If Happy Little Blue Birds Fly Beyond The Rainbow, Why, Oh Why Can't I?

Today in 1905, Harold Arlen was born. He was not gay, but important to gay life for writing a certain special song. For me, after Stephen Sondheim, Arlen is our greatest composer of theatre & film musicals. Arlen composed over 500 songs, but is best known writing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including Over the Rainbow, named #1 of the "Songs of the Century" list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America & the National Endowment for the Arts. The American Film Institute also ranked Over The Rainbow the greatest movie song of all time on the list of AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs. It was adopted by American troops in Europe in World War II as a symbol of the USA.

Arlen is one of the most important contributors to the Great American Songbook. His Broadway shows include:  Hooray for What!, Bloomer Girl, St. Louis Woman, House of Flowers, Mr. Imperium, Jamaica, & Saratoga.

Arlen wrote extraordinarily complex melodies & harmonies that somehow remained accessible to a broad popular audience.  He collaborated with the greatest of the Tin Pan Alley lyricists: E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, Johnny Mercer, Ted Koehler, Leo Robin, Ira Gershwin, Dorothy Fields & Truman Capote.

Arlen also acted producer of some of the greatest film musicals of the Golden era: The Wizard of Oz, Let’s Fall In Love, Blues In the Night, Star Spangled Rhythm, Cabin In the Sky, Up in Arms, Kismet, My Blue Heaven, Gay Purr-ee, & Judy Garland’s version of A Star Is Born.

The Arlen catalog boast the standards: Sweet & Hot, Between the Devil & the Deep Blue Sea, I Got A Right To Sing the Blues, Stormy Weather, Fun To Be Fooled, Last Night When We Were Young, Blues in the Night, That Old Black Magic, Happiness is a Thing Called Joe, One For My Baby, Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive, Out Of This World, Any Place I Hang My Hat is Home, Come Rain or Come Shine, The Man That Got Away, It’s Only A Paper Moon, I’ve Got The World On A String.

For all his work writing smart songs for 6 decades, the standout in his legacy continues to be the unforgettable score for the 1939 ‘s The Wizard of Oz.  Even that score reflects Arlen’s true loves- jazz & blues. Listen to how swingin’ Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead can be.

Try Ella Fitzgerald’s 2 volumes- Ella Sings The Harold Arlen Songbook from 1960, on Verve.

Besides Over The Rainbow, of course, my favorite Arlen tune is probably the greatest salon song of all time- One For My Baby, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer.

Born On This Day- January 12th... Patsy Kelly

She often played The Maid in motion pictures, & she was forced to take work as an actual maid when Hollywood was not able to deal with her loud mouth, her drinking & her openness about being, in her own words: “a big dyke”.

Patsy Kelly was famous for being a screwball, spunky, straight-shooter of film & stage. She is remembered for her comic work in movies, her Broadway credits go back to the 1920s.

Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly was born in Brooklyn 101 years ago today. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants. In 1927, she made her Broadway debut in the vaudeville musical Harry Delmar’s Revels followed by Three Cheers (1928), Earl Carroll’s Sketch Book (1929) & Earl Carroll’s Vanities (1930).

In The Wonder Bar (1931), a play set in Parisian night club, Kelly played Electra Pivonka, a role that required her to sing 2 songs. in 1932 she had several musical numbers in the revue- Flying Colors. She would not return to Broadway for 40 years.

Kelly appeared in films now largely forgotten or lost, often playing the roles of the maid or the nurse. Among her early films: Air Fright (1933), The Countess of Monte Cristo (1934),The Misses Stooge (1935), Pigskin Parade (1936), Wake Up & Live (1937), The Cowboy & the Lady (1938), The Gorilla (1939), Topper Returns (1941).

Kelly was an out & proud lesbian at a time that it was nearly unthinkable, & her outspokenness hurt her career in the 1940s. Her off-screen boozing & public proclamations that she was a lesbian led to the end of her career during Hollywood's golden age. By 1943, she could only get small roles in films at PRC, the most poverty-stricken of all Poverty Row studios.

Her on again/off again lover- Tallulah Bankhead hired her as a personal assistant/housekeeper. Kelly worked as a domestic for Bankhead & others until she found work in TV starting in the1950s. She was a frequent guest on everything from The Love Boat, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, The Wild, Wild West & The Dick Van Dyke Show. The movies discovered her again, with roles in: Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960), The Naked Kiss (1964), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966), Freaky Friday (1976) & The North Avenue Irregulars (1979). I especially love her work in 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby.

But her greatest successes came when she returned to Broadway, First in 1971 in the revival of the musical No, No, Nanette. Kelly played Pauline, the maid, & wowed audiences, me included, with her sharp delivery & first rate tap dancing. I liked Kelly & the show so much, I saw it on Broadway & in LA in 1972. Clive Barnes, the NY Times theatre critic at the time: “Kelly, a formidable lady who specializes in maids who have not only given notice but also taken notice, sucks up every scene she is in with the impressive suction of the vacuum cleaner she herself wields with such masterly expertise.”

She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Kelly followed her hit performance in No, No, Nanette with another star turn in the 1973 Broadway revival of Irene, playing Mrs. O’Dare, the spirited mother of the title character, played by Debbie Reynolds. Kelly earned a Tony nomination for her performance, & she can be heard on the cast recordings of both No, No, Nanette & Irene.

She entered the Motion Picture & Television Country House in 1981 & never left. She died there of cancer Sept. 24, 1981, at age 71.

The moral to Patsy Kelly’s tale? You can try & squash her spirits, but you can’t keep a delightful, dancin’ dyke dame down.