Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern was born in 1885 in New York City and grew up in Midtown Manhattan where he attended public schools. He studied music at the New York College of Music and then in Heidelberg, Germany. He started his career as a rehearsal pianist, but soon became a prominent and renowned composer. By 1915, he was represented in many Broadway shows.

The year 1925 was a turning point in Kern's career when he met Oscar Hammerstein II, which sparked a friendship and collaboration that lasted his entire life. Their first show (written together with Otto Harbach) was Sunny. Together, they produced next the famous Show Boat in 1927, which includes the well-known songs "Ol' Man River" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man." The musical Roberta (1933) gave us "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."

In 1935, Jerome Kern moved to Hollywood and started working on music for films but continued working on Broadway productions, too. His last Broadway show was the unsuccessful Very Warm For May in 1939; the score included another Kern–Hammerstein classic, "All The Things You Are." Kern is credited and widely respected for bridging the stylistic gap between the European operetta tradition and the American musical, using musical song to advance plot and character. He died at the age of 60 in New York.