Irving Berlin
In 1954, Irving Berlin received the Academy Award for Best Original Song, a recognition that marked one peak in a career spanning decades of American popular music. Born on May 11, 1888, in what records variously identify as Tyumen or Talachyn, Berlin came into the world as a citizen of the Russian Empire before eventually becoming a citizen of the United States, where he would spend the greater part of his life and work.
Berlin established himself across several overlapping roles in American music and entertainment. He worked as a composer, lyricist, songwriter, pianist, musical theatre composer, film score composer, and film screenwriter. Among the songs he wrote are "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "White Christmas," "Always," "Blue Skies," and "Remember," a body of individual works that represents his output across a long career. His work extended from the stage to the screen, with his contributions to both musical theatre and film scoring reflecting the range of his professional activity.
The honors Berlin accumulated over the course of his life were considerable in number and variety. In addition to the Academy Award for Best Original Song, he received the Tony Award for Best Original Score, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Medal of Liberty. He was also awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Taken together, these awards document formal recognition from institutions spanning the recording industry, the theatrical world, the film industry, and the United States federal government.
Berlin died on September 22, 1989, in New York City, at the age of one hundred and one. The Library of Congress authorized his name in its cataloguing records as "Berlin, Irving, 1888–1989," a designation that reflects the full span of his life. That span, from a birth in the Russian Empire to a death in New York City, and the range of his credited works — from individual songs to theatrical scores to film screenplays — are preserved in the formal record that the Library of Congress entry itself represents.
Quotes by Irving Berlin
Got no checkbooks/Got no banks/Still I'd like to express my thanks/I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.
In your Easter bonnet / With all the frills upon it / You'll be the grandest lady / In the Easter parade!
I'll be all in clover / And when they look you over / I'll be the proudest fella / In the Easter parade!
When you're in love, my, my how they fly. / Blue days, all of them gone now / I see only blues skies, blues skies
Blue skies, blue skies / Smiling at me now, how now / Nothing but blue skies do I see / Spring is here, Spring is here,
When you're in love, my how they fly by / Blue days, all of them gone / Nothing but blue skies from now on
Blue skies smiling at me / Nothing but blue skies do I see / Bluebirds singing a song / Nothing but blue skies from now on
Cause a pretty girl is like a melody / It hits you when you're awake, gets you when you're asleep.
