Dorothy Fields and the American Musical
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Journal of Film Music 4.2 (2011) 171-175 ISSN (print) 1087-7142 doi:10.1558/jfm.v4i2.171 ISSN (online) 1758-860X REVIEWS Charlotte Greenspan. “Pick Yourself Up”: Dorothy Fields and the American Musical Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. [xxii, 298 p. ISBN: 9780195111101. $27.95 (hardcover)] Broadway Legacies. Illustrations, appendices, index, and songs, shows, and films index. MELissA UrsuLA DAWN GOLdsmiTH Elms College, Chicopee, Massachusetts [email protected] orothy Fields (1905–74), whose work interested in the business), her initial work as a lyricist straddled stage and screen, had a for Mills Music as well as for Cotton Club revues (for D tremendously successful career as a lyricist example, Blackberries, which opened on September 29, and librettist. Fields grew up in a famous American 1929), and her lifelong concurrent work for Broadway theatre family: Her father was Lew Fields, a comedian, musicals and films. According to Greenspan, Fields actor, producer, and theater manager, and half of the was a lyricist for “more than four hundred songs, famous Weber and Fields duo of vaudeville. As the mostly distributed in nineteen Broadway shows and youngest member of her family, Dorothy spent most more than thirty films, as well as librettos for nine of her childhood years living with both her father’s musicals” (pp. 223-24). Close partnerships included, celebrity as a leading Broadway producer as well as among others, composers Jimmy McHugh, Jerome with his success in the business (p. xii). Greenspan Kern, Arthur Schwartz, Albert Hague, and Cy explains that, in the Fields house, “she grew up in an Coleman. She also was her brother Herbert’s partner atmosphere in which words—their meanings and their in writing books for seven musicals—the last ones of sounds, the way they are used and misused—were Herbert’s career, which included Annie Get Your Gun highly valued” (p. xvi). The early experience may have (the musical premiered in1946; the film, directed had an impact on her later choice to work as a lyricist by George Sidney and Busby Berkeley, was released and librettist. in 1950). Though Fields’ life was more centered in Broadway Legacies Series Editor Geoffrey Block New York than in Hollywood and her career more explains early in her study that Fields’ “family is a focused on musicals than films, Greenspan gives major part of her story, and, despite all the films, for ample attention to those thirty films to which Fields almost all her creative life it is mainly a Broadway contributed. More significantly, the author treats the story” (p. xii). That mentioned, author Charlotte work of the lyricist as part of the music, whether it be Greenspan offers a thorough and well-researched Fields’ composing for revues, Broadway musicals, or biographical study of Fields that explores her early Hollywood films. influences (including her early exposure to her father’s A selective list of Fields’ most popular songs for work as much as his discouraging her from becoming films include “The Way You Look Tonight,” “A Fine © Copyright the International Film Music Society, published by Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX. 172 THE JOURNAL OF FILM MUSIC Romance,” and “Pick Yourself Up” (all for George Later, her brother Herbert was responsible for giving Stevens’ Swing Time, released in 1936), as well as more exposure to composers in the business. Early in “I Feel a Song Comin’ On” and “I’m in the Mood his own career as a librettist, he teamed with Richard for Love” (featured in Raoul Walsh’s Every Night at Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (p. 37). Eight, 1935), “Lovely to Look At” (originally used in Apparently, Fields unintentionally found her William A. Seiter’s Roberta, 1935), and “If My Friends calling as a lyricist. Greenspan relays Fields’ telling of Could See Me Now” and “Big Spender” (featured how she made her start. It was shortly after her false in Bob Fosse’s 1966 musical Sweet Charity as well as start running a dance school that she met songwriter in the 1969 film of the same title). “The Way You J. Frederick Coots (later known for “Santa Claus Look Tonight,” written with Kern, earned her an Is Coming to Town,” composed in 1934, and the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making her popular standards “You Go to My Head,” composed the first female lyricist to win in that category. A year in 1938, and “For All We Know,” published in 1934). earlier, her partnership with McHugh on the song After hearing her play on the piano a few Rodgers text “Lovely to Look At,” with music composed by and Hart songs, he asked if she had ever tried to Kern, was nominated in the same category. Her songs write songs. Coots then worked with Fields on her are still widely used and well known through their earliest attempts, mostly inspired by Hart’s early work resurgences in film and television. Just a few examples (p. 41, cited in Chap. 4, fn 19, as Reminiscences of of films in English alone include Roman Polanski’s Dorothy Fields [Nov. 1958], pp. 3-4, in the Columbia Chinatown (1974, using “The Way You Look Tonight”), University Oral History Research Office Collection). Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can (2002, “The When Coots and Fields approached Mills Music Way You Look Tonight”), Richard Laxton’s Grow with their songs, Fields met her first professional Your Own (2007, “Big Spender”), John Crowley’s Is composer collaborator, McHugh. At the time, he was Anybody There? (2008, “I’m in the Mood for Love”) and the professional manager at Mills Music and, although Susanna White’s Nanny McPhee Returns (2010, “Pick he did listen to their songs, Fields did not credit Yourself Up”). Television offers examples such as him as one of her earliest supporters (p. 43, cited in “A Fine Romance,” which became the titular theme Chap. 4, fn 22, as An Evening with Dorothy Fields, DRG song of a 1980s BBC series starring Dame Judy Dench Records LP DRG 5167, track 2). Her persistence led and her husband Michael Williams (Dench sings the to Mills Music’s hiring her to complete overnight lyric theme). Much more recently, her music was used on writing projects on commission (p. 43). By the late another successful television series. In the mid-season 1920s, McHugh, also a Cotton Club composer, asked finale of AMC’s television show Breaking Bad, season her to write songs with him (pp. 45 and 55). In the five, during the eighth episode titled “Gliding Over meantime, early songwriting success included “I Can’t All,” Dave Porter uses the Nat King Cole and George Give You Anything But Love” (composed for Lew Shearing rendition of “Pick Yourself Up” to accompany Leslie’s Blackbirds revue, which opened on Broadway the prison murder montage, orchestrated by criminal as Blackbirds of 1928) and “On the Sunny Side of the mastermind protagonist Walter White. Street” (composed in 1930 for Leslie’s International Fields’ musical background, according to Revue). He would remain her first songwriting Greenspan, took place during her school years and collaborator in Hollywood. included singing in theater as well as piano lessons As it did with many songwriters and others who (pp. 22 and 24). In 1925, she briefly had her own worked in theater in the early 1930s, Broadway simply dancing school at Carnegie Hall—Greenspan explains did not provide enough work. Fields and her family, that it is unclear what kinds of credentials she may along with many others, were thus motivated to find have had to run a dancing school, but she guesses work in Hollywood. Chapters 1 through 6 focus on that perhaps Fields accompanied her dancers on the development of Fields as a lyricist (for a publisher piano during classes (p. 36). This kind of educated as well as for staged shows in New York). Subsequent guess also suggests Fields’ potential skills and chapters examine her work as a lyricist and librettist comfort level as a pianist. In addition, as a theater in films alongside musicals. My only criticism is performer, producer, and house owner, her father that subheadings were not used (or maintained). worked with several composers who would later work Greenspan manages to coordinate a variety of in collaboration with Fields and her brother Herbert. resources, mostly originating from New York, in order One in particular was an eighteen-year-old Kern; to delve deeply into Fields’ life, including her career another was a yet-to-be-famous Cole Porter (p. 25). and life choices while working in both industries. © The International Film Music Society 2014. REVIEWS 173 Readers will appreciate that this is the kind of song, how Fields used the first line of the refrain as research that unfolds best over a long period of time. the last line, “a useful trick to help hearers remember Equally important, the author takes up the task of the [title] of the song,” varying (or “flipping”) words explaining the important figures in Fields’ life: in this around in order to find better ways to rhyme lines, or book, general readers learn about Fields’ family and having (as in “I’m in the Mood for Love”) difficult-to- the numerous composers with whom she worked. rhyme words like “love” rhyme with itself consistently In 1929, Fields and McHugh had their first contract until the last stanza in which she rhymes the word with MGM, which led them to their contributing four with “clouds above” (pp. 49-50 and 86), exploring songs to Charles Reisner’s Love in the Rough and further interplay (as with “Never Gonna Dance” at the end songs to W.