Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,421

This is the grave of Billy Rose.

Born in New York in 1899, William Rosenberg grew up in the Jewish immigrant world of that city. He had an interesting start out of the neighborhood–he was a savant at stenography. Seriously. He won awards from it in high school and when the U.S. entered World War I, Bernard Baruch hired the kid as a stenographer for the War Industries Board that the financier ran. Rosenberg rose quickly at the WIB and soon headed the clerical staff.

But stenography was not Rosenberg’s life dream. He was very into the popular music of the day and wanted to be a songwriter. Working as Billy Rose, he would soon be among the very biggest. In short, he became one of the key cultural figures of the 1920s, writing the soundtrack for the flapper generation with their swanky parties and bathtub gin. Rose wasn’t exactly a savant here. He wasn’t, I dunno, Bob Dylan. He was more like a modern country songwriter, who worked with teams of collaborators to get it right. There are few songs that Rose wrote single-handledly. But the many songs on which he collaborated provided the background music for that era.

Rose’s first really big hit was in 1925, with “Don’t Bring Lulu,” which was about a flapper and which was a comic novelty song sung in the tune of “London Bridge is Falling Down.” Sounds exceptionally forgettable to me, but then that’s the entire history of novelty songs. Billy Murray had a big hit with it and much later The Andrews Sisters and Danny Kaye recorded it. “Tonight You Belong To Me” from 1926, was cut by Irving Kaufman and then Gene Austin had a huge hit with it in 1927. Among other versions of the song are by Lawrence Welk in 1956 and Dottie West in 1977. It’s perhaps most known today for the version that Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters did in The Jerk. Rose wrote “Me and My Shadow” in 1927 with Al Jolson, who oddly never recorded it. Ted Lewis had the real big hit with this one, but it was covered over the years by people from Perry Como to Ferlin Husky. “More Than You Know” from 1929 was for a Broadway music Great Day. Ella Fitzgerald, Dr. John, Cher, Count Basie, Billy Eckstein, and Cybill Shepherd are among the people who have covered it over the years. “Without a Song” was another huge hit that much much later Willie Nelson did. “It Happened in Monterey” was for the 1930 musical King of Jazz. This was part of the Mexican exoticism that was popular at the time. This song was big through the 30s and Sinatra brought it back in the 50s. “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” from 1933, had Paul Whiteman on vocals and it later became a big hit for Nat King Cole.

Rose became very wealthy through his songs and so he moved into production and theater ownership, building the Billy Rose Music Hall on 52nd and Broadway and hiring Benny Goodman as the house band. He was very much into the spectacle, popular in this era, with the Big Show around the Big Star. So when Fort Worth had its centennial celebrations in 1936 and 1937, the planners hired Rose to design the Casa Mañana Theater (what a horrible name) as an outdoor dinner theater and then he hired Sally Rand, the burlesque artist and master of the fan dance, to be the entertainment. It was a huge hit.

Rose married the comedian Fanny Brice in 1929. That lasted until 1938, but neither of them were exactly stable marrying types at this time. By the end, he was seeing the swimmer and socialite Eleanor Holm and she divorced his ass finally. He married Holm shortly after while she starred in Billy Rose’s Aquacade at the 1939 New York’s World Fair, along with Johnny Weissmuller, among others. Rose would be married five times over the years, twice to the same woman.

Rose had interesting politics as well. He cast Carmen Jones on Broadway in 1943 with an all-Black cast and it was a gigantic hit. He also became a huge supporter of Israel after its creation, visiting many times, becoming friends with David Ben-Gurion, and donating his huge sculpture garden to a Jerusalem museum upon his death, where you can visit it today.

Rose was just one of those guys who remained popular for the whole rest of his life, even as musical tastes changed. He had a best selling memoir in 1946 that his buddy Salvador Dali illustrated. He took over the Ziegfeld Theater in 1949 and ran it for the next several years. In 1959, he opened the Billy Rose Theater

Rose also really fucking hated rock and roll. Like, he hated it. He thought it was trash and Satanic trash at that. Some of it was that these assholes wrote their own songs and that meant songwriters like Rose were out of luck. As Rose was a board members of ASCAP, these long hairs were costing him money! He stated of rock songs “in many cases they are obscene junk much on the level with dirty comic magazines.” Sure thing old man.

Really it’s too bad that Rose died in 1966 of pneumonia at his Montego Bay home, at the age of 66. Because imagine if he had to listen to the rock and roll of the post-66 period.

Billy Rose is buried in Westchester Hill Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

In 1970, Rose was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, part of that HOF’s inaugural class. If you would like this series to visit other songwriters inducted that year, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Mack Gordon, who was a hugely important songwriter for Hollywood in the 30s and 40s, is in East Los Angeles, California. Carrie Jacobs Bond, who was the first female music publisher, is in Glendale, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.