Vincent Youmans

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Vincent Millie Youmans (September 27, 1898 – April 5, 1946) was an American Broadway composer and producer.<ref name="Baker's Bio">Template:Cite book</ref>

A leading Broadway composer of his day, Youmans collaborated with virtually all the greatest lyricists on Broadway: Ira Gershwin, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Irving Caesar, Anne Caldwell, Leo Robin, Howard Dietz, Clifford Grey, Billy Rose, Edward Eliscu, Edward Heyman, Harold Adamson, Buddy DeSylva and Gus Kahn.<ref name=SHF1/> Youmans' early songs are remarkable for their economy of melodic material: two-, three- or four-note phrases are constantly repeated and varied by subtle harmonic or rhythmic changes. In later years, however, he turned to longer musical sentences and more rhapsodic melodic lines.<ref name=Grove/> Youmans published fewer than 100 songs, but 18 of these were considered standards by ASCAP,<ref name=Grove/> a remarkably high percentage.

Biography

Youmans was born in New York City, United States,<ref name="LarkinGE">Template:Cite book</ref> into a prosperous family of hat makers. When he was two, his father moved the family to upper-class Larchmont, New York.<ref>Suskin, Steven. "Vincent Youmans". Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows, and Careers of Broadway's Major Composers. Oxford University Press: 2000.</ref> Youmans attended the Trinity School in Mamaroneck, New York, and Heathcote Hall in Rye, New York. His ambition was initially to become an engineer, and he attended Yale University for a short time. He dropped out to become a runner for a Wall Street brokerage firm, but was soon drafted in the Navy during World War I, although he saw no combat.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> While stationed in Illinois, he took an interest in the theater and began producing troop shows for the Navy.<ref name="LarkinGE"/>

After the war, Youmans was a Tin Pan Alley song-plugger for Jerome H. Remick Music Publishers, and then a rehearsal pianist for composer Victor Herbert’s operettas.<ref name=SHF1>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1921, he collaborated with lyricist Ira Gershwin on the score for Two Little Girls in Blue, which brought him his first Broadway composing credit, and his first hit song "Oh Me! Oh My!", and a contract with T. B. Harms.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> His next show was Wildflower (1923), with lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II, which was a major success.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> His most enduring success was No, No, Nanette, with lyrics by Irving Caesar, which reached Broadway in 1925 after an unprecedented try-out in Chicago and subsequent national and international tours.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> No, No Nanette was the biggest musical-comedy success of the 1920s in both Europe and the US and his two songs "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy" were worldwide hits.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> Both songs are considered standards.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> "Tea For Two" was consistently ranked among the most recorded popular songs for decades.<ref name=Grove />

In 1927, Youmans began producing his own Broadway shows. He also left his publisher TB Harms Company and began publishing his own songs.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> He had a major success with Hit the Deck! (1927), which included the hit songs "Sometimes I'm Happy" and "Hallelujah".<ref name="LarkinGE"/> His subsequent productions after 1927 were failures, despite the song hits they featured ("Great Day and "Without a Song" from Great Day (1929), "Time On My Hands" from Smiles (1930), and the title song from Through the Years).<ref name="LarkinGE"/> His last contributions to Broadway were additional songs for Take a Chance (1932).<ref name=Grove>Bordman, Gerald. "Vincent Youmans", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, accessed July 12, 2008</ref>

In 1933, Youmans wrote the songs for Flying Down to Rio, the first film to feature Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as a featured dancing pair.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> His score contained "Orchids in the Moonlight", "The Carioca", "Music Makes Me", and the title song.<ref name=Grove /> The film was a tremendous hit, and it revived the composer's professional prospects, though he never again wrote for Astaire/Rogers.

After a professional career of only 13 years, Youmans was forced into retirement in 1934 after contracting tuberculosis.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> He spent the remainder of his life battling the disease.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> His only return to Broadway was to mount an ill-fated extravaganza entitled Vincent Youmans' Ballet Revue (1943), an ambitious mix of Latin-American and classical music, including Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé. Choreographed by Leonide Massine.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> The production lost some $4 million.<ref>Vincent Youmans, in The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music (2001). Retrieved April 13, 2008</ref>

Private life

Youmans married chorus performer Anne Varley<ref name=indytimes>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=BNewsdies>Template:Cite news</ref> on February 7, 1927.<ref name=WilmNJ>Template:Cite news</ref> Their twins, Vincent Jr. and Cecily, were born on August 16, 1927.<ref name=BTreno>Template:Cite news</ref>

Anne filed for divorce just five days after the birth of her children.<ref name=BTreno /> During the subsequent legal battle, Vincent denied fathering his two children.<ref name=indytimes /> In May 1933, Vincent's apartment in New York City<ref name=WilmNJ /> was broken into by two private detectives hired by Anne. They found extensive evidence of Vincent's adultery.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Vincent stopped contesting the divorce, and it was granted on November 25, 1933.<ref name=WilmNJ />

Vincent Youmans was an alcoholic and a member of the Lost Generation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was a lifelong heavy drinker and partier<ref name=suskin>Template:Cite book</ref> and well-known for womanizing.<ref name=bolcom>Template:Cite news</ref> The drinking impaired his health, and he contracted tuberculosis in 1932.<ref name=suskin /> It went into remission for two years,<ref name=suskin /> but recurred in 1934.<ref name=bolcom />

Youmans married chorus performer Mildred Boots on October 22, 1935.<ref name=indytimes /> She filed for divorce, citing grounds of "mental cruelty", in Reno, Nevada, on January 19, 1946. It was granted two days later after Youmans did not contest it.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Death and legacy

Youmans died of tuberculosis on April 5, 1946,<ref name=BNewsdies /> at a hotel in Denver, Colorado.<ref name=bolcom /> Mary Chase, author of the 1944 Broadway play Harvey, was at his beside.<ref name=BNewsdies />

At the time of his death, Youmans left behind a large quantity of unpublished material. In 1970, Youmans was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1971, No, No Nanette enjoyed a notable Broadway revival starring Ruby Keeler, and choreographed by Busby Berkeley, which was widely credited with beginning the nostalgia era on Broadway.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1983, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Broadway musicals with music by Vincent Youmans

Films with music by Vincent Youmans

Songs

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References

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