"They say George Gershwin is dead, but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to."
John O'Hara wrote that. Wrote that about the composer called by some the greatest writer of songs since Schubert. There is a story, probably apocryphal, about the young Duke Ellington sitting at a piano in a New York club playing "Prelude to a Kiss." When he came to the bridge, a man passing by said, "I wish I'd written that." Ellington said, "Who the hell was that?" And he was told "That was Geoge Gershwin."
Gershwin wrote so many songs, so many Broadway shows, so many film scores, so many piano and chamber pieces, so many orchestral works, plus two operas, that his output is beyond counting.
He was in Hollywood, working on the Astaire-Rogers film "Shall We Dance," when he said to his brother, "Ira, I have the most terrible headache." His last two songs were "Love Walked In" and "Our Love is Here to Stay." He died July 11, 1937. He was thirty-eight years old.
George Gershwin said, "Life is a lot like jazz--it's best when you improvise."
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Another story: Ethel Merman, the singer composers loved, because, Cole Porter said, "You could hear every word of the lyrics in the top row of the balcony," made her Broadway debut in 1930, belting out "I Got Rhythm" in "Girl Crazy." She was twenty-four years old. At rehearsal, Gershwin, sitting in the darkened theatre, called out, "Ethel--do you know what you're doing?" She thought a moment, and said, "No." "Good," said Gershwin. "Don't ever find out."
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