Gershwin in Hollywood

Abstract

George Gershwin encountered Hollywood in the early years of the talkies, as sound technology advanced quickly, public opinion about the role of music in film fluctuated rapidly, and studios experimented with how best to employ composers and songwriters. Entering the world of movie musicals by way of a successful Broadway career was in turns exciting and uncomfortable. Gershwin enjoyed living in Los Angeles but chafed against the reduced artistic control he was afforded. First visiting Los Angeles for fourteen weeks in 1930 to write the score for Fox’s Delicious (1931), and then returning in the last year of his life to compose RKO’s Shall We Dance (1937) and Damsel in Distress (1937), in addition to Samuel Goldwyn’s The Goldwyn Follies (1938), Gershwin’s interaction with Los Angeles and the people who lived and worked there brings into focus both the vitality of a city invigorated by a growing film industry and the tragedy of a promising life cut short.

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