Harry Warren

From Wind Repertory Project
Harry Warren

Biography

Harry Warren (born Salvatore Guaragna, 24 December 1893, Brooklyn, N.Y. – 22 September 1981, Los Angeles, Calif.) was an American composer and lyricist.

Warren was one of eleven children of Italian immigrants Antonio (a bootmaker) and Rachel De Luca Guaragna. His father changed the family name to Warren when Harry was a child.

Although his parents could not afford music lessons, Warren had an early interest in music and taught himself to play his father's accordion. He also sang in the church choir and learned to play the drums. He began to play the drums professionally by age 14 and dropped out of high school at 16 to play with his godfather's band in a traveling carnival. Soon he taught himself to play the piano, and by 1915 he was working at the Vitagraph Motion Picture Studios, where he did a variety of administrative jobs, such as props man, and also played mood music on the piano for the actors, acted in bit parts and eventually was an assistant director. He also played the piano in cafés and silent-movie houses. In 1918 he joined the U.S. Navy, where he began writing songs.

Warren was the first major American songwriter to write primarily for film. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song eleven times and won three Oscars for composing Lullaby of Broadway, You'll Never Know and On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe. He wrote the music for the first blockbuster film musical, 42nd Street, choreographed by Busby Berkeley, with whom he would collaborate on many musical films.

Over a career spanning four decades, Warren wrote more than 800 songs. Other well-known Warren hits included I Only Have Eyes for You, You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby, Jeepers Creepers, The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money), That's Amore, There Will Never Be Another You, The More I See You, At Last and Chattanooga Choo Choo (the last of which was the first gold record in history). Warren was one of America's most prolific film composers, and his songs have been featured in over 300 films.


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