Sheldon Mayer Harnick (born April 30, 1924) is an American

lyricist A lyricist is a songwriter who writes lyrics (the spoken words), as opposed to a composer, who writes the song's music which may include but not limited to the melody, harmony, arrangement and accompaniment. Royalties A lyricist's incom ...

and songwriter best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as ''

Fiorello! ''Fiorello!'' is a musical about New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a reform Republican, which debuted on Broadway in 1959, and tells the story of how La Guardia took on the Tammany Hall political machine. The book is by Jerome Weidman and ...

'' and '' Fiddler on the Roof''.

Early life

Sheldon Mayer Harnick was born to

American Jewish American Jews or Jewish Americans are Americans, American citizens who are Jewish, whether by Judaism, religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who desce ...

parents and grew up in the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

neighborhood of Portage Park.

Musical career

Harnick began writing music while still in Carl Schurz High School in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. After his Army service, he graduated from the Northwestern University School of Music (1946–1949) with a Bachelor of Music degree, and worked with various orchestras in the Chicago area. He then moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and wrote for many musicals and revues. He was friends with Charlotte Rae from college, and he went to see her one night at the

Village Vanguard The Village Vanguard is a jazz club at Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. Originally, the club presented folk music and beat poetry, but it became primarily a jazz ...

where she was singing a revue.

Yip Harburg Edgar Yipsel Harburg (born Isidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular song lyricist and librettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" ( ...

, who was one of Harnick's idols, heard she was singing a song of his and decided to come. He told Harnick that he enjoyed his writing, and urged him to continue. Harburg advised Harnick to work with a large number of composers. He also counseled him to write character and comic songs, not ballads, for Broadway. One of his compositions, "The Merry Minuet", was popularized by the

Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, ...

. Around 1956, Harnick met Jerry Bock, forming "what is arguably the most important musical partnership of the '60s." Their first musical was ''The Body Beautiful'', running for only 60 performances in 1958, but ''

'' (1959) ran for 795 performances and won the

Pulitzer Prize for Drama The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were a ...

. '' Fiddler on the Roof'' (1964) "became one of the most cherished of all Broadway musicals." Harnick wrote the libretto for the opera ''Coyote Tales'', with music by Henry Mollicone, which received its world premiere at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City in March 1998. He wrote the book, music and lyrics to the musical ''Dragons'', which was performed in 2003 at the Luna Stage in Montclair, New Jersey. He wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the book with Norton Juster for the musical ''The Phantom Tollbooth'', based on the book by Juster. The musical premiered at the

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...

in 2007. Harnick released the album ''Sheldon Harnick: Hidden Treasures (1949–2013)'' in 2014, which includes recordings of song demos and pieces cut from Broadway shows from his private collection. In 2020, Harnick worked on a musical adaptation of the Soviet play ''The Dragon'' by

Evgeny Schwartz Evgeny Lvovich Schwartz (russian: Евге́ний Льво́вич Шва́рц; , Kazan, Russian Empire – January 15, 1958, Leningrad, Soviet Union) was a Soviet writer and playwright, whose works include twenty-five plays, and screenplay ...

Stage productions

* ''

New Faces of 1952 ''New Faces of 1952'' is a musical revue with songs and comedy skits. It ran on Broadway for nearly a year in 1952 and was then made into a motion picture in 1954. It helped launch the careers of several young performers including Paul Lynde, Alic ...

'' (1952) (music) * '' Shangri-La'' (1956) (music) * ''

The Body Beautiful ''The Body Beautiful'' is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein and Will Glickman, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock. The first collaboration by Harnick and Bock, and the only one to have a contemporary setting, its plot focuses ...

'' (1958) (Bock) * ''

Portofino Portofino (; ) is a ''comune'' located in the Metropolitan City of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town is clustered around its small harbour, and is known for the colourfully painted buildings that line the shore. Since the late 19th century ...

'' (1958) (lyrics with

Richard Ney Richard Maximilian Ney (November 12, 1916 – July 18, 2004) was an American actor, author, and investment counselor. Life and career Ney was born in New York City, the son of Erwin Maximilian Ney (1893-1968), an insurance salesman, and Charlott ...

) * ''

'' (1959) (Bock) (winner of the

) * ''Songs to Ford-ify Your Future'' (1959) (Bock), an

industrial musical An industrial musical is a musical performed internally for the employees or shareholders of a business to create a feeling of being part of a team, to entertain, and/or to educate and motivate the management and salespeople to improve sales an ...

for the

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

* '' Tenderloin'' (1960) (Bock) * ''Smiling the Boy Fell Dead'' (1961) (David Baker) * ''

She Loves Me ''She Loves Me'' is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. The musical is the third adaptation of the 1937 play '' Parfumerie'' by Hungarian playwright Miklós László, following the 194 ...

'' (1963) (Bock) * '' Fiddler on the Roof'' (1964) (Bock) * ''

The Apple Tree ''The Apple Tree'' is a series of three musical playlets with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and a book by Bock and Harnick with contributions from Jerome Coopersmith. Each act has its own storyline, but all three are tied toge ...

'' (1966) (Bock) * '' Her First Roman'' (1968) (Bock, brought in to fix show) * '' The Rothschilds'' (1970) (Bock) * ''Pinocchio'' (1973) (

Mary Rodgers Mary Rodgers (January 11, 1931 – June 26, 2014) was an American composer, screenwriter, and author who wrote the novel '' Freaky Friday'', which served as the basis of a 1976 film starring Jodie Foster, for which she wrote the screenplay, as ...

) * ''Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines'' (1975) ( Jack Beeson) * ''Alice in Wonderland'' (1975) (

Joe Raposo Joseph Guilherme Raposo, OIH (February 8, 1937 – February 5, 1989) was an American composer, songwriter, pianist, singer and lyricist, best known for his work on the children's television series ''Sesame Street'', for which he wrote the theme ...

) * '' Rex'' (1976) ( Richard Rodgers) * ''

The Madwoman of Central Park West ''The Madwoman of Central Park West'' is a semi-autobiographical one-woman musical with a book by Arthur Laurents and Phyllis Newman and songs by various composers and lyricists. It focuses on the difficulties faced by an older actress who tries ...

'' (1979) * '' The Umbrellas of Cherbourg'' (1979) ( Michel Legrand) (contributed English lyrics for stage adaptation) * ''A Christmas Carol'' (1982) ( Michel Legrand) * '' A Wonderful Life'' (

) * '' Cyrano: The Musical'' (1993) (contributed English lyrics) * ''Coyote Tales'' (1998) ( Henry Mollicone) * ''Dragons'' (2003) (music by himself) * '' Fiddler on the Roof'' (2004) (contributed lyrics for one new song, "Topsy Turvy") ( Jerry Bock) * '' The Phantom Tollbooth'' (2007) (lyrics, and co-credited with Norton Juster for the book)

Honors and awards

*In 1960, Harnick, Bock and Jerome Weidman (book) won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for ''

''. *Sheldon Harnick has won three Tony Awards. In 1960, he, Bock and Weidman tied with

Rodgers and Hammerstein Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popular ...

for best musical; that year, both ''

'' and ''

The Sound of Music ''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, ''The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. S ...

'' won. And in 1965, Bock and Harnick's '' Fiddler on the Roof'' won for both Best Musical and Best Composer and Lyricist. *In honor of Harnick's vast influence on American music, on May 19, 1984 he was awarded the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit. Beginning in 1964, this award "established to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year that has made a significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression." *Sheldon Harnick was honored at the Twenty-Sixth Annual William Inge Theatre Festival located in Independence, Kansas, in 2007. *Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock were presented with the 18th Annual York Theatre Company's prestigious Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre in 2009. *Harnick received the 2016

Drama League Award The Drama League Awards, created in 1922, honor distinguished productions and performances both on Broadway and Off-Broadway, in addition to recognizing exemplary career achievements in theatre, musical theatre, and directing. Each May, the awards ...

for Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theatre, as well as the 2016 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. *He received an honorary doctorate from Northwestern University in June 2018. *Harnick was inducted into the

Songwriters Hall of Fame The Songwriters Hall of Fame (SHOF) is an American institution founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer, music publisher/songwriter Abe Olman, and publisher/executive Howie Richmond to honor those whose work, represent, and maintain, the her ...

in 1972 and received its highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award, in 1990.

References

External links

* * * * *
Sheldon Harnick Papers
at the

Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is a major archive of motion picture, television, radio, and theater research materials. Located in the headquarters building of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin, the ...

Songwriter Hall of Fame biography

William Inge Theater Festival website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harnick, Sheldon 1924 births American Ashkenazi Jews Living people Jewish American songwriters Bienen School of Music alumni Grammy Award winners Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners Special Tony Award recipients Tony Award winners Writers from Chicago Musicians from Chicago American musical theatre lyricists Broadway composers and lyricists American opera librettists Songwriters from Illinois Carl Schurz High School alumni United States Army personnel of World War II 21st-century American Jews