Frederick Loewe

 Frederick Loewe ( June 10, 1901 – February 14, 1988)

He collaborated with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on a series of Broadway musicals, including Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, and Camelot, all of which were made into films, as well as the original film musical, Gigi (1958). Loewe grew up in Berlin and attended a Prussian cadet school from the age of five until he was thirteen. He eventually attended a music conservatory in Berlin, one year behind virtuoso Claudio Arrau, and studied with Ferruccio Busoni and Eugene d'Albert. In 1924, his father received an offer to appear in New York City, and Loewe traveled there with him, determined to write for Broadway. Loewe began to visit the Lambs Club, a hangout for theater performers, producers, managers, and directors. He credited The Lambs for keeping him working until his career expanded, and left a share of his royalties of Brigadoon to The Lambs Foundation. He met Alan Jay Lerner there in 1942. Their first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connor's farce The Patsy, called Life of the Party, for a Detroit stock company. Their first hit was Brigadoon, which ran on Broadway from March 1947 to July 1948 and won the 1947 New York Drama Critics' Circle award as Best Musical. It was followed in 1951 by the less successful Gold Rush story Paint Your Wagon. In 1956, Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady was produced on Broadway. Their adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion was a huge hit on Broadway and London. The musical won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Their next Broadway musical was Camelot in 1960. The production starred Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. It ran for 873 performances.

Loewe then decided to retire to Palm Springs, California, where he bought a home in 1960. For many years he did not write anything until he was approached by Lerner to augment the Gigi film score with additional tunes for a 1973 stage adaptation, which won him his second Tony, this time for Best Original Score. Loewe was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. Seven years later, in 1979, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Loewe died from a heart attack on February 14, 1988 at age 86. He is buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.