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    Each of Gershwin's serious works reveals an advance in technical skill, an increasing self-assurance, and greater artistic maturity. From a structural viewpoint the "Second Rhapsody" shows notable progress over the "Rhapsody in Blue" in organic unity, compactness of form, adroitness of thematic growth; if the "Rhapsody in Blue" remains the more popular work, it is because the basic material is more inspired. The "Cuban Overture" represents a remarkable step forward in the use of contrapuntal means, just as the "Variations on I Got Rhythm" reveals a new virtuosity in thematic variation. And from every possible consideration -- orchestration, idiomatic writing, complexity of means, variety of materials, artistic sureness, deep humanity, and profound insight -- "Porgy and Bess" dwarfs everything that preceded it. After the "Rhapsody in Blue" all his serious works were orchestrated by Gershwin himself. Meanwhile Gershwin had not abandoned popular music. From 1924 to the time of his death he wrote scores for Broadway stage productions and Hollywood motion pictures that abound with songs which have become classics. His best musical comedies were "Lady Be Good" (1924), "Tip Toes" (1925), "Oh, Kay!" (1926), "Funny Face" (1927), "Strike Up the Band" (1929), "Girl Crazy" (1930), and "Of Thee I Sing" (1931). The last, a gay political satire with a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind and lyrics by Gershwin's brother Ira, was the first musical comedy ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Gershwin's motion picture scores were "Delicious" (1931), "Damsel in Distress" and "Shall We Dance?" (1937), and "The Goldwyn Follies" (1938). The prolific creator of this stream of music was a man of extraordinary, irrepressible energy and enthusiasm. Of medium height and athletic build, he had a sensitive and highly expressive face and dark, intense eyes. Gershwin's smile, one writer remarked, had "a particular, unobtrusive charm"; it was "almost cryptic ... not an affirmation, but a question." Though he was always attractive to beautiful women, and they to him, he never married. He enjoyed games and sports of all kinds and played them with all the intensity of his nature. Toward the end of his life he became fascinated by art. An avid collector of modern masterpieces -- his collection was valued at $200,000 -- he also himself took up painting. His work was exhibited at the Marie Harriman Gallery in New York City after his death. Gershwin's brilliant career ended abruptly at the age of thirty-eight. He died in Beverly Hills, Calif., following an unsuccessful operation that disclosed that he was a victim of a cystic degeneration of a tumor on the brain. He died without learning that he had just been given the highest honor that Italy could bestow on a foreign composer: an honorary membership in St. Cecilia Academy in Rome. Funeral services were held simultaneously at Temple Emanu-El in New York City and at B'nai Brith Temple in Hollywood. Burial was at Mount Hope Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y. At the time of his death Gershwin was a composer who had acquired wealth, the adulation of the masses, and the respect of serious musicians. Both his popularity and his artistic stature, however, were to grow impressively in the years that followed. After his death two major motion pictures were produced using his music, RHAPSODY IN BLUE (1945), his screen biography, and AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951). Despite the high mortality rate of popular music, his songs for stage and screen continued to be heard through the popular media, and his serious music was played more often and in more places, both in this country and abroad, than it had been when he was alive. Perhaps nothing points up the expansion of Gershwin's posthumous importance better than the performance history of his opera, "Porgy and Bess." Received with only moderate enthusiasm when first produced, it had become by the mid-1950s the most successful and significant opera by an American. It enjoyed numerous revivals, that of 1942 resulting in the longest run up to that time enjoyed by any revival on Broadway. In 1952 an American company began a historic foreign tour, with the blessing of the State Department, which carried "Porgy and Bess" throughout Europe, including the Soviet Union and countries behind the "Iron Curtain," as well as to the Near East, South America, and Mexico. The acclaim which it received did much to establish Gershwin as one of the most significant creative figures, and one of the most potent influences, that American music has produced.
-- David Ewen
Source: DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, SUPPLEMENT 1-2: TO 1940. American Council of Learned Societies, 1944-1958. Reprinted by permission of the American Council of Learned Societies.
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