PROFILE: Ann Ronell

Woman of Musical Firsts--Who's Afraid of the Little Lady Songwriter?

Copyright � 2009 by Jean Sanders

Ann Ronell brought music to the proverbial everyman through innovation and humor. Her compositions encompassed many styles, including classical, pop and jazz. She was a petite, energetic force--the first woman to score background music for major motion pictures. Ironically, this little Jewish girl born in Omaha, Nebraska on Christmas Day, December 25, 1905, died eighty-eight years later on Christmas Day, December 25, 1993.

Ann (birth name Anya) was the second of four children born to Mollie Rabinovitz Rosenblatt and Morris Moses Rosenblatt. Her siblings were brothers Sol Ariah, Herman Samuel and sister Leah Gussie.

Ann's father emigrated from Russia to Chicago in 1895 at age seventeen. He later moved to Davenport, Iowa, where he met Mollie Rabinowitz while boarding with her family. They were married in 1899 when Mollie was sixteen and Morris was twenty-one. In a few years, the couple settled in Omaha, Nebraska, where Morris eventually became owner of the Consumers Coal and Supply Company.

Ann's early years included piano, organ, and dancing lessons with an emphasis on ballet. She began writing songs while still in grade school. She wrote songs for school productions and her class song as a student at Omaha's Central High School, where she graduated in 1923.

Ann continued her formal education at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, where her courses included religion, languages and arts. Among other school-sponsored activities, she took part in the Wheaton Dramatic Club, was assistant editor of the campus newspaper Wheaton Record, and won a prize for writing the song "Love's Like a Rose."

However, Wheaton lacked a music department at the time, so after two years she transferred to Radcliffe College at Cambridge, Massachusetts. There she immersed herself in musical pursuits, although she majored in English. She wrote songs and background music for some of the college plays. Her song "Oh, College is the Place for Me" won a prize, was performed by the Choral Society in a New York City concert, and was published in the Radcliffe Songbook. She was in the Radcliffe Choral Society, president of the Music Club, and was music editor of The Radcliffe News from 1925-27. She also reviewed musical performances and interviewed nationally known composers for The Radcliffe News.

This activity led to a life-changing event when Ann interviewed composer George Gershwin. During their conversation she praised his work. He inquired about her studies. She expressed her passion for composition. He played the piano for her. She played the piano and then danced the Charleston for him. He encouraged her to work in New York as a rehearsal pianist or as a dancer in musical theater. A symbiotic working relationship developed between the two, and George became her friend and mentor.

Upon graduation in 1927, Ann went home to Omaha but soon received a letter from George Gershwin stating that if she moved to New York, he would help establish her music career.

Ann knew she would not be alone in the big city. Her brother Sol, who had graduated from Harvard Law School, was living and working in the Manhattan district of New York City. So Ann became George Gershwin's prot�g�. Her association with Gershwin proved to be invaluable. He kept his promise. George, who was ten years her senior, helped her find work as a rehearsal pianist and vocal coach. He introduced her to important people in the music business, and suggested that for professional reasons she should change her last name from Rosenblatt to Ronell just as he had changed his own name from Gershovitz to Gershwin.

While working in New York City, Ann attended the New School for Social Research in Manhattan where, during composer Aaron Copland's lectures, she took notes for the school's archives in lieu of paying tuition.

Those early years were filled with the same determination that became a lifelong habit. Years later, during an interview, she claimed that for a long time she would write "one song a day and present them to publishers." At the time, there was a paucity of women songwriters, composers and lyricists, but Ann's persistence paid off. By 1929, her song "Down by the River" was performed in a Radio City Music Hall revue, and her first published song "Love and I" was used in the 1929 Ziegfeld Show .

Her first big success came with the publication of "Baby's Birthday Party" in 1930. Inspired by her nephew's first birthday, her humor was evident as the beginning of the song seems to describe a child's party but then segues into a steadily pounding boogie beat. This song also marked a first for Paramount Pictures' Famous Music, which had never published a song without a movie tie-in.

The following year, Ann wrote another humorous hit "The Candy Parade," a fox-trot whose lyrics referenced chocolate soldiers carrying lollipop guns. Also in 1931, her song "Let's Go Out in the Open Air" was used in the Broadway musical revue Shoot the Works.

In the spring of 1932, on her first trip out of the country, Ann combined business and vacation. While touring France, Italy and Switzerland, she wrote some music that was included in the Ile de France Revue at the Theatre Champs-Elysses in Paris.

At home, 1932 continued to be a banner year for her. Her fox-trot "Rain on the Roof" was published by Famous Music Corporation. But most important, she broke through another musical barrier. Ann wanted Irving Berlin to publish her blues song "Willow Weep For Me," inspired by the willows she had seen at Radcliffe. Ann first met with Berlin's partner Saul Bornstein, but he didn't like the song, citing its style, tempo changes, and the fact that she had dedicated it to George Gershwin. Bornstein told her that dedicating a popular song to anyone was inappropriate and unacceptable. Undeterred, Ann persisted in her quest to meet with Irving Berlin himself. Eventually she succeeded. Berlin liked the song, published it with the dedication to George Gershwin intact, and "Willow" remains a standard in jazz repertoire today.

Another significant career change came when she moved to California in 1933. The Walt Disney Studios wanted a song to celebrate Mickey Mouse's fifth birthday. Ann submitted "Mickey Mouse and Minnie's in Town," and it was chosen as the official Mickey Mouse birthday song.

This led to work for Disney's new cartoon series called Silly Symphonies, which were based on nursery rhymes and folk tales. Up to this time, Disney had developed cartoons first and then added music. In the Silly Symphonies, the music came first and the animation was added to fit. For that series, Ann wrote the theme "In a Silly Symphony."

One of the Silly Symphonies was "The Three Little Pigs." Ann was involved, but sources, including the participants themselves, have disagreed about exactly how much each contributed to the finished product. And the product? The song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

It is generally agreed that Disney's employees Frank Churchill wrote background music while Ted Sears and Pinto Colvig wrote the story and lyrics. Although snippets of song were placed throughout, there was no one cohesive song suitable for sale on its own. This did not concern Walt Disney at the time because he failed to recognize the marketing possibilities. Ann did. According to her, she insisted a salable song could be fashioned by adding lyrics and more music. When she made these changes, the result was the now famous "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" which Disney subsequently sold to music publisher Irving Berlin.

Meanwhile, as always, Ann worked on multiple projects simultaneously. She wrote lyrics and other special arrangements for individual artists. She was introduced to producers Fanchon and Marco, who hired her to compose a show for principal ballerina Patricia Bowman. For this, Ann invented a new genre that combined ballet with singing. She called it "ballet with songs," "ballet-sing," or "ballet-operetta." The one-hour show The Magic of Spring was performed in Los Angeles in March 1934, and later toured in several Midwestern cities. One of these was Omaha, where Ann also gave some solo performances that included her own and others' hit songs.

Also in 1934, Ann's work with the RKO Radio Pictures movie studio resulted in another first--the first time a film included songs with both music and lyrics written by a woman. The movie was Down to Their Last Yacht and Ann's songs were "Funny Little World," "South Sea Bolero," and "Beach Boy."

A momentous meeting occurred the next year when Lester Cowan went to Washington, DC to testify at a hearing as a representative of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS). (In 1928, he had been instrumental in establishing the Academy Awards ceremonies, and was known as the "Father of the Oscars.") Ann happened to be in Washington at the same time, visiting her brother Sol, who was one of the attorneys representing the opposition. When they met, Lester did not know Ann and Sol were related.

The growing friendship between Ann and Lester continued after both returned to California and they were married November 6, 1935. From that day on, their careers were largely intertwined. Still, there were projects that were hers alone. For instance, prior to her marriage, Ann joined the faculty of the University of Southern California in August 1935, and lectured on "Music in Motion Pictures."

In 1937, Ann started working on Walter Wanger's movie The River is Blue. Not long after, noted composer Kurt Weill joined the team. Ann co-wrote lyrics for two songs. The movie went through several metamorphoses, was finally titled Blockade, and opened in 1938.

Ann's first attempted Broadway experience was in 1938-39 writing songs for an Otto Preminger production The King with the Umbrella. However, it all never materialized.

Then she went to Paris to work with Oskar Straus on his The Chocolate Soldier. She also visited noted musicians in England, Holland, and Belgium to present new songs for inclusion in their performances.

Ann's interest in adding lyrics to popular classical music resulted in the publication of songbooks touting two of Hollywood's biggest female singing stars. The first, published in 1939, was the Deanna Durbin Album of Favorite Songs and Arias. The second, published in 1940, was In the Judy Garland Manner.

Another of Ann's 1939 solo projects was to write the title song for Walter Lantz' cartoon movie series Andy Panda.

During their Hollywood years, Ann and Lester kept an apartment there, but they also owned a working ranch in Canoga Park, California, where they rode horses, relaxed and entertained friends.

Lester Cowan's first movie as an independent producer was Ladies in Retirement, which opened in 1941; Ann assisted composer Ernst Toch but was not listed on the credits. She was also involved with making the first complete film score recording (Ladies in Retirement) by a Hollywood producer.

In early 1941, Ann worked on another show meant for Broadway that combined ballet and singing--Ship South. She contributed music and lyrics, and this time she called the genre "ballet-sing." Unfortunately, just before completion in December, due to negative financial conditions caused by the U.S. entrance into World War II, her Broadway hopes were dashed. Over the next twenty years only a few amateur groups performed Ship South.

A better year for Ann's Broadway ambitions was 1942, although it began in an unusual venue. Walter Kerr and Leo Brady, then connected with The Catholic University of America, told Ann they wanted to produce a musical tied to the war efforts. The show Count Me In ran for a week on campus. Then it moved to Boston and finally landed on Broadway. This seems to have made Ann the first woman to have written both words and music for a Broadway musical. The war effort connection was fulfilled when a USO touring company spent several weeks in the South Pacific, performing the musical.

Ann also assisted composer Louis Gruenberg on Lester Cowan's movie production Commandoes Strike at Dawn. Again she was not credited on the movie, but did receive credit on two of the film's published songs.

In a different vein, Ann advocated translating traditional opera into English, an idea not popular with many diehard afficionados and performers. Convinced, however, that translation would extend opera's appeal to wider audiences, Ann pursued these projects. Probably her most successful were Friedrich Flotow's Martha with Vicki Baum (1940), Johann Strauss, Jr.'s The Gypsy Baron with George Marion, Jr. (1943), and Oskar Straus' The Chocolate Soldier (1943).

Ann visited the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan for the first time in 1939 as a teacher. Thus began an alliance that eventually led to Ann providing scholarships and serving on its national advisory board.

In 1944, Lester, as a producer of Tomorrow The World, hired Ann to be the first woman music director of a feature film.

The next year, Ann, with Louis Applebaum, scored the music for producer Lester's film The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). This marked the first time a theme song was sung over the title credits. Both the movie's score and the song "Linda" received Oscar nominations, making Ann the first woman to earn an Academy Award nomination for a song and musical score.

Ann's "Linda" is sometimes confused with another "Linda" that was also published in 1945. The latter, written by Jack Lawrence, became more well known. The main problem was that while song music and lyrics can be copyrighted, their titles cannot. Since Ann's "Linda" preceded the Lawrence one, the duplicate title caused Ann and Lester to consider a lawsuit. However, their attorney advised against it.

In 1947, Ann began work on Oh! Susanna, a play whose story had been written two years earlier by Florence Ryerson and Colin Clements. Originally, it was intended for Broadway, but when that failed, Ryerson and Clements contacted Ann. The story revolved around folk songwriter Stephen Foster and his fictionalized romance. Ann planned to use twenty-five of Foster's songs and add some of her own music, intending the resultant show to be performed in high schools, colleges and community theaters. It ultimately had some success in those venues but, although later it was revised for other audiences, including television, it never worked out elsewhere.

In 1945, a movie was to be made from Kurt Weill's hit musical One Touch of Venus. As sometimes happens, the finished movie bore little resemblance to the original but that was not due to Ann's involvement. In fact, Ann wrote the lyrics for two of Weill's songs and fought to maintain the show's musical integrity. However, the script was rewritten to showcase non-singing actors, and the only professional singing star Dick Haymes was given his choice of songs to perform.

Ann's next important honor occurred in 1949. Her husband produced the Marx Brothers' movie Love Happy for which she wrote the score and songs. Later that year, Film Music Magazine chose it as the best film score. This was especially meaningful because at the time Ann was the only woman composing scores for Hollywood films.

In 1951, Lester Cowan produced the movie Main Street to Broadway and chose Ann as composer and music director. In 1953, Ann wrote the lyrics for the main theme from Hondo starring John Wayne. In 1955, Ann wrote the theme for a Swedish nature documentary The Great Adventure.

In January 1954, Walt Disney appeared on Ed Sullivan's television variety show The Toast of the Town, where he described the making of Three Little Pigs. This was followed by a short film depicting the creation of "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" but Ann was not shown or mentioned as being part of the process. The short film was repeated February 16, 1955 on ABC television's Disneyland. Ann and Lester had not seen the original televising of the film, but when they became aware of it, they sued, claiming Ann's right to credit for her part in writing "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" On the original sheet music, the credits read "Words and music by Frank E. Churchill and Ann Ronell." When Disney had objected, a new printing credited Churchill as composer with "additional lyrics by Ann Ronell." When the trial ended on December 3, 1958, the judge dismissed the complaint.

As a lifelong Democrat, Ann wanted to help her favorite candidates. As a professional musician, she had a unique way of trying to do that. In 1942, she had written a campaign song for Massachusetts Governor Leverett Saltonstall.

In 1956, Democrat Adlai Stevenson ran for President. One Democratic strategy was to attack Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Richard Nixon. To that end, Ann wrote the song "Too Big a Price." Her idea was to use it at the convention opening, then change the lyrics daily to fit current happenings acting as a news "song reporter." However, a campaign song was apparently not a Democratic priority, and it was never used at the convention, although it was sung at some later Democratic political rallies.

Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened in 1962. Albee wanted to use the music of "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" in two different scenes, substituting the words "Virginia Woolf" for "the big bad." However, the rights were too expensive so instead he used the tune "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush," which was in the public domain. Some European productions used the "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" melody so Ann considered another lawsuit, but it came to naught.

Ann and Lester Cowan's last film collaboration was Meeting at a Far Meridian (1964), based on a book by Mitchell A. Wilson. The story detailed relationships and conflicts surrounding the Cold War between the United States and the USSR that existed after World War II. In connection with this, both Ann and Lester made several trips to Russia. In 1964, they traveled to Moscow on the Cultural Exchange program. While there, Ann presented piano recitals at the Soviet Composers Union and the American Embassy.

In 1964, Ann supported Democratic candidate Lyndon Johnson for President. Republican Barry Goldwater was the opposition. Again Ann felt a campaign song was needed. This time she wrote "Backward Ho! With Barry," a sentiment espoused by many Democrats. Still, it remained mostly unsung. Ann also wrote a campaign song for Robert Kennedy's Senate campaign, but it, too, received little attention.

In their later years, Ann and Lester lived in New York City. Ann served on the boards of the National Academy of Popular Music, the American Guild of Authors and Composers, the Dramatists Guild, and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). She wrote Jewish liturgical music and started a recording project of remembrances of the great songwriters of her era.

In 1991, Ann received a Song Citation at an awards dinner of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame for her 1932 classic "Willow Weep for Me," which placed her among the revered American composers in history.

Posthumous recognition came in 1999 when she was one of four songwriters featured in the Public Broadcasting System special Yours for a Song: The Women of Tin Pan Alley as part of its American Masters series. The others featured in the special were Dorothy Fields, Dana Suesse, and Kay Swift. Shortly afterward, an entry on Ronell appeared in the prestigious American National Biography, Sup 1 (Oxford University Press, 2002) 525-526.

The most comprehensive source available about Ronell's life and career is the book-length treatment by Tighe E. Zimmers titled Tin Pan Alley Girl: A Biography of Ann Ronell (McFarland, 2009), which also offers in its Appendix a lengthy listing of her songs, film credits, and other accomplishments. A helpful article titled "Ann Ronell" was privately published by music authority Ben Sears of Oakton Productions in Boston.

Informative also are articles published in the November 28, 1948 Omaha Sunday World-Herald Magazine, the January 3, 1955 Christian Science Monitor, and Nebraska Life, Vol 1, No 4 (Fall 1997). Brief entries appear in several references, notably The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed, Vol 21 (Macmillan Ltd, 2001) 656-657.

Ann Ronell Collections are housed at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in New York City and the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society in Omaha, with the latter including 25 boxes of papers and memorabilia contributed by author Tighe Zimmers.

Ronell's husband Lester Cowan died October 21, 1990 of a heart attack at the age of 83. They had been married almost 55 years. After a fall in 1991, Ann was wheelchair-bound, but kept on writing and doing charitable work. She died on December 25, 1993. Obituaries appeared in the December 29 New York Times, the December 30 Los Angeles Times, and the January 5, 1994 issue of Variety.

For more information, consult "900 Famous Nebraskans" on the Internet at www.nsea.org or www.gagecountymuseuim.org or www.nebpress.com.

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PROFILE: Ann Ronell

Woman of Musical Firsts--Who's Afraid of the Little Lady Songwriter?