Lane, Burton (originally, Levy, Burton)

Lane, Burton (originally, Levy, Burton), American composer; b. N.Y., Feb. 2, 1912; d. there, Jan. 5, 1997. Though his career writing music for stage and movie musicals lasted nearly 50 years, Lane was selective in the projects he accepted; he contributed songs to at least 56 feature films released between 1933 and 1982 (most of them during the 1930s), but was the primary composer on only 19. And he wrote the music for only six Broadway shows between 1931 and 1979. Nevertheless, the quality of his writing attracted such major lyric collaborators as Harold Adamson, E. Y. Harburg, Ralph Freed, Ted Koehler, Frank Loesser, and Alan Jay Lerner; it brought him Academy, Tony, and Grammy award nominations; and it resulted in such successful films as Babes on Broadway and the stage musical Finian’s Rainbow, as well as many song standards, notably “How About You?,” “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?,” and “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.”

Lane’s father, Lazarus Levy, was a successful realtor; his mother, Frances Fink Levy, played the piano. A child prodigy, he studied piano from the age of 11 and played viola and cello in his school orchestra, writing two marches that were published. While still in his early teens, he was hired by the Shubert organization to write songs for an Off-Broadway revue; it was canceled when the leading man became ill. At 15 he got a job with a music publishing company and dropped out of school. At the suggestion of his friend George Gershwin he studied with pianist and composer Simon Bucharoff from 1930 to 1933.

Lane’s work was first heard onstage when he and his first lyric partner, Samuel Lerner, placed two songs in the revue Artists and Models (N.Y., June 10, 1930). Howard Dietz accepted two more Lane-Lerner songs for the revue Three’s a Crowd (N.Y, Oct. 15, 1930), rewriting some of the lyrics with Ted Pola. Acquiring a new lyric partner, Harold Adamson, the following year, Lane placed a song in the revue The Third Little Show (N.Y, June 1, 1931) and wrote most of the music for the ninth edition of the revue Earl Carroll’s Vanities (N.Y, Aug. 27, 1931), which ran 300 performances, as well as a song used in the play Singin’ the Blues (N.Y, Sept. 16, 1931).

Lane worked for the first time with E. Y Harburg on a song for the revue Americana (N.Y, Oct. 5, 1932). In April 1933 he and Adamson enjoyed their first hit, “Tony’s Wife,” recorded by Gertrude Niesen. The song was interpolated into the MGM film Turn Back the Clock, released in August, and Lane and Adamson went to Hollywood for six weeks under the auspices of Irving Berlin’s music company to write songs for the MGM movie musical Dancing Lady, Lane stayed for 21 years. Fred Astaire, in his motion picture debut, sang “Everything I Have Is Yours,” one of four Lane-Adamson songs in Dancing Lady, released in December, and in January 1934 Rudy Vallée had a hit with it.

Freelancing, Lane and Adamson contributed songs to seven films released by four different studios during 1934. In June they scored a hit with “Swing It, Sister,” recorded by The Mills Brothers and featured in the RKO release Strictly Dynamite in July. They had songs in another five films in 1935 but had split up by the end of the year. Lane married Marian Seaman on June 28, 1935; they had a daughter. Lane briefly teamed up with Herb Magidson in 1936; he then signed to Paramount where he was teamed with Ralph Freed. Their first work together was used in College Holiday, released in December.

Usually working with Freed, Lane contributed to ten Paramount features released in 1937, in most cases only one song. The notable exception was Artists and Models, released in August, for which he got screen credit and on which he collaborated with Ted Koehler. “Stop! You’re Breaking My Heart” from the score was recorded by Russ Morgan and His Orch. and reached the hit parade. Lane had songs in four Paramount films in 1938, and on three of them his lyric partner was Frank Loesser. Two of those efforts brought him hits: “How’d Ja Like to Love Me?” from College Swing was recorded by Jimmy Dorsey and His Orch. for a hit parade entry in March, and the Red Norvo Orch., with Mildred Bailey on vocals, topped the hit parade in June with “Says My Heart.” Lane and Loesser also combined for three of the five films for which Lane wrote songs in 1939. “The Lady’s in Love with You,” released in May and featured in Some Like It Hot, was recorded by Glenn Miller and His Orch. and spent nine weeks in the hit parade.

Lane teamed up with E. Y. Harburg in 1940 to write the music for his first book musical, Hold On to Your Hats. The show marked Al Jolson’s return to the Broadway stage, and it ran 158 performances, closing only because the star decided not to continue. Lane returned to Hollywood, where he signed to MGM and worked with Ralph Freed and E. Y. Harburg on the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney movie musical Babes on Broadway. Released in December 1941, the film included “How About You?” (lyrics by Freed), which became a chart record for Tommy Dorsey and His Orch., with Frank Sinatra on vocals, and earned an Academy Award nomination. His next assignment, Ship Ahoy, released in June 1942, featured Dorsey and Sinatra, who reached the charts with two of the three songs included, “The Last Call for Love” (music and lyrics by Harburg, Margery Cummings, and Lane), which featured The Pied Pipers, and “I’ll Take Tallulah” (lyrics by Harburg).

Lane worked steadily in Hollywood during the war years, contributing to another three films in 1942, three in 1943, and three in 1944. At the end of 1944 he returned to Broadway, writing both music and lyrics to the songs in the comic revue Laffing Room Only, which ran 232 performances. “Feudin’ and Fightin” (lyrics by Lane and Loesser) from the score took nearly three years to become a Top Ten hit and then did so in recordings by Dorothy Shay, Jo Stafford, and Bing Crosby. Lane returned to Hollywood in 1945 but had only a couple of song credits in films during the year. In 1946 he and Harburg began work on a new book musical for Broadway. Finian’s Rainbow, which opened in early 1947, effectively mixed fantasy with social consciousness, becoming Lane’s only financial success on Broadway with a run of 725 performances. The score featured the ballad“How Are Things in Glocca Morra?,” which was given Top Ten recordings by Buddy Clark, Martha Tilton, Tommy Dorsey, and Dick Haymes, and“Old Devil Moon,” which Margaret Whiting recorded for a chart entry.

Lane again returned to Hollywood, still under contract to MGM, but he was less active. He contributed a song to the December 1947 feature This Time for Keeps and in 1950 worked on an unproduced film version of Huckleberry Finn with Harburg. But his next project to be completed was the Fred Astaire film Royal Wedding, released in March 1951, on which he collaborated with Alan Jay Lerner. A box office hit, the film produced a Top Ten soundtrack album, and the song“Too Late Now” earned an Academy Award nomination.

Admittedly selective, Lane rejected most projects and sometimes dropped out of those he accepted. Thus in 1951 he abandoned the stage musical Flahooley after writing several songs with Harburg (it was completed with Sammy Fain and flopped), and there was another unsuccessful attempt at a Huckleberry Finn movie, this time with Lerner. In 1952 he worked with Leo Robin on a movie musical version of Papa’s Delicate Condition, but it too went unproduced. An animated version of Finian’s Rainbow in 1954 got only as far as the recording of the voices.

Lane completed two film projects that were produced, however: on Give a Girl a Break, released in December 1953, he collaborated with Ira Gershwin, and on Jupiter’s Darling, released in February 1955, he was reunited with Harold Adamson. By the time the latter was released Lane had moved back to N.Y., where a revival of Finian’s Rainbow (N.Y., May 18, 1955) was mounted.

In 1957, Lane was elected president of the American Guild of Authors and Composers, a post he held for ten years. He also collaborated with Dorothy Fields on songs for a television musical, Junior Miss, broadcast on CBS. This was his last new work for some time. A second revival of Finian’s Rainbow (N.Y., April 27, 1960) was well received, resulting in a cast album. Lane divorced, and shortly after, on March 5, 1961, he married Lynn Baroff Kaye.

In the early 1960s, Alan Jay Lerner and Richard Rodgers collaborated on a stage musical concerning ESP. They split up, however, and Lerner turned to Lane instead, resulting in the October 1965 opening of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. The show ran 273 performances, the Grammy-winning cast album spent seven months on the charts, and the title song became a Top Ten hit on the easy- listening charts for Johnny Mathis.

Lane’s two book musicals were made into films over the next few years. Finian’s Rainbow, starring Fred Astaire and Petulia Clark, was released in October 1968. It was not a financial success, but the soundtrack album was in the charts for six months. The same was true of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, starring Barbra Streisand, which was released in June 1970. Lane was elected director of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1973. In 1979 he reunited with Alan Jay Lerner for the musical Carmelina, which was unsuccessful. In 1982 he teamed with Sammy Cahn for the songs in the children’s movie musical Heidi’s Song. He joined the ASCAP board of directors in 1985, serving until 1996. In 1990 and 1992 he accompanied Michael Feinstein on two Songbook albums devoted to his songs. He died of a stroke in 1997 at age 84.

Works

(only works for which Lane was a primary, credited composer are listed): musicals/revues(dates refer to N.Y. openings): Earl Carroll’s Vanities of 1931 (Aug. 27, 1931); Hold on to Your Hats (Sept. 11, 1940); Laffing Room Only (Dec. 23, 1944); Finian’s Rainbow (Jan. 10, 1947); On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Oct. 17, 1965); Carmelina (April 8, 1979). films:Dancing Lady (1933); Bottoms Up (1934); A Wicked Woman (1934); Here Comes the Band (1935); Artists and Models (1937); Spawn of the North (1938); Si. Louis Blues (1939); She Married a Cop (1939); Dancing on a Dime (1940); Las Vegas Nights (1941); Babes on Broadway (1941); Ship Ahoy (1942); Rainbow Island (1944); Royal Wedding (1951); Give a Girl a Break (1953); Jupiter’s Darling (1955); Finian’s Rainbow (1968); On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970); Heidi’s Song (1982). television:Junior Miss (Dec. 20, 1957).

—William Ruhlmann