He used his Russian name when he penned his classical works and his American pseudonym for his popular songs.
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From CABIN IN THE SKY, Ethel Waters performs "Taking a Chance on Love."
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Duke, Vernon (originally, Dukelsky, Vladimir), Russian-born American classical and popular composer; b. Parfianovka, Oct. 10, 1903; d. Santa Monica, Calif., Jan. 16, 1969. Even more than his friend George Gershwin, Duke had one foot in classical music, having gained formal music training as a child and retaining his real name for his instrumental works until 1955. As theatrical composer Vernon Duke, however, he enjoyed his greatest success with such songs as "April in Paris," "I Can't Get Started," and "Taking a Chance on Love," as well as the musical "Cabin in the Sky."
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Duke scored his greatest success with a book musical with "Cabin in the Sky," starring Ethel Waters, in 1940.
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Duke's parents were Alexander and Anna Kopyloff Dukelsky; his father was a civil engineer. Duke began to study music at seven and wrote a ballet score at eight. Admitted to the Kiev Cons. of Music at 13, he studied composition with Reinhold Glière and piano with Marian Dombrovsky. In 1920 his family was forced to flee Russia in the wake of the revolution; they lived in Turkey for two years, then moved to Paris.
Duke visited the U.S. in 1921, where he met Gershwin, who encouraged him to write popular music and suggested his pseudonym. He returned to Paris where in 1924 he wrote a piano concerto that led Ballet Russe director Sergei Diaghilev to commission him to write music for the ballet "Zéphyr et Flore" (Paris, Jan. 31, 1925). His first work for the musical theater was to write interpolations for an Austrian musical, "Katja, the Dancer," which opened in London in 1925 and in N.Y. the following year. "Yvonne" (1926), for which he wrote half the score, was another Austrian import to the U.K.; it ran 280 performances. He wrote his first complete score for "The Yellow Mask" (1928), which ran 218 performances.
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