KERN, JEROME DAVID

KERN, JEROME DAVID (1885–1945), U.S. composer of popular music. Born in New York, Kern published his first song, "At the Casino," in 1902. In 1903, while working in London, he had his first real success – a political song "Mr. Chamberlain" with lyrics by P.G. Wodehouse, who later contributed lyrics to many of Kern's musicals. Returning to the U.S., he wrote songs that were used in musical productions, particularly in operettas coming from Europe, such as La Belle Paree (1911) and The Red Petticoat (1912), which was followed by Oh I Say (1913). From then on, his musicals appeared regularly on Broadway, the most important being Very Good, Eddie (1915), Oh Boy\! (1917), Oh Lady, Lady (1918), Sally (1920), and Sunny (1925). His greatest success was Show Boat (1927) with libretto and lyrics by oscar hammerstein . It was followed by Sweet Adeline (1929), The Cat and the Fiddle (1931), and Roberta (1933). In later years, Kern lived in Beverly Hills, California, and wrote scores for a great number of films, many of them adaptations of his most successful musicals. In all he wrote more than 1,000 songs, for 104 stage shows and films, and many of them proved to have a lasting popularity (e.g., "Ol' Man River," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"). In 1946 his life story was filmed under the title Till the Clouds Roll By. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Ewen, World of Jerome Kern (1960), incl. bibl.; K. List, in: Commentary, 3 (1947), 433–41; G. Saleski, Famous Musicians of Jewish Origin (1949), 85–86.