Person Details

Birthday:

Aliases: Sammy Kahn , Sammy & Tita

Gender: Male

Place of birth: Lower East Side, New York City, New York, USA

Homepage:

Movie Involvements: 72

TV Involvements: 4


Most Famous Work

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sammy Cahn (June 18, 1913 – January 15, 1993) was an American lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area. He and his collaborators had a series of hit recordings with Frank Sinatra during the singer's tenure at Capitol Records, but also enjoyed hits with Dean Martin, Doris Day and many others. He played the piano and violin. He won the Academy Award four times for his songs, including the popular song "Three Coins in the Fountain". Among his most enduring songs is "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!", cowritten with Jule Styne in 1945. Cahn was born Samuel Cohen in the Lower East Side of New York City, the only son (he had four sisters) of Abraham and Elka Reiss Cohen, who were Jewish immigrants from Galicia, then ruled by Austria-Hungary. His sisters, Sadye, Pearl, Florence, and Evelyn, all studied the piano. His mother did not approve of Sammy studying it though, feeling that the piano was a woman's instrument, so he took violin lessons. After three lessons, he joined a small dixieland band called Pals of Harmony, which toured the Catskill Mountains in the summer and also played at private parties. This new dream of Cahn's destroyed any hopes his parents had for him to be a professional man. Some of the side jobs he had were playing violin in a theater-pit orchestra, working at a meat-packing plant, serving as a movie-house usher, tinsmith, freight-elevator operator, restaurant cashier, and porter at a bindery. At age 16, he was watching vaudeville, of which he had been a fan since the age of 10, and he witnessed Jack Osterman singing a ballad Osterman had written. Cahn was inspired and, on his way home from the theater, wrote his first lyric, which was titled "Like Niagara Falls, I'm Falling for You – Baby." Years later he would say "I think a sense of vaudeville is very strong in anything I do, anything I write. They even call it 'a vaudeville finish,' and it comes through in many of my songs. Just sing the end of 'All the Way' or 'Three Coins in the Fountain'—'Make it mine, make it mine, MAKE IT MINE!' If you let people know they should applaud, they will applaud." Cahn became a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. He later became president. Cahn died on January 15, 1993, at the age of 79 in Los Angeles, California from heart failure. His remains were interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. He was married twice: first to vocalist and former Goldwyn girl Gloria Delson in 1945, with whom he had two children, and later, in 1970, to Virginia Curtis. Over the course of his career, he was nominated for 31 Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and an Emmy Award. He also received a Grammy Award nomination, with Van Heusen. He won the Christopher Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Theatre World Award. In 1988, the Sammy Film Music Awards (the "Sammy"), an annual award for movie songs and scores, was started in his honor.

Most Famous Work

Two's Company
Average
7

Two's Company

(1975) Main Title Theme Composer
Peter Pan
Average
7

Peter Pan

(1953) Lyricist
Madeline
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6

Madeline

(1988) Songs
How the West Was Won
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7

How the West Was Won

(1962) Lyricist
The Court Jester
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7

The Court Jester

(1955) Songs
Ocean's Eleven
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6

Ocean's Eleven

(1960) Songs
The Seven Year Itch
Average
7

The Seven Year Itch

(1955) Lyricist
Robin and the 7 Hoods
Average
6

Robin and the 7 Hoods

(1964) Songs

Acting

Sound

Writing

Year Role Movie/Tv
1977 Lyricist
1970 Lyricist
1967 Lyricist
Lyricist
1962 Lyricist
1960 Lyricist
Lyricist
1958 Lyricist
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1956 Lyricist
Lyricist
1955 Lyricist
Lyricist
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1953 Lyricist
1951 Lyricist
Lyricist
1950 Lyricist
1949 Lyricist
1948 Lyricist
Lyricist
Lyricist
1947 Lyricist
Lyricist
1946 Lyricist
Lyricist
Lyricist
Lyricist
1945 Lyricist
Lyricist
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Lyricist
Lyricist
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1944 Lyricist
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Lyricist
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1943 Lyricist
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1942 Lyricist
Lyricist
1941 Lyricist
Lyricist
Story
Lyricist
1940 Lyricist
1938 Lyricist
1937 Lyricist
Year Role Movie/Tv

Production

Year Role Movie/Tv
1953 Producer
Year Role Movie/Tv

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