Wonderful, Wonderful Frank Loesser

I see I just missed Frank Loesser's birthday. Loesser was a rarity on Broadway--someone at the top of his craft who wrote both words and music. You got Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim and only a few others.

He started as a lyricist, writing many hit numbers for Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley. He spread out and showed a powerfully melodic and surprisingly sophisticated musical sense. He could be beautifully lyrical or outrageously funny, whatever the number called for. He's best known today for his hit musicals Where's Charley?, Guys And Dolls (maybe the best musical of all), The Most Happy Fella and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, and there's hardly a weak song in those scores.

He was a Broadway tough guy. He once slapped lead Isabel Bigley during rehearsals of Guys And Dolls when she didn't sing a song the way he wanted. (At least he felt bad about it afterward.) But he was just as obviously full of soul. He once told bookwriter Abe Burrows that he knew he could make the audience laugh--he wanted to know if he could make them cry.

It's hard to pick only a few numbers to exemplify his variety. But here are three songs--"Two Sleepy People," "Baby, It's Cold Outside," and "Inch Worm"--none from his Broadway work--that give an inkling as to what he could do.



This was one of Loesser's earliest hits. He only wrote the words--Hoagy Carmichael did the music.



Despite the video, this is performed by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer. Loesser himself used to do this specialty number at parties. It was given to Red Skelton and Esther Williams in Neptune's Daughter, and Loesser won an Oscar.



One of the great tunes written for the Danny Kaye movie Hans Christian Andersen. It's become a classic children's song.