FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
As a child he spoke no English, couldn’t read music most of his life and played the piano in one key only – yet he became America’s greatest songwriter. Irving Berlin was born Israel Isidore Baline in 1888 in Russia and grew up in a tenement in New York City with his father, mother and five brothers and sisters.
When his father died aged 53, Irving , then 13, left school to try and earn some money. Feeling he was a drain on the family he moved out busking for loose change and living in flophouses. Eventually he got a job as a singing waiter in Chinatown singing risque lyrics to popular tunes.
In 1907, aged 19, he published his first song. The song that changed his life, however, was based on the latest craze sweeping America: ragtime, which was considered scandalous. Berlin made ragtime safe and by the end of 1910 his song Alexander’s Ragtime Band had sold one million copies. No song had ever become so popular so quickly.
Irving Berlin was just 23 and on his way to becoming the most successful songwriter in America. In 1912, aged 24, Berlin married Dorothy Goetz. Within five months, however, Dorothy died from typhoid, which she contracted on their honeymoon in Cuba. Devastated and depressed Dorothy’s brother goaded him into doing some work. He eventually came up with When I Lost You which sold almost as well as Alexander’s Ragtime Band. In 1918, just short of his 30th birthday, Irving Berlin was drafted. While in the army he wrote an all-soldier musical, which included the very popular: Oh How I Hate To Get Up In the Morning.
When he was 35, he fell in love with Ellen Mackay, a 22-year-old socialite from Long Island. Clarence Mackay, one of the richest Catholics in New York, was distraught that his daughter’s suitor was a Jewish Broadway composer. He did all in his power to keep them apart and even disinherited Ellen. Nevertheless Ellen married Irving in New York City Hall in 1926. He was 37, she was 23.
In 1928 Ellen gave birth to their first son, Irving Berlin Junior. Berlin’s joy was short-lived, however, as the baby died in his cot on Christmas morning, three weeks after the birth. Berlin and his father-in-law, Clarence Mackay met for the first time at the funeral.
These were hard times for Irving Berlin. Unable to compose, his music publisher, Max Winslow, gave one of Berlin’s old songs, Say It Isn’t So, to Rudy Vallee. Within a month of its release it entered the charts with four different singers.
Confidence restored he produced more hit songs and musicals. The 1930s were good for Irving Berlin. He returned to Hollywood to work on a new film for 20th Century Fox. Stuck in Los Angeles at Christmas time, lonely and homesick, in one all-night session he wrote the song that became the greatest hit of his career: White Christmas. “It’s not just the best song I ever wrote,” Berlin said of White Christmas, “it’s the best song anyone ever wrote.”
Call Me Madam which opened on Broadway in 1952 was Irving Berlin’s last great success. He had adjusted to every musical style for over half a century but now 62 he could not adjust to Rock & Roll. In 1958, aged 71, Irving Berlin retired. In 1962 he made a come back with the musical Mr President inspired by John Fitzgerald Kennedy which didn’t, however, live up to expectations. Irving Berlin withdrew into himself, turned down tributes, requests for interviews and requests from scholars to quote his lyrics.
In 1988 a host of stars including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennet and Ray Charles gathered in Carnegie Hall to commemorate his 100th birthday. Berlin did not attend. He was too tired, he said, and besides his wife Ellen wasn’t well. Two months later Ellen died. She was 85. Irving Berlin lived for another year. He died peacefully in his sleep on September 22, 1989 aged 101.
When he died people gathered outside his home for an impromptu memorial; among the songs they sang was White Christmas.
PS: Nearing the end of the Vietnam War, White Christmas was the secret message informing Americans in Saigon to evacuate. American Forces Radio signalled listeners with the phrase “Mother wants you to call hone” followed by Bing Crosby singing White Christmas.
