Frederick Loewe

According to his foundation, at thirteen Frederick Loewe played as soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic, having studied at the Stern Conservatory with Ferruccio Busoni and Eugène d'Albert; his father was an operetta tenor, and the theatre was the family trade before it was his. He emigrated to the United States in 1924 and worked in a range of jobs, including as a bar pianist, before meeting the lyricist Alan Jay Lerner in 1942. Brigadoon in 1947 was their first real success and Paint Your Wagon followed in 1951, but My Fair Lady in 1956, made from Shaw's Pygmalion, includes I Could Have Danced All Night, On the Street Where You Live and I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face. The film Gigi came in 1958 and Camelot in 1960, after which he wrote very little. He died in 1988. In America he earned his living as a bar pianist, a mail carrier, a gold prospector and a cowboy, settling in New York in 1934 and writing music again; earlier, in Berlin, he had supplied numbers for his father's variety appearances. My Fair Lady ran for 2,717 performances on Broadway and ran in London as well and reached the screen in 1964 with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. The Oscar for Gigi, awarded for best song, came in 1959, and in 1975 his music for The Little Prince brought two further nominations.