George Gershwin

From Philosopedia

George and Ira

Gershwin, George (1898—1937) and Gershwin, Ira (1896-1983)

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York. Of the three boys in the family, only Ira, later George's lyricist, was subjected to a bar mitzvah.

According to George Gershwin, a biography by Rodney Greenberg,

• This religious milestone apparently meant little to Ira himself. The fact that Rose and Morris never imposed it upon George and Arthur means that, by the time they became teenagers, the family had left their East European Jewish origins behind and were living a secularized existence in New York's cosmopolitan melting pot. . . . Rose made sure the living room curtains were drawn closed on the eve of sabbaths or festivals, so that her Jewish neighbors would be unaware she had not lit the ceremonial candles.

Gershwin's named sources of "inspiration" were not gods or prophets but two other non-believing songwriters: Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, according to biographer Edward Jablonski's Gershwin: A Biography.

Self-taught as a piano-player, Gershwin began writing songs and musicals as a teenager, quickly advancing from Tin Pan Alley to Broadway musicals. Considered by many to be America's greatest song composer, Gershwin wrote memorable standard after standard, including: "Lady, be Good!" "Strike Up the Band," "Funny Face," "The Man I Love," "Embraceable You," "Somebody Loves Me" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me." His more serious work: Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Piano Concerto in F (1925), Porgy and Bess (1934-5), and Three Preludes (1926).

George and Ira are noted for “The Back Bay Polka,” which teases the puritanism of Beantown:

Don’t speak the naked truth—

What’s naked is uncouth;

It may go in Duluth—

But not in Boston. . . .

Somewhere the fairer sex

Has curves that are convex, And girls don’t all wear specs—

But not in Boston.

Their opera, Porgy and Bess, had the humorous number “It Ain’t Necessarily So”:

. . . The things that you’re liable

To read in the Bible,

It ain’t necessarily so. . . .

Methus’lah lived nine hundred years.

Methus’lah lived nine hundred years.

But who call dat livin’

When no gal’ll give in

To no man what’s nine hundred years?

Alan Jay Lerner described Ira as the only man he knew who was “cute.” Harry Warren said Ira never had had a bad word for anyone. Louis Calhern told a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman he needed no such work because he knew Ira.

Gershwin, who liked to play Maurice Ravel's work, is said to have visited Ravel in France and, introducing himself, inquired, "Mr. Ravel, is it possible that you would give me piano lessons?" Ravel, who knew Gershwin's works, is said to have responded to the effect, "Mr. Gershwin, do come in. Is it possible you would give me some piano lessons?"

In 1937, while playing the piano with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, George lost consciousness, skipped a few bars, then continued as if nothing had happened. Later he said he had had the sensation of smelling burning rubber. Two months later, he had the same experience. Orchestra leader Mitch Miller confirmed Gershwin had told him the same story three years prior.

Although Gershwin underwent many tests, refusing to submit to a spinal tap, the tests were inconclusive. Some described him as being a hypochondriac. On July 9th after playing the piano, he fell into a stuporous sleep that deepened into a coma. Neurosurgeons removed a brain tumor, but he died several hours later without regaining consciousness. A biopsy revealed that the tumor was a fulminating growth, one which probably would have recurred even had the ambitious 38-year-old survived the initial operation.

George, who did not go on record, may or may not have been interested in organized religion. Ira, however, was so unhappy when George died of an inoperable brain tumor at the age of only thirty-eight that he suffered a guilt complex, saying, according to Michael Feinstein, he would gladly have died in George’s place if he could have, “and for the rest of his life he never believed in God.”

Was George Gershwin Gay?

Following is an article by Warren Allen Smith:

George Gershwin was gay. That's what Irving Caesar told [Lyle Stuart] long ago. You read it here first. According to Stuart, it's one of Hollywood's and New York's best-kept secrets.

While Gershwin was alive, no-one publicly discussed the subject. Outing is a recent development. For example, even when Charles Laughton married Elsa Lanchester in 1929, no-one talked about its being a contractual marriage. When Gershwin (1898-1937) died of a tumor, the subject of his love life did not come up in print, although, in private, individuals such as Caesar (who died at the age of 101 in 1996) talked about it with Stuart. The two had Manhattan offices in Tin Pan Alley's Brill Building at 1619 Broadway.

Stuart worked for Variety (1945-6), edited Music Business (1946-8), founded Expos' (1951), and since 1990 has been president of Barricade Books. Caesar is the lyricist who put words to "Tea for Two," "Swanee," and "Is It True What They Say About Dixie?".

Stuart, who has just published my Celebrities in Hell (Barricade Books, 288 pages, paperback, $14.95), asked after the book came out why I hadn't included Gershwin. I told him that I could document brother Ira's atheism, for Ira Gershwin had told Michael Feinstein after George's death at such a young age that he would gladly have died in George's place if he could have. And, added Feinstein, "for the rest of his life [Ira] never believed in God." Meanwhile, one can only speculate about George's views concerning monotheism.

"You knew George was gay?" Stuart casually asked. I was nonplussed. One of my all-time favorite composers was gay, the person who wrote "The Man I Love" and "Rhapsody in Blue"?

What Caesar had told Stuart is that showbiz cognoscenti knew about Gershwin's homosexuality, but the subject was not written about, in order to protect important people's reputations. George was only one of many whose sexual orientation was not mentioned and, in fact, still remains secret.

However, according to Caesar, George's "beard" was Esther Sillabee, at one time a publicist for the bandleader Vincent Lopez and also for the Plaza Hotel. It is difficult to find anything in print about her, but she has been credited with having discovered Gregory Peck. Esther dated George, Caesar told Stuart, in order that he could be seen with a female companion. But once, when he was half an hour late to an appointment at the Brill Building, in anger she blurted out something like "you dirty Jew-bastard," whereupon George ended it. Cut his beard, a wag could say.

Skeptics about all this, of course, will retort by singing George's own "It Ain't Necessarily So." A pity that Oscar Levant died in 1972 without revealing what he knew, which could have confirmed all this – and could even have been self-incriminating.

{FFRF; PA; The New York Times, 1 December 1996}