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 "'Cabaret' is one of the happiest memories I have because [the final product] was mostly what I had in mind."
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    Fred Ebb (born 1932) is the lyricist half of the award-winning songwriting team of Kander and Ebb. Partners since the early 1960s, composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb have collaborated on some of the greatest musical creations ever to grace the American stage, including the classic crowd pleasers "Chicago" and "Cabaret."
Ebb's long and prolific career has encompassed writing lyrics for the stage, the silver screen, and television, in addition to directing and producing. He has amassed Tony awards on Broadway, Academy Awards for movie work, and Emmys for his work for television. His songs have helped launch careers and have been sung by legends like Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Robert Goulet, Gwen Verdon, and Chita Rivera. The classic Kander and Ebb sound was described by another collaborator and admirer, author David Thompson ("Steel Pier"). The music is "a little sassy and with mustard," wrote Thompson. The duo's signature songs include "Cabaret," "New York, New York," "Maybe This Time," "All That Jazz," and "How Lucky Can You Get." The music is lively and the lyrics are sophisticated, witty, and sometimes barbed. The theatrical works for which Kander and Ebb wrote scores tackle dark and controversial subjects not usually associated with musical theater. Their first hit, "Cabaret," dealt with anti-Semitism in Nazi-era Berlin; its female lead underwent an abortion. "Chicago" cynically suggested that a cold-blooded killer could get away with anything provided a convincing lawyer was on hand. "Kiss of the Spider Woman" set prison torture and homosexuality to music. "Kander and Ebb combine razzmatazz with a political conscience, and make brazen spirits seem a kind of moral courage," wrote David Richards in THE WASHINGTON POST. Despite the fame that has come with their nearly 50 successful years together, Kander and Ebb remain "the two nicest guys in show business," according to Thompson. No Early Hint of Musical Genius There is little in Ebb's background that would have portended a distinguished lifelong career in music. He was born into a poor family in a New York City tenement on April 8, 1932. He told David Thompson in a 1997 interview for television's GREAT PERFORMANCES that growing up, "There was no music in my house. Nobody played the radio. Nobody sang. I developed a love of music independently." He fell in love with theater after he saw Al Jolson perform on Broadway in a musical entitled "Hold Onto Your Hats." "I loved the fact that it was live -- that it was real, even though it was all illusion," Ebb told Thompson. Ebb told Barbara Rowes of PEOPLE magazine that as a young boy he was an optimist and a daydreamer. He liked to pretend he was a rich boy living in a grand home on Long Island or that he was movie star Cary Grant, signing autographs for fans. "The point is," he told Rowes, "I didn't want to be me." His mother, Anna Evelyn (Gritz), a woman with a more practical bent, tried to bring the boy down to earth. She "used to tell me I looked at the world through rose-colored eyes," Ebb recalled. When Ebb was fourteen years old, his father, Harry, died. After his death, it was discovered that the senior Ebb's best friend had been embezzling from the family's dry goods business for years. Ebb and his mother were left practically penniless. Photo credits: Fred Ebb (Photo courtesy of International Creative Management); Bob Fosse directing Liza Minnelli in the filming of CABARET (detail). (Fosse-Verdon Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress. Photograph by Lars Looschen) continue to page 2
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