Benny Davis was a vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 performer and writer of popular songs. He composed the classic 1926 standard "Baby Face"

Baby Face (1926 song)

Baby Face is a popular song. The music was written by Harry Akst, the lyrics by Benny Davis. The song was published in 1926. That same year, Jan Garber had a number one hit with the song....

 with Harry Akst

Harry Akst

Harry Akst was an American songwriter, who started out his career as a pianist in vaudeville accompanying singers such as Nora Bayes, Frank Fay and Al Jolson.-Life and career:Akst was born in New York, United States....

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Life and career

Davis was born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. He started performing in vaudeville acts when he was 14 years old and later performed as Blossom Seeley

Blossom Seeley

-Biography:Seeley was born Minnie Guyer, in San Francisco, California, USA. A top vaudeville headliner, she was known as the "Queen of Syncopation" and helped bring jazz and ragtime into the mainstream of American music. She introduced the Shelton Brooks classic "Some of These Days" in vaudeville...

’s accompanist with Benny Fields

Benny Fields

Benny Fields was a popular singer of the early 20th century, best known as one-half of the Blossom Seeley-Benny Fields vaudeville team...

’ tours. In the early 1920s, he dedicated himself to professional songwriting and had his first hit in 1920 with “Margie”.

In 1927, Davis returned to the theatre writing scores for the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 shows Artists and Models of 1927, Sons o’ Guns, and 3 editions of Cotton Club

Cotton Club

The Cotton Club was a famous night club in Harlem, New York City that operated during Prohibition that included jazz music. While the club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, Count Basie, Bessie Smith,...

 revues.

Davis collaborated with many songwriters including Milton Ager

Milton Ager

Milton Ager was an American composer.Ager was born in Chicago, Illinois, the sixth of nine children. Leaving school with only three years of formal high-school education, he taught himself to play the piano and embarked on a career as a musician. After spending time as an accompanist to silent...

, Harry Akst

Harry Akst

Harry Akst was an American songwriter, who started out his career as a pianist in vaudeville accompanying singers such as Nora Bayes, Frank Fay and Al Jolson.-Life and career:Akst was born in New York, United States....

, Con Conrad

Con Conrad

Con Conrad was an American songwriter and producer.-Biography:Con Conrad was born Conrad K. Dober in New York City. He published his first song, "Down in Dear Old New Orleans", in 1912. Conrad produced the Broadway show The Honeymoon Express, starring Al Jolson, in 1913...

, Nathaniel Shilkret

Nathaniel Shilkret

Nathaniel Shilkret was an American composer, conductor, clarinetist, pianist, business executive, and music director born in New York City, New York to an Austrian immigrant family.-Early career:...

, J. Fred Coots

J. Fred Coots

John Frederick Coots was an American songwriter. He wrote over 700 songs.He is most famous for the song "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", a song that became one of the biggest best sellers in American music history....

, Billy Baskette, Arthur Swanstrom, Ted Murry, Joe Burke

Joe Burke (composer)

Joseph A. Burke was an American composer and pianist. He was born in Philadelphia and died in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and started as a pianist accompanying silent movies and an arranger in a music publishing firm. It was during this time...

 and J. Russel Robinson. His song "With These Hands", written in collaboration with Abner Silver

Abner Silver

Abner Silver was an American songwriter who worked primarily during the Tin Pan Alley era of the craft. He was born on December 28, 1899, in New York....

, later featured in the soundtrack to the 1990 film Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 romantic fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The film shows the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands. Edward is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter...

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Benny Davis died in Miami

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

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