Dorothy Fields (July 15, 1904 – March 28, 1974) was an American
librettist and
lyricist. She wrote more than 400 songs for
Broadway musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...
s and films. Her best-known pieces include "
The Way You Look Tonight" (1936),
"A Fine Romance" (1936), "
On the Sunny Side of the Street" (1930), "
Don't Blame Me" (1948), "
Pick Yourself Up" (1936), "
I'm in the Mood for Love" (1935), "
You Couldn't Be Cuter" (1938) and "
Big Spender" (1966). Throughout her career, she collaborated with various influential figures in the American musical theater, including
Jerome Kern,
Cy Coleman
Cy Coleman (born Seymour Kaufman; June 14, 1929 – November 18, 2004) was an American composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist.
Life and career
Coleman was born Seymour Kaufman in New York City, to Ashkenazi, Eastern European Jewish parents, an ...
,
Irving Berlin, and
Jimmy McHugh. Along with
Ann Ronell,
Dana Suesse,
Bernice Petkere, and
Kay Swift, she was one of the first successful
Tin Pan Alley and
Hollywood female songwriters.
Early life
Fields was born in
Allenhurst, New Jersey, and grew up in New York City. In 1923, Fields graduated from the Benjamin School for Girls in New York City. At school, she was outstanding in the subjects of English, drama, and basketball. Her poems were published in the school's literary magazine.
Her family was deeply involved in show business. Her father,
Lew Fields, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland who partnered with
Joe Weber as one of the most popular comedy
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...
duos near the end of the nineteenth century. When the duo separated in 1904, Lew Fields became one of the most influential theater producers of his time. From 1904 until 1916, he produced about 40 Broadway shows, and was nicknamed "The King of Musical Comedy" because of his achievements. Her mother was Rose Harris. She had two older brothers,
Joseph and
Herbert, who also became successful on Broadway: Joseph as a writer and producer and Herbert as a writer who later became Dorothy's collaborator.
Despite her natural familial connections to the theatre via her father, he disapproved of her choice to pursue acting and did everything he could to prevent her from becoming a serious actress. This began when he refused to let her take a job with a stock company in
Yonkers
Yonkers () is the List of municipalities in New York, third-most populous city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the most-populous City (New York), city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County. A centrally locate ...
. Hence, Dorothy began working as a teacher and a laboratory assistant while secretly submitting work to magazines.
Career
Early in her career Fields appeared on stage with English actress and socialite
Sylvia Ashley—who subsequently married
Douglas Fairbanks Sr and
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American actor often referred to as the "King of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". He appeared in more than 60 Film, motion pictures across a variety of Film genre, genres dur ...
—as "Silly and Dotty" in "Midnight Follies" at the London Metropole, followed by further appearances in "Tell me More" at London's Winter Gardens and "The Whole Town's Talking
https://stageagent.com/writers/910/dorothy-fields]

In 1926, Fields met the popular song composer
John Frederick Coots, J. Fred Coots, who proposed that the two begin writing songs together. Nothing actually came out of this interaction and introduction; however, Coots introduced Fields to another composer and song plugger, Jimmy McHugh.
Fields's career as a professional songwriter took off in 1928 when
Jimmy McHugh, who had seen some of her early work, invited her to provide some lyrics for him for ''
Blackbirds of 1928''. The show, starring
Adelaide Hall, became a Broadway hit. Fields and McHugh teamed up until 1935. Songs from this period include "
I Can't Give You Anything But Love" (1928), "
Exactly Like You" (1930), and "
On the Sunny Side of the Street" (1930). During the later 1920s, she and McHugh wrote specialty numbers for the various
Cotton Club revues, many of which were recorded by
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life.
Born and raised in Washington, D ...
.
In the mid-1930s, Fields started to write lyrics for films and collaborated with other composers, including
Jerome Kern. With Kern, she worked on the
movie version of ''Roberta'' and also on their greatest success, ''
Swing Time''. The song "
The Way You Look Tonight" earned the Fields/Kern team an
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the Film industry, motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is presented to the ''songwriters'' who h ...
in 1936.
She wrote the lyrics for the songs in the 1936 movie ''
The King Steps Out'', based on the early years of
Empress Elisabeth of Austria, directed by
Josef von Sternberg.
Fields returned to New York and worked again on Broadway shows, but now as a librettist, first with
Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz (November 25, 1900 – September 3, 1984) was an American composer and film producer, widely noted for his songwriting collaborations with Howard Dietz.
Biography
Early life
Schwartz was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New ...
on ''Stars In Your Eyes''. (They reteamed in 1951 for ''
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn''.) In the 1940s, she teamed up with her brother
Herbert Fields, with whom she wrote the books for three
Cole Porter shows, ''
Let's Face It!'', ''
Something for the Boys'', and ''
Mexican Hayride''.
In 1945, Fields approached
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers (June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979) was an American Musical composition, composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway theatre, Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers wa ...
and
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II (; July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960) was an American lyricist, librettist, theatrical producer, and director in musical theater for nearly 40 years. He won eight Tony Awards and two Academy Award ...
with her idea for a new musical based on the life of famous female sharpshooter
Annie Oakley. They liked the idea and agreed to produce the show conjointly. Kern and Fields were signed on to write the songs in the show. Kern died before the two were able to begin working on the project, and
Irving Berlin was hired to replace him.
Together, she and her brother Herbert wrote the book for ''
Annie Get Your Gun'', while Berlin provided all the music. The show, starring
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman (born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann; January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American singer and actress. Known for her distinctive, powerful voice, and her leading roles in musical theatre, musical theater,Obituary ''Variety Obitua ...
, was a huge success, running for 1,147 performances.
In the 1950s, her biggest success was the show ''
Redhead'' (1959), which won five
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...
s, including Best Musical. When she started collaborating with
Cy Coleman
Cy Coleman (born Seymour Kaufman; June 14, 1929 – November 18, 2004) was an American composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist.
Life and career
Coleman was born Seymour Kaufman in New York City, to Ashkenazi, Eastern European Jewish parents, an ...
in the 1960s, her career took a new turn. Their first work together was ''
Sweet Charity''. Her last hit was from their second collaboration in 1973, ''
Seesaw''. The show began on Broadway on March 18, 1973, and ended its run on December 8, 1973. Its signature song was "It's Not Where You Start, It's Where You Finish".
Throughout her 48-year career, Fields cowrote more than 400 songs and worked on 15 stage musicals and 26 movies. Her lyrics were known for their strong characterization, clarity in language, and humor. She was an amateur pianist and a lifelong lover of classical music; the awareness of melodic lines that this fostered in her was of value in the task of fitting lyrics to melodies.
Fields' professional longevity was rare at the time for a songwriter; it was underpinned by her imagination and her willingness to adapt to changing trends in American musical theater.
Fields is a member of the
American Theater Hall of Fame, inducted posthumously in 1988.
Personal life
Fields had highly disciplined work habits. She was known to spend about eight weeks researching, discussing, and making notes on a project before finally returning to her regular 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily work routine.
Fields died of a heart attack on March 28, 1974, at the age of 69. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' reported "Dorothy Fields, the versatile songwriter whose career spanned nearly 50 years, died of a heart attack last night at her home here." She was the sister of writers
Herbert and
Joseph Fields. She was introduced to Eli Lahm by his close friend Herbert Sondheim, the father of
Stephen Sondheim, who affectionately referred to her as Aunt Dorothy growing up.
[Stephen Sondheim, "Saturday Night" Finishing the Hat (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), p. 9.] Fields married Lahm in 1939, and they had two children, David ( a jazz pianist) and Eliza. Lahm died in 1958.
Cultural references
Thirty-five years after her death, President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
, in his
inauguration speech as 44th
president of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
on January 20, 2009, echoed lyrics by Fields when he said, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America".
This alludes to the song "
Pick Yourself Up" from the 1936 film ''Swing Time'', for which Jerome Kern had written the music, in which
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starri ...
and
Fred Astaire sang Fields's words, "Pick yourself up; dust yourself off; start all over again".
["Pick Yourself Up" Lyrics, Web site ''Reel Classics''](_blank)
/ref>
References
External links
*
*
*
Dorothy Fields
at the Songwriters Hall of Fame
Dorothy Fields Papers, 1911–1977
Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy Fields Scripts, 1927–1973
Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy Fields recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fields, Dorothy
1904 births
1974 deaths
Jewish American songwriters
Songwriters from New Jersey
American musical theatre librettists
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Best Original Song Academy Award–winning songwriters
People from Allenhurst, New Jersey
Musicians from Manhattan
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
Songwriters from New York (state)
Tony Award winners
20th-century American Jews
20th-century American songwriters