Rida Johnson Young
Encyclopedia
Inductees of the Songwriters Hall of Fame
This a list of inductees into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Dates of induction are given alongside the names.-A:*Adams, Lee *Adair, Tom *Adamson, Harold *Adler, Richard *Ager, Milton *Ahlert, Fred *Akst, Harry...
in 1970. Some of her best-known lyrics include "Mother Machree" from Barry of Ballymore, "Italian Street Song" and "I'm Falling in Love with Someone" from Naughty Marietta
Naughty Marietta (operetta)
Naughty Marietta is an operetta in two acts, with libretto by Rida Johnson Young and music by Victor Herbert. Set in New Orleans in 1780, it tells how Captain Richard Warrington is commissioned to unmask and capture a notorious French pirate calling himself "Bras Priqué" – and how he is helped and...
, and "Will You Remember?" from Maytime
Maytime (musical)
Maytime is a musical with music by Sigmund Romberg and lyrics and book by Rida Johnson Young, and with additional lyrics by Cyrus Wood. The musical is based on the 1913 German operetta Wie einst im Mai, composed by Walter Kollo, with words by Rudolf Bernauer and Rudolf Schanzer. Maytime introduced...
.
Early life and career
Young was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She was an actress early in her career with both the Viola AllenViola Allen
Viola Emily Allen was an American stage actress who played leading roles in Shakespere and other plays, including many original plays. She starred in over two dozen Broadway productions from 1885 to 1916...
and E. H. Sothern
E. H. Sothern
Edward Hugh Sothern was an American actor who specialized in dashing, romantic leading roles and particularly in Shakespeare roles.-Biography:...
Broadway (New York) companies before working for the music publisher Isidore Witmark. As a playwright, her first work, Lord Byron, was produced in 1900 by actor-producer James Young
James Young (director)
James Young was an American film director, actor and screenwriter of the silent era. Before films Young had a successful career as a stage actor appearing on Broadway and throughout the country. His first wife was librettist Rida Johnson Young who often composed with Victor Herbert. Turning to...
, to whom she was married from 1904 to 1910. He was later married to the silent film actress Clara Kimball
Clara Kimball Young
Clara Kimball Young was an American film actress, who was highly regarded and publicly popular in the early silent film era.-Early life:...
.
Young's Brown of Harvard, which opened in 1906 at Princess Theatre
Princess Theatre
The Princess Theatre was a joint venture between the Shubert Brothers , producer Ray Comstock, theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury and actor-director Holbrook Blinn...
and is the basis for a silent movie from 1911
Brown of Harvard
Brown of Harvard is the title of three silent films all based on the 1906 Broadway play of the same name by Rida Johnson Young. The 1926 version is notable for featuring John Wayne's screen debut.*Brown of Harvard...
, is the first 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...
play written by Young and contains her song "When Love Is Young". This was followed by the 1907 comic play The Boys of Company "B" which premiered at the Lyceum Theatre
Lyceum Theatre (New York)
The Lyceum Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 149 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan.It has the distinction of being the oldest surviving Broadway venue , the oldest continuously operating legitimate theatre in New York City, and the first Broadway theatre ever to be granted landmark status...
and featured Florence Nash
Florence Nash
Florence Nash was an American actress and author. She was sister to theater and movie actor Mary Nash.-Career:...
in her Broadway debut. The Lancers was a 1907 musical with music and lyrics by Cecilia Loftus and George Spink. Glorious Betsy, a 1908 play that was remade as a silent film of the same name
Glorious Betsy
Glorious Betsy is a 1928 mostly-silent film with talking sequences, based on a play of the same name by Rida Johnson Young and starring Dolores Costello. It was produced by Warner Brothers and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Adaptation in 1929. The film was directed by Alan...
in 1928 directed by Alan Crosland
Alan Crosland
Alan Crosland was an American stage actor and film director.-Early life and career:Born in New York City, New York to a well-to-do family, Alan Crosland attended Dartmouth College. After graduation he took a job as a writer with the New York Globe magazine...
, was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. The play The Lottery Man opened at Bijou Theatre
Bijou Theatre
Two Broadway theatres have been named the Bijou Theatre.The first was converted into a theatre in 1878 and rebuilt in 1883. It was often called the Bijou Opera House and was located at 1239 Broadway. It was also sometimes called The Brighton Theatre. It became a popular venue for operettas in...
in 1909 and ran for 200 performances. The film version from 1916
The Lottery Man
The Lottery Man is a silent comedy film featuring Oliver Hardy and produced at the Whartons Studio in Ithaca, New York. A print of the film exists in the film archive of the Library of Congress.-Cast:* Thurlow Bergen - Jack Wright-a son...
featured Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
. Ragged Robin, a musical set in Ireland in 1830, is based on a book by Young. It opened at Academy of Music
Academy of Music (Manhattan)
The Academy of Music was a New York City opera house, located at East 14th Street and Irving Place in Manhattan. The 4,000-seat hall opened on October 2, 1854. The New York Times review declared it to be an acoustical "triumph", but "In every other aspect .....
in 1910 and ran for only 16 performances.
Naughty Marietta and later years
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
Naughty Marietta
Naughty Marietta (operetta)
Naughty Marietta is an operetta in two acts, with libretto by Rida Johnson Young and music by Victor Herbert. Set in New Orleans in 1780, it tells how Captain Richard Warrington is commissioned to unmask and capture a notorious French pirate calling himself "Bras Priqué" – and how he is helped and...
, composer Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
's greatest success. Produced by Oscar Hammerstein
Oscar Hammerstein I
Oscar Hammerstein I was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America...
, it opened at New York Theatre
New York Theatre
Several theatres in New York City have been called New York Theatre at various times during the building's life. They include the following:*Bowery Theatre*Olympia Theatre *Church of the Messiah...
in 1910, ran for 136 performances and was frequently revived. A film version from 1935 was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. Her play The Marriage Bond was adapted into a 1916 film of the same name.
Further Broadway productions with contributions from Young include Barry of Ballymore (1911), Next (1911, a play), Macushla
Macushla
Macushla is an Irish song copyrighted circa 1910 with music by Dermot MacMurrough and lyrics by Josephine V. Rowe. The title is a transliteration of the Irish mo chuisle meaning "my pulse" as used in the phrase a chuisle mo chroí meaning "darling" or "sweetheart".It was used in the end credits of...
(1912, with music by Ernest R. Ball), The Red Petticoat (1912, with music by 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...
), The Isle o' Dreams (1913, with music by Ernest R. Ball), The Girl and the Pennant (1913, a play), Shameen Dhu (1914, a play), Lady Luxury (1914, with music by William Schroeder), Captain Kidd, Jr. (1916, 128 performances), Her Soldier Boy (Astor Theatre
Astor Theatre
The Astor Theatre was a New York City Broadway theatre from 1906 to 1925 in the United States of America. It was located at 1537 Broadway, at W. 45th Street. It was first managed by Wagenhals and Kemper, then by George M. Cohan and Sam Harris, and later by the Shuberts. From 1925 to 1972 it was a...
1916, with music by Emmerich Kalman
Emmerich Kalman
Emmerich Kálmán was a Hungarian-born composer of operettas.- Biography :Kálmán was born Imre Koppstein in Siófok, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton, Hungary in a Jewish family.Kálmán initially intended to become a concert pianist, but because of early-onset arthritis, he focused on composition...
, 198 performances), His Little Widows (1917, with music by William Schroeder), Maytime
Maytime (musical)
Maytime is a musical with music by Sigmund Romberg and lyrics and book by Rida Johnson Young, and with additional lyrics by Cyrus Wood. The musical is based on the 1913 German operetta Wie einst im Mai, composed by Walter Kollo, with words by Rudolf Bernauer and Rudolf Schanzer. Maytime introduced...
(Shubert Theatre
Shubert Theatre (Broadway)
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 225 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States.Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts, it was named after Sam S. Shubert, the second oldest of the three brothers of the theatrical producing family...
1917, 492 performances), Sometime (Shubert Theatre
Shubert Theatre (Broadway)
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 225 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States.Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts, it was named after Sam S. Shubert, the second oldest of the three brothers of the theatrical producing family...
1918, 283 performances), Little Simplicity (Astor Theatre
Astor Theatre
The Astor Theatre was a New York City Broadway theatre from 1906 to 1925 in the United States of America. It was located at 1537 Broadway, at W. 45th Street. It was first managed by Wagenhals and Kemper, then by George M. Cohan and Sam Harris, and later by the Shuberts. From 1925 to 1972 it was a...
1918, with music by Augustus Barratt, 112 performances), "Little Old New York" (Plymouth Theatre 1920, a play, 308 performances), The Dream Girl
The Dream Girl
The Dream Girl is an operetta in three acts with music by Victor Herbert and book by Rida Johnson Young and Harold R. Atteridge. It is based on the 1906 play The Road to Yesterday by Beulah Marie Dix and Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland. Additional music was written by Sigmund Romberg...
(Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre
Ambassador Theatre can refer to:* Ambassador Theatre * Ambassador Theatre * Ambassador Theatre * Ambassadors Theatre...
1924, with music by Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
, 117 performances) and Cock O' the Roost (1924, a play).
In 1926, at the age of 57, Young died in Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...
, after a long struggle with breast cancer
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
.
External links
- Interview of Young with photograph, The Sun, May 6, 1917