Mack Gordon

Mack Gordon ( born June 21, 1904 in Warsaw, † March 1, 1959 in New York City, New York, USA; born Morris Gittler ) was an American composer and songwriter.

Life and work

Mack Gordon's family emigrated from Poland to the United States, as Gordon was a child. At the beginning of his career in the late 1920s, he joined - like many of his colleagues - in vaudeville shows as an actor and singer on; in the early 1930s, he also began to write lyrics for the shows. He worked at this time with a native of England pianist Harry Revel.

His first big success was "Time on My Hands " for the show Smiles ( 1930), who was to become a frequently played jazz standard. With Revel in 1933 he went to Hollywood to work in the burgeoning film industry for Musical movies. Her first success in Hollywood was " Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? ". By 1936, Gordon worked for Paramount Studios, after which he wrote for 20th Century Fox, mostly for Shirley Temple movies. 1939 ended the collaboration between Gordon and Revel; the copywriter has now found a new partner in Harry Warren. They worked for a number of films, " Sun Valley Serenade" (1941 ) and " Orchestra Wives" (1942 ), where the Glenn Miller Orchestra played along. It also presented the song Chattanooga Choo Choo (1941 ), At Last (1941 ) and I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo (1942 ). His last contribution to a film in 1956 for Bundle of Joy ( with Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds ), where he worked with Josef Myrow.

The Internet Movie Database lists over 100 films for which Mack Gordon lyrics found employment, he wrote for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Etta James, Glen Miller, Barbra Streisand, Christina Aguilera, Mel Tormé, Nat King Cole and many others. Particularly with Sinatra and the Rat Pack, he maintained a long friendship. At the end of his life, Gordon was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame because he was probably one of the most successful songwriter for the cinema.

Gordon was nominated nine times for the Oscar in the category of best song. He eventually won it once, for the song "You'll Never Know" (1943, with Harry Warren ).