Hal Borne was an American popular song composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 leader, music arranger and musical director, who studied music at the University of Illinois. He wrote most frequently with the lyricists Sid Kuller

Sid Kuller

Sid Kuller was an American comedy writer, producer and lyricist/composer, who concentrated on special musical material, gags and sketches for leading comics...

 and Ray Golden, including songs for the Marx Brothers

Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...

 ("Sing While You Sell") and Tony Martin

Tony Martin (entertainer)

Tony Martin is an American actor and singer.-Career:Tony Martin was born on Christmas Day, 1913 as Alvin Morris in San Francisco, California to Jewish immigrant parents. He received a saxophone as a gift from his grandmother at the age of ten. In his grammar school glee club, he became an...

 ("Tenement Symphony").

At the beginning of his career he worked for RKO studios as the rehearsal

Rehearsal

For other uses, see Rehearsal or Dress rehearsal A rehearsal is a preparatory event in music and theatre that is performed before the official public performance, as a form of practice, and to ensure that all details of the performance are adequately prepared and coordinated for professional...

 pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 for Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...

. In 1941 he collaborated with Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, Paul Francis Webster

Paul Francis Webster

Paul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.-Biography:...

 and Kuller on the progressive all-black revue Jump for Joy which was supported by many Hollywood liberals of the time, such as Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...

, Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

 and Orson Welles

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

. Borne became a big-band orchestra leader and in February 1942 signed as the music director for RCM's soundies

Soundies

Soundies were an early version of the music video: three-minute musical films, produced in New York City, Chicago, and Hollywood between 1940 and 1946, often including short dance sequences. The completed Soundies were generally released within a few months of their filming; the last group was...

 (musical shorts filmed for jukeboxes) for which his trio often provided backings. For many years Borne was associated with Tony Martin and became his regular music director for live appearances throughout the 1950s and 60s.

Borne joined ASCAP in 1942 and was one of the composers for Ray Golden's 1950 revue Alive and Kicking

Alive and Kicking (musical)

Alive and Kicking is a musical revue with sketches by Ray Golden, I.A.L. Diamond, Henry Morgan, Jerome Chodorov, Joseph Stein, Will Glickman, John Murray, and Michael Stuart; music by Hal Borne, Irma Jurist, Sammy Fain, Hoagy Carmichael, Harold Rome, Sonny Burke, Leo Schumer, and Ray Golden; and...

, featuring Jack Cassidy

Jack Cassidy

John Joseph Edward “Jack” Cassidy was an American actor of stage, film and screen.His frequent professional persona was that of an urbane, super-confident egotist with a dramatic flair, much in the manner of Broadway actor Frank Fay...

, Bobby Van and Carl Reiner

Carl Reiner

Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...

 and the debut of Gwen Verdon

Gwen Verdon

Gwenyth Evelyn “Gwen” Verdon was an actress and dancer who won four Tony awards for her musical comedy performances. With flaming red hair and an endearing quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s...

. In 1963 he composed most of the songs for the infamous first topless mainstream movie Promises! Promises!

Promises! Promises!

Promises! Promises! is a 1963 unrated sex comedy film, released after the demise of the Hays code and before the MPAA film rating system became effective, produced by Tommy Noonan . It was the first Hollywood motion picture release of the sound era to feature a mainstream star—Jayne Mansfield—in...

, starring Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...

 and Marie (the Body) McDonald

Marie McDonald

Marie McDonald was an American singer and actress known as "The Body Beautiful" and later nicknamed "The Body".- Early life :...

 -- not to be confused with the subsequent Neil Simon

Neil Simon

Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...

, Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach

Burt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...

 musical Promises, Promises

Promises, Promises

Promises, Promises is a musical based on the 1960 film The Apartment. The music is by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David, and book by Neil Simon. Musical numbers for the original Broadway production were choreographed by Michael Bennett; Robert Moore directed and David Merrick produced...

.

He was celebrated for his piano improvisations and often jammed in duets with Ellington on the spinet

Spinet

A spinet is a smaller type of harpsichord or other keyboard instrument, such as a piano or organ.-Spinets as harpsichords:While the term spinet is used to designate a harpsichord, typically what is meant is the bentside spinet, described in this section...

. Among his many albums, he supported Marie McDonald for her 1957 musical foray "The Body Sings". In Hollywood Borne worked on some famous swing arrangements of Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

 and Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...

 standards and claims to have come up with the well-known musical refrain "dah-dah-dee" to the line of "Heaven - I'm in heaven"

Cheek to Cheek

"Cheek to Cheek" is a song written by Irving Berlin, and first performed by Fred Astaire in the movie Top Hat . Astaire's 1935 recording with the Leo Reisman Orchestra was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000....

 in the 1935 film Top Hat

Top Hat

Top Hat is a 1935 screwball comedy musical film in which Fred Astaire plays an American dancer named Jerry Travers, who comes to London to star in a show produced by Horace Hardwick . He meets and attempts to impress Dale Tremont to win her affection...

.