Memories
of My Father By
Margaret Whiting (for
an introduction to a songbook of her father’s
compositions)
The
greatest memory I have of my father, Richard,
is sitting by his side at the piano listening
to his latest song. When I would come home
from school, I’d go into his studio and
would hear whatever song he was writing
or the latest Rodgers & Hart, or Jerome
Kern, or George Gershwin songs. Those composers
were some of his dearest friends, and he
kept up with everything they wrote. He would
bring home advance copies from his publisher
or the studio. At that time, even though
I was very young, I guess I was one of the
first to hear “My Funny Valentine,” “Too
Marvelous For Words,” or “On The Good Ship
Lollipop.” Speaking of that, he often said
I was the inspiration for that song. One
day I went into the studio after school
with a big lollipop in my hand. I leaned
over to give him a kiss, and he looked up
and said, “Margaret, get away with that
sticky lollipop. You’re going to get it
all over the piano and me.” He’d been working
on a song for Shirley Temple, who was one
of the biggest stars the movies ever had.
Suddenly, he looked at me and said, “That’s
it, that’s it! That’s just what I need for
Shirley!” He called the lyric writer, Sidney
Clare, on the phone and said, “My kid, Margaret,
just came in with a lollipop and got that
sticky stuff all over me and the piano.
But it gave me a good idea for Shirley.
What about ‘On The Good Ship Lollipop?’”
I think of that every time I hear the song
or see someone with a lollipop.
My father worked for the Jerome Remick
Music Company in Detroit, Michigan. This
company later became part of what is now
the Warner-Chappell Music Company. My father
was signed to Remick’s as a young composer
and ran the office from 1912-1924. There
was a young man working as a bank teller
where Remick did his banking whose name
was Raymond Egan. He wanted to be a lyric
writer, so Mr. Remick got my father and
Egan together. Their first song was a bit
of a masterpiece called “The Japanese Sandman,”
which sold millions of copies of sheet music.
The was war on, and the Michigan Theatre
was having a war song contest. Mr. Remick
was going to publish the winning song. One
day while cleaning out my father’s office,
Remick’s secretary, who played the piano
(and if they ever do a movie of this, she
could be played by Doris Day) started emptying
my father’s wastepaper basket and discovered
a manuscript my father had thrown away.
She played it over on the piano, and then
took it to Mr. Remick the next day. She
thought it should be entered in the war
song contest. Mr. Remick asked my father
about the song. My father said, “It’s not
very good. Ray and I threw it away.” Mr.
Remick asked the title and my father said,
“’Auf Wiedersehen,’ but it means ‘Till We
Meet Again.’” Remick said “No ‘Auf Wiedersehen’
with the war on. It’ll be ‘Till We Meet
Again,’” and he entered it into the war
song contest. It won, and became one of
the all-time biggest sheet music sellers
ever.
My father and Leo Robin were the first
song-writing team to go out to Hollywood
in 1929. They were signed by Paramount Pictures,
and wrote many big hits while they were
there. The studio had just signed a brilliant
international entertainer from Paris, Maurice
Chevalier, to star in their pictures. He
was a charming, very intelligent man, who
knew that he would have trouble with certain
lyrics because of the language barrier.
So Chevalier requested them to write simple
words for him to sing. In one picture, he
needed a simple song to sing about someone
he was dreaming of. That’s how “My Ideal”
came about -- a very honest melody with
simple lyrics that he could pronounce. He
did it beautifully on the screen, and my
favorite singer later recorded it -- Frank
Sinatra. I will always be thrilled that
Johnny Mercer picked that song for me to
do as my first record on the Capitol Label.
It’s kind of become my theme song. Another
song they wrote for Chevalier was “One Hour
With You.” It was his song until Eddie Cantor
decided to make it HIS theme song, and he
would sing every week on his broadcast “And
I’d love to spend this evening with you.”
Another great star at Paramount was Jeanette
MacDonald, who was Chevalier’s leading woman
in many pictures. Ernest Lubitsch was to
star her in a picture called “Monte Carlo.”
In the movies, she was a princess from some
mythical kingdom, and her father decreed
that she was to marry a man of his choosing
that the princess didn’t care for. So she
decided to run away. One of the most fascinating
sequences ever filmed for motion pictures
was the scene in which she ran down the
palace stairs in nothing but a teddy and
a mink coat. She gets on a railroad train,
goes into a compartment, takes off her mink
coat, and looks out the window as the train
departs. With tears in her eyes, she looks
at the workers in the field. She waves to
them, they wave to her, she waves back again,
they wave back again, she waves back and
starts to sing “Beyond the Blue Horizon.”
My father was asked to write music that
sounded like a train for the verse, which
he managed to do, and all in all not only
was it a great scene for the picture, but
it became a classic song. The biggest kick
I get is hearing a lot of contemporary singers
do their version of “Horizon,” sometimes
way out, but very interesting.
“You’re An Old Smoothie” and “Eadie Was
a Lady” were two songs from a Broadway show
called “Take A Chance,” written for the
fabulous Ethel Merman. My father told me
there was never a voice like that lady’s.
She had a voice like a clarion bugle. We
became friendly many years later, and all
I can say is, that’s one singer with perfect
diction. You could hear every word she sang.
The biggest influence in my life, besides
my father, was Johnny Mercer. He came out
from New York to write with my father for
the Warner Brothers studio. There was a
picture for which they had to write a song
that Ross Alexander, the star of the picture,
was to sing to his secretary, describing
the girl he loved (Ruby Keeler). The letter
was to be opened by Ruby Keeler and read
aloud to several of her girlfriends. The
Busby Berkeley dancers were to become
part of the typewriter and type out the
lyrics of the third chorus. This became
a memorable scene in the picture, “Ready,
Willing and Able” and, of course, the song
was “Too Marvelous For Words.”
A little later on, the boys were asked
to write a score for a picture called “Hollywood
Hotel.” The producer asked them to write
a song for the Benny Goodman Band, Morey
Amsterdam, Mabel Todd and others to sing
to Dick Powell at the Kansas City Airport
while he was getting on a plane to go to
Hollywood. He had just been signed to star
on the “Hollywood Hotel” radio show with
other luminaries such as Francis Langford,
Kenny Baker, Louella Parsons and Raymond
Paige and His Orchestra. I think this was
the hardest assignment either Johnny or
my father ever had, and they labored over
it for six weeks. They really didn’t care
for the song, and Johnny always called it
“the little piece of material.” Well, it
became “Hooray for Hollywood,” which was
not only a smash hit in the picture, but
is now the theme of dear old Tinseltown,
and is probably the biggest copyright either
my father or Johnny ever had.
My father thought I was going to become
a singer, and gave me some great advice.
“Sing the songs the way we wrote them. We
worked a long time on them.” And he was
right.
For a list of Richard Armstrong Whiting’s
songs, please visit the Songwriters
Hall of Fame. Richard was inducted in
1970.
The
greatest memory I have of my father, Richard,
is sitting by his side at the piano listening
to his latest song. When I would come home
from school, I’d go into his studio and
would hear whatever song he was writing
or the latest Rodgers & Hart, or Jerome
Kern, or George Gershwin songs. Those composers
were some of his dearest friends, and he
kept up with everything they wrote. He would
bring home advance copies from his publisher
or the studio. At that time, even though
I was very young, I guess I was one of the
first to hear “My Funny Valentine,” “Too
Marvelous For Words,” or “On The Good Ship
Lollipop.” Speaking of that, he often said
I was the inspiration for that song. One
day I went into the studio after school
with a big lollipop in my hand. I leaned
over to give him a kiss, and he looked up
and said, “Margaret, get away with that
sticky lollipop. You’re going to get it
all over the piano and me.” He’d been working
on a song for Shirley Temple, who was one
of the biggest stars the movies ever had.
Suddenly, he looked at me and said, “That’s
it, that’s it! That’s just what I need for
Shirley!” He called the lyric writer, Sidney
Clare, on the phone and said, “My kid, Margaret,
just came in with a lollipop and got that
sticky stuff all over me and the piano.
But it gave me a good idea for Shirley.
What about ‘On The Good Ship Lollipop?’”
I think of that every time I hear the song
or see someone with a lollipop.
My father worked for the Jerome Remick
Music Company in Detroit, Michigan. This
company later became part of what is now
the Warner-Chappell Music Company. My father
was signed to Remick’s as a young composer
and ran the office from 1912-1924. There
was a young man working as a bank teller
where Remick did his banking whose name
was Raymond Egan. He wanted to be a lyric
writer, so Mr. Remick got my father and
Egan together. Their first song was a bit
of a masterpiece called “The Japanese Sandman,”
which sold millions of copies of sheet music.
The was war on, and the Michigan Theatre
was having a war song contest. Mr. Remick
was going to publish the winning song. One
day while cleaning out my father’s office,
Remick’s secretary, who played the piano
(and if they ever do a movie of this, she
could be played by Doris Day) started emptying
my father’s wastepaper basket and discovered
a manuscript my father had thrown away.
She played it over on the piano, and then
took it to Mr. Remick the next day. She
thought it should be entered in the war
song contest. Mr. Remick asked my father
about the song. My father said, “It’s not
very good. Ray and I threw it away.” Mr.
Remick asked the title and my father said,
“’Auf Wiedersehen,’ but it means ‘Till We
Meet Again.’” Remick said “No ‘Auf Wiedersehen’
with the war on. It’ll be ‘Till We Meet
Again,’” and he entered it into the war
song contest. It won, and became one of
the all-time biggest sheet music sellers
ever.
