. (Cole Porter and Noël Coward were, but, as far as I know, none of the others I mentioned were.) But this wasn't true: He had a long-term affair with a fellow composer, Kay Swift, even titling Oh, Kay! after her. But his mother, Rose, put the kibosh on him marrying a woman who wasn't Jewish, so they never got hitched. She remained lifelong friends with Ira. (Ira lived until 1983, Kay until 1993.)
Gershwin died 2 months after the premiere of the film Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, which had 2 songs that get remembered today: "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" ("You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to," and so on), and "They Can't Take that Away From Me."
Given only the titles, and his subsequent death, it brings to mind such later songs recorded by big names right before they died: Hank Williams'"I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive," Buddy Holly's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," Eddie Cochran's "Three Steps to Heaven," and Elvis Presley's version of "My Way." And, of course, the cruel twist on the preceding, John Lennon's "(Just Like) Staring Over."
Given that Berlin and Porter were still writing music after the dawn of rock and roll in the 1950s, and that some of Gershwin's songs were adapted and turned into hits by rock groups, I have no doubt that he could have adapted and still been at it into his 60s or even 70s.
So his death at age 38 hit show business, both Broadway and Hollywood, hard. He was one of the men who made the Roaring Twenties roar, and helped people get through the Great Depression was that still ongoing when he died.
John O'Hara, a friend and a prominent author of short stories, was in denial, saying, "George Gershwin died in July 11, 1937, but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to."
*
That date was a Sunday. It was the off-season for the NFL and the NHL, and the NBA hadn't yet been founded. But a full slate of Major League Baseball games was played.
* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 4-3 at Yankee Stadium. Lou Gehrig and Bill Dickey hit home runs in support of Lefty Gomez. This was the 1st game of a doubleheader. The 2nd game was called after 9 innings due to darkness, 5-5.
Like Gershwin, Gehrig was a New York native that made it big in his chosen field in his hometown, and died young, not quite 38.
When Ken Burns made his miniseries Baseball in the early 1990s, he chose Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as the background music for the segment about the opening of the original Yankee Stadium in 1923, even though the composition debuted the following year, simply because the piece has become so identified with New York in the years between the World Wars, what has become known as "Heroic New York." The Gershwin brothers, Gehrig and Babe Ruth (retired by this point, but hitting the 1st homer in the Stadium in 1923) were all a part of that.
* New York's National League arch-rivals squared off in a doubleheader at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. The New York Giants swept it, beating the Brooklyn Dodgers 10-4 in the 1st game, and 5-1 in the 2nd game.
* A doubleheader was split at Braves Field in Boston -- nicknamed "The Bee Hive," since this was during the brief period that the Boston Braves were officially the Boston Bees. The lost the opener to the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-4. But they won the 2nd game, 1-0, on a suicide squeeze bunt in the 13th inning by Bees catcher Al Lopez, later to manage both the Indians and the White Sox to Pennants. It broke up a great pitching duel between Boston's Lou Fette and Philadelphia's Syl Johnson, who both went the distance.
* It was also a doubleheader between Boston and Philadelphia in the American League, at Shibe Park in North Philly. The Boston Red Sox swept the Philadelphia Athletics, winning the 1st game 9-4, and the 2nd game 8-2.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-2 at Navin Field in Detroit. The following season, the ballpark would be expanded into its more familiar shape, and renamed Briggs Stadium. It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.
* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The St. Louis Browns won the 1st game 4-1, and the Chicago White Sox won the 2nd game 4-3.
* The Browns still fared better than their tenants did. The St. Louis Cardinals not only got swept by the Cincinnati Reds at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, they got shut out, 6-0 and 7-0. Roy "Peaches" Davis allowed 9 hits and 4 walks in the opener, but kept the shutout. Al Hollingsworth pitched a 6-hit shutout in the nightcap.