Biography
Harold Arlen was born Hyman Arluck on 15 February 1905 in Buffalo, New York, the son of a cantor, and performed early on as a pianist and singer with his own bands. In New York he worked as a vaudeville accompanist and adopted the name Harold Arlen; in 1929 he had his first hit with Get Happy, to lyrics by Ted Koehler, and in the 1930s he and Koehler wrote shows for Harlem's Cotton Club, including Stormy Weather. For MGM he and lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg wrote the songs for The Wizard of Oz (1939); Over the Rainbow won them the 1940 Academy Award for Best Original Song. In the 1940s he wrote standards with Johnny Mercer such as Blues in the Night, That Old Black Magic and Come Rain or Come Shine, and later The Man That Got Away for A Star Is Born (1954). On Broadway he composed the scores for musicals including Bloomer Girl (1944), St. Louis Woman (1946), House of Flowers (1954, with Truman Capote) and Jamaica (1957). Arlen was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1979 and died in New York on 23 April 1986.
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