Anne Caldwell

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Anne Marsh Caldwell (August 30, 1867 – October 22, 1936), also known as Anne Caldwell O'Dea, was an American playwright and lyricist.<ref name="Women in World History 2000" /> She wrote both pop songs and Broadway shows, sometimes working with composer Jerome Kern.

Biography

Anne Marsh Caldwell was born in Boston, Massachusetts.<ref name="Women in World History 2000" /> She began her career at the Juvenile Opera Co. as one of only four female songwriters active in the early 1900s. She was a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, where her output between 1907 through 1928 focused mainly on Broadway scores.<ref name="Caldwell bio, Songwriters HOF" />

In 1929, lured by producer William LeBaron, she went to Hollywood where she became a script doctor and wrote lyrics for RKO Pictures. It was announced that she was engaged by Max Hart to write songs with Harry Tierny. By October, she was signed to write the lyrics for the film Dixiana.<ref name="Billboard 1929 Oct 12" group=lower-roman />

From 1900 to the mid-1920s, she mostly collaborated with composer Jerome Kern.<ref name="Caldwell bio, Songwriters HOF" /> Her first collaboration with Kern was the musical, She’s a Good Fellow, followed by The Night Boat (1920), and Sally (1920). The Night Boat was one of Caldwell and Kern's more successful shows but is generally not considered revivable today. The plots and comedy of their shows don’t satisfy contemporary audiences.<ref name="NYPL blog, Reside 2014 Jul 25" /> Her final credited work was a radio adaptation of the 1933 film (on which she had also worked) Flying Down to Rio.<ref name="Variety 1936 Oct 28 p 63" group=lower-roman />

Until the careers of Caldwell, along with Rida Johnson Young and Dorothy Donnelly, writing American musical comedy was a male profession. They helped established the idea that a female writer could create works for the stage that were equally as satirical, witty, timely, and simply as comical as the work of any man.<ref name="NYPL blog, Reside 2014 Jul 25" />

Caldwell married William L. Vinal on August 2, 1885, in Manhattan, New York.<ref name="FamilySearch Caldwell-Vinal marriage 1885" /> They had a daughter, Marianna Sarah "Molly" Vinal (1886–1950). William Vinal was killed on March 4, 1897, in a gas explosion in Boston on the Tremont Street Subway at the Boylston station.<ref name="BrooklynEagle 1897 Mar 4" group=lower-roman /> She remarried lyricist James J. O'Dea<ref name="Variety 1914 Apr 17" group=lower-roman /><ref name="James J. O'Dea" group=lower-alpha /> on August 15, 1904, in Brooklyn.<ref name="Italian Genealogy Group: Anna Caldwell" />

Death

She died in Beverly Hills, California, following a short illness. Her son, Anthony Patrick O'Day, and daughter, Molly O'Day (née Marianna Sarah Vinal), were with her at the time of her death.<ref name="Variety 1936 Oct 28 p 63" group=lower-roman />

Legacy

After her death Variety said that she was "one of the most prolific librettists known to show business. A quiet, unassuming woman she developed a technique that rarely failed and was both book writer and lyricist."<ref name="Variety 1936 Oct 28 p 54" group=lower-roman /> She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.<ref name="Tyler 2007" />