50 Fun Facts About Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was born in 1888 in which country?

Russia. Official papers gave his birthplace as a city now in Belarus, but Berlin learned late in life that he was probably born in Tyumen, Siberia.

What was Irving Berlin's birth name?

Israel Beilin, also spelled Baline. The cover of his first published song in 1907 credited the words to "I. Berlin", and he kept the name for the rest of his life.

What drove Berlin's family from Europe to New York in 1893?

Anti-Jewish pogroms. The family landed at Ellis Island when he was five, and Berlin later said he never felt poor as a boy, because he had known no other life.

What was Berlin's father's profession in the old country?

Cantor. His father's chanting in synagogue was the only musical schooling Berlin ever had: he never took a formal lesson, and taught himself the piano.

About how much did Berlin earn from his first published song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907?

37 cents is the usual figure (one history says 33): Berlin wrote only the words, so a 75-cent royalty was split with the cafe pianist who composed the tune.

What job did the teenage Berlin hold at the Pelham Cafe in New York's Chinatown?

Singing waiter. Between serving drinks he sang the day's hits with his own made-up words, and after closing time he stayed behind to pick out tunes on the cafe piano.

In which single musical key could Berlin play the piano?

F-sharp. To hear a tune in any other key he worked a lever on a specially built transposing piano, which he called his "Buick" and took along on trips to Europe.

Berlin composed by ear, so who wrote his tunes down?

A musical secretary. Berlin worked each song out in his head, then sang or played it to a transcriber, who played it back until he was satisfied.

Which 1911 song made Irving Berlin an international star?

Alexander's Ragtime Band sold a million copies of sheet music within months, although, for all its title, the tune is a march and not a rag at all.

Which husband-and-wife dance team starred in Berlin's 1914 revue Watch Your Step?

Vernon and Irene Castle were the ballroom idols of the ragtime dance craze, and Berlin's first complete Broadway score was built to show them off.

What tragedy lay behind Berlin's first ballad, "When I Lost You", in 1912?

His bride died of typhoid, caught on their honeymoon in Havana. After months of silence Berlin turned his grief into the song, which sold more than a million copies.

Which Berlin song from the 1919 Ziegfeld Follies became the revue's lasting theme?

A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody outlived the Follies: when Hollywood filmed the showman's life in 1936, the tune was staged on a towering spiral staircase nicknamed the "wedding cake".

What was the name of the all-soldier revue Berlin wrote at Camp Upton in 1918?

Yip Yip Yaphank, named for the Long Island town where the camp stood, was staged to raise money for a soldiers' service centre, and after a tryout at the camp it played Broadway.

Which song did Berlin sing in both army revues?

Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning was a night owl's protest: used to composing until dawn, the newly drafted Berlin said reveille was what he liked least about army life.

Which famous song did Berlin write for his 1918 soldier revue but file away for twenty years?

God Bless America was dropped from the 1918 show and lay in his files until 1938, when, with war looming in Europe, Berlin revised the words and brought it out at last.

Which singer introduced Berlin's patriotic anthem in 1938 and made it her signature song?

Kate Smith sang it first on her Armistice Day radio show. Three decades later her recording became the good-luck charm of hockey's Philadelphia Flyers, played before their biggest games.

To whom did Berlin assign all royalties from his patriotic anthem of 1938?

The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Uneasy about profiting from a hymn to his adopted country, Berlin signed the copyright over to a fund in 1940, and it has paid the Scouts millions since.

Which folk singer wrote This Land Is Your Land in 1940 as a response to Berlin's anthem?

His song was originally titled "God Blessed America for Me".

Which Broadway house did Berlin build with producer Sam Harris in 1921?

The Music Box was built to stage Berlin's own revues, and he kept his share in it for life: even in his last years he would phone the theatre's managers to check the receipts.

Which heiress did Berlin marry in 1926 over her father's fierce objections?

Ellin Mackay's father, head of a telegraph empire, shipped her off to Europe to forget the songwriter. She came home and married him in a quiet civil ceremony, and they stayed together for more than six decades.

What wedding present did Berlin give his second wife when her father reportedly disowned her?

The rights to the song "Always" gave her an income of her own whatever happened. The tables turned in the Depression, when it was Berlin who bailed out his ruined father-in-law.

Berlin's "Blue Skies" is sung in which early talkie?

The Jazz Singer, the hit that hurried Hollywood from silent films to sound. Al Jolson's character chats with his mother, then plays her the song at the piano, until his father walks in and shouts "Stop!"

Which country singer took Berlin's 1920s song "Blue Skies" to the top of the country chart in 1978?

Willie Nelson cut it for an album of old pop standards. Berlin had written the tune as a late extra for the star of someone else's Broadway show, which closed within weeks while the song lived on.

Which synth-pop artist took Puttin' on the Ritz to number 4 in the US in 1983, when Berlin was 95?

Taco, a Dutch singer, recorded it in 1982 with a tap-dancing break and snatches of other Berlin tunes; it was a hit across Europe before American radio picked it up the following year.

Which Berlin holiday standard reused the tune of his 1917 song "Smile and Show Your Dimple"?

Easter Parade. The 1917 tune was meant to cheer a girl whose sweetheart had gone to war; in 1933 Berlin gave it new words for a Fifth Avenue scene in a Broadway revue.

In As Thousands Cheer (1933), each number was presented as what?

An item in a newspaper. Each scene began with a headline, from celebrity scandals to European war debts, and the weather report turned into the song "Heat Wave".

Which comedy team starred in Berlin's 1929 film musical The Cocoanuts?

The Marx Brothers. George S. Kaufman had written the stage show for them in 1925, and the four brothers simply repeated their roles for one of the first all-talking film musicals.

Berlin wrote "Cheek to Cheek" specifically for which film star?

Fred Astaire danced it in Top Hat with Ginger Rogers, whose gown shed feathers all over the set. For all its fame, the song lost the Best Song Oscar to "Lullaby of Broadway".

Which 1942 film introduced White Christmas?

Holiday Inn. Berlin expected the film's Valentine's Day number to be the hit and promoted that first, but the public made the Christmas song a runaway instead.

Whose recording of White Christmas is regarded as the best-selling single of all time?

Bing Crosby's record has sold some 50 million copies. It took off in 1942, speaking to troops spending their first winter far from home, and Berlin called it a peace song.

What awkward Oscar moment involved Berlin and White Christmas?

He opened the envelope and read his own name: presenting Best Song in 1943, Berlin told the audience, "I'm glad to present the award. I've known him for a long time."

Which Hollywood actor, billed as a serving Army lieutenant, starred in the 1943 film of This Is the Army?

Ronald Reagan was billed with his rank, as was boxing champion Joe Louis, a sergeant: the cast included real servicemen who had been performers in civilian life.

What did Berlin earn personally from touring the world with This Is the Army?

Nothing; every dollar went to relief. Berlin took no pay as the all-soldier show travelled from Broadway to bases near the front lines, and the Army thanked him with its Medal for Merit.

Which duo, producing Annie Get Your Gun, persuaded a reluctant Berlin to write its score?

Rodgers and Hammerstein, fresh from Oklahoma!, were producing this one, not writing it. Berlin first said no, wary of fitting songs to a plot, then turned in the longest-running show of his career.

Legend says Berlin nearly cut which Annie Get Your Gun song?

There's No Business Like Show Business. The story goes that he thought his producers disliked it; Berlin called that a myth, saying everyone knew at once it was an important part of the score.

Berlin tailored Annie Get Your Gun to which Broadway star, its original Annie in 1946?

Ethel Merman. The show ran for 1,147 performances, and when she revived it twenty years later Berlin wrote her a new showstopper, his last song for Broadway.

In Berlin's musical Call Me Madam, the heroine sings that she is what?

The hostess with the mostes'. She was a spoof of Perle Mesta, the Washington party-giver President Truman had just made ambassador to Luxembourg, renamed "Lichtenburg" in the show.

Which president sat in the audience for the Washington opening of Berlin's last musical, Mr. President?

John F. Kennedy saw the show about a fictional First Family before Broadway did. The critics were cool, and Berlin's farewell musical closed after eight months.

Which TV variety show devoted an entire 1968 broadcast to Berlin's 80th birthday?

The Ed Sullivan Show gave him 90 minutes of prime time, and the private Berlin came on to sing himself, in a voice one friend called so thin that only a dog could hear it.

Which operetta composer warned the young Berlin that studying composition might cramp his style?

Victor Herbert told him he had "a natural gift for words and music" and that learning theory might help a little but could do harm. Berlin took the advice and stayed self-taught.

Which composer said, "Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music"?

Jerome Kern supplied the line for the first biography of Berlin, published in the 1920s, when most of the songs he is remembered for today were still unwritten.

Which venue staged Berlin's all-star 100th-birthday concert in 1988?

Carnegie Hall. Berlin, by then a recluse who saw almost no one, gave the concert his blessing but stayed at home; he died the following year, aged 101.

For his 1949 musical Miss Liberty, Berlin set which famous poem to music?

The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus's sonnet from the Statue of Liberty. Berlin had sailed past the statue as a five-year-old immigrant, and he closed the show with her lines set to his own tune.

In 1914 Berlin became a charter member of which society, founded to collect songwriters' royalties?

ASCAP collects a fee whenever a member's music is performed in public, at first from hotels and restaurants and later from radio. When it raised its rates, broadcasters founded the rival BMI.

Berlin gave away the royalties from his 1941 song "Any Bonds Today?" to which government department?

The Treasury had asked him for a theme song to sell defence bonds, months before Pearl Harbor. Berlin signed the number over to the department outright, so he never made a penny from it.

In 1909 Berlin was hired as a staff lyricist in which New York district?

Tin Pan Alley. Hired to write only the words, Berlin was soon composing too, and after his 1911 smash the firm made him a partner and added his name to its own.

Which comedian starred in the 1941 film of Louisiana Purchase, Berlin's satire on the Louisiana of Huey Long?

Bob Hope took over the lead for the screen. Stage show and film open the same cheeky way, with a lawyer's warning, set to music, that any likeness to real politicians is pure fiction.

Which 1974 Mel Brooks comedy features a top-hat-and-tails duet to Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz"?

Young Frankenstein. Mel Brooks fought the idea as too silly, but Gene Wilder begged to try it; once the scene was shot, Brooks called it the best thing in the movie.

Which president, for whose election campaign Berlin reworked a show tune, later gave him a special Congressional Gold Medal?

Dwight D. Eisenhower. The campaign song was "I Like Ike", which had begun life as "They Like Ike" in Berlin's Broadway show Call Me Madam, two years before the general ran.

Which singer performed 'Supper Time', Berlin's song about a lynching, in As Thousands Cheer?

Ethel Waters sang it standing by a supper table, as a wife who must tell her children their father is never coming home. She said it told the whole tragic history of a race.