The onset of the recording ban by the musicians' union in 1942 made it more difficult to score newly recorded hits, but Dick Haymes recorded a cappella for a gold #1 hit with Warren and Gordon's "You'll Never Know" from HELLO, FRISCO, HELLO in July 1943; the dreamy ballad won the Academy Award and became Warren's all-time best-seller in sheet music. After Decca Records settled with the union in September, Glen Gray topped the charts in January 1944 with "My Heart Tells Me (Should I Believe My Heart?)" from SWEET ROSIE O'GRADY. THE GANG'S ALL HERE, which found Warren teaming with lyricist Leo Robin, featured Benny Goodman and His Orch. but brought chart records to Judy Garland, with "A Journey to a Star" and Ella Mae Morse with the war-themed "No Love, No Nothin' (Until My Baby Comes Home)." Warren moved from Fox to MGM in 1944 after completing work on a final film, BILLY ROSE'S DIAMOND HORSESHOE, which produced two Top Ten hits for its star, Dick Haymes, in "I Wish I Knew" and "The More I See You" (both lyrics by Gordon). Warren then wrote songs with Arthur Freed for MGM's all-star ZIEGFELD FOLLIES and the Fred Astaire film YOLANDA AND THE THIEF. But his first major success at MGM came with THE HARVEY GIRLS, which marked a reunion with Johnny Mercer. The two wrote seven songs for the Judy Garland musical, among them "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe," which Mercer and the Pied Pipers recorded well in advance of the film's release, resulting in a chart-topping hit in the summer of 1945; the song went on to win the 1946 Academy Award. The late 1940s saw a slowing in Warren's remarkable output as MGM made fewer musicals. "This Is Always" (lyrics by Gordon) was a holdover from his days at Fox; after being used instrumentally in the studio's September 1946 release THREE LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE, it became a Top Ten hit for Harry James. Warren's next MGM effort, in collaboration with Ralph Blane, was SUMMER HOLIDAY (1948), an adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play AH! WILDERNESS starring Mickey Rooney. Jo Stafford had a minor hit with "The Stanley Steamer" from the score. Warren and Blane wrote five new songs for a remake of TWENTY MILLION SWEETHEARTS retitled MY DREAM IS YOURS (1949) at Warner Bros., then Warren teamed with Ira Gershwin back at MGM for THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY (1949), the final Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film. The final Judy Garland film at MGM was SUMMER STOCK (1950), on which Warren collaborated with Gordon and with Saul Chaplin and Jack Brooks; the same year he again teamed with Arthur Freed for the Esther Williams musical PAGAN LOVE SONG, and 1951 saw him writing for another Esther Williams vehicle, TEXAS CARNIVAL, with lyricist Dorothy Fields. None of these efforts produced song hits for Warren, but he did return to the charts in the May 1951 with the independent song "Rose, Rose, I Love You" (lyrics by Brooks), a Top Ten hit for Frankie Laine, and in February 1952 Ray Anthony and His Orch. had a Top Ten revival of "At Last." Warren later complained that MGM was lax in promoting his songs. After two more musicals, such as the Fred Astaire film THE BELLE OF NEW YORK, with lyrics by Mercer and Esther Williams's SKIRTS AHOY! with lyrics by Blane, Warren left the studio and went to Paramount at the request of Bing Crosby to work on "Just for You," which resulted in the hit "Zing a Little Zong" (lyrics by Leo Robin). In 1953 Rosemary Clooney and Harry James revived "You'll Never Know" for a hit while Warren and Brooks wrote songs for the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis comedy THE CADDY, among them "That's Amore," which became a gold-selling hit for Martin and brought Warren his tenth Oscar nomination. Warren, Brooks, and Martin tried for another Italian-flavored hit with "Innamorata" from the 1955 Martin and Lewis comedy ARTISTS AND MODELS and didn't do quite as well, though Martin's recording did get into the Top 40 in April 1956. By the mid-1950s, Hollywood had lost interest in original movie musicals of the kind it had made in the 1930s and 1940s, and Warren found time to write his first stage musical in 25 years in 1956. "Shangri-La" was a flop, running only 21 performances, but Warren was back in the pop charts in the fall when The Platters revived "You'll Never Know" yet again for a Top 40 hit. Back at Paramount, Warren was called upon largely to write title songs and incidental music for essentially nonmusical films. In 1957 he collaborated with Harold Adamson and director Leo McCarey on several songs for the Cary Grant-Deborah Kerr romance AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER, including the title song, which became a Top 40 hit for Vic Damone (who sang it over the film's credits) in August; it earned him his 11th Academy Award nomination. After the breakup of Martin and Lewis, Warren continued to write songs for Jerry Lewis's Paramount comedies, ROCK-A-BYE BABY (with Sammy Cahn; 1958), CINDERFELLA (with Brooks; 1960), and THE LADIES' MAN (with Brooks; 1961) before leaving the studio to work freelance in 1961. He wrote several title songs in the 1960s, the last of which was for the Rosalind Russell film ROSIE! in 1967 with Mercer. (He also finished a non film project in 1962, composing the music for a Catholic Mass with a Latin text, although it was not performed in public until 1980 when it was premiered by the Loyola-Marymount Coll. Mixed Chorus in Los Angeles.) Meanwhile, his songs came in for frequent revival. The Flamingos had the biggest hit of their career with their Top Ten rendition of "I Only Have Eyes for You" in 1959. Bobby Darin had a Top Ten hit with "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" in 1961, the same year that Dinah Washington hit the Top 40 with "September in the Rain." Floyd Cramer had a Top 40 instrumental recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" in 1962, and Chris Montez reached the Top 40 with two Warren songs, "The More I See You" and "There Will Never Be Another You" in 1966. The Dave Clark Five were in the Top 40 with their version of "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" in 1967. Art Garfunkel's revival of "I Only Have Eyes for You" made the U.S. Top 40 and topped the U.K. charts in 1975, and Tuxedo Junction had a disco-flavored Top 40 hit with "Chattanooga Choo Choo" in 1978. The late 1970s brought a resurgence of theatrical interest in Warren's music. A series of musical revues was mounted, including "Harry's Back in Town" in Toronto in 1976, "Mr. Warren's Profession" in London in 1977, and "Lullaby of Broadway" Off-Broadway in 1979. Finally, in 1980, impresario David Merrick produced a stage adaptation of "42nd Street" on Broadway; it used the film's score plus other Warren songs and ran 3,486 performances, making it one of the most successful musicals in Broadway history. Warren was too ill to attend the opening. At the time of his death he was working on MANHATTAN MELODY, an original movie musical to be directed by James Bridges at 20th Century-Fox. Source: BAKER'S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF MUSICIANS-CENTENNIAL EDITION, by Nicolas Slonimsky, ed., Gale Group, © 2001 Gale Group. Reprinted by permission of The Gale Group. back to page 2