Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin was born in New York City in 1896. In 1918, he tentatively began a collaboration with his brother George, and The Real American Folk Song (Is a Rag) was heard in Nora Bayes’ Ladies First.

Not wanting to trade on the success of his already famous brother, Ira adopted the nom de plume of Arthur Francis, under which he supplied lyrics for his first Broadway show, Two Little Girls in Blue (1921), with music by Vincent Youmans.

In 1924, Ira dropped the pseudonym and began his successful and lifelong collaboration with George in earnest. The Gershwins created their first joint hit, Lady, Be Good!, and followed it with more than twenty scores for stage and screen, including Oh, Kay! (1926), two versions of Strike up the Band (1927 and 1930), Girl Crazy (1930); Shall We Dance (1937); and the triumphant folk-opera, Porgy and Bess (1935), written with DuBose Heyward. Before and after George’s death in 1937, Ira collaborated with such composers as Harold Arlen (A Star Is Born, 1954), Vernon Duke (Ziegfeld Follies, 1936), Kurt Weill (Lady In The Dark, 1941), Jerome Kern (Cover Girl, 1944), Harry Warren (The Barkleys Of Broadway, 1949), Arthur Schwartz (Park Avenue, 1946), and Burton Lane (Give a Girl a Break, 1953).

For his film achievements, Ira Gershwin received three Academy Award nominations. In 1966, he received a Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland, confirming the judgment of so many of his literary admirers that his work was not only of the first rank, but that the Gershwin standards set new standards for American musical theatre.

In the years after George’s death, Ira attended to the Gershwin legacy of songs, show and film scores, and concert works. In 1985, the United States Congress recognised the Gershwin legacy by awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to George and Ira. Ira Gershwin died in 1983 in Beverly Hills.