Harry Warren

Harry Warren — born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna in Brooklyn — American songwriter whose Hollywood tunes include "Lullaby of Broadway," "Chattanooga Choo Choo," and "That's Amore," died in Los Angeles on September 22, 1981. He was eighty-seven. Born December 24, 1893, to Italian immigrant parents, he worked as a drummer and pianist before becoming one of the most prolific — and often least publicly recognized — composers of the studio-musical era. Three Academy Awards for Best Original Song (for "Lullaby of Broadway," "You'll Never Know," and "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe") sit beside a catalog that filled Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox musicals. He wrote with lyricists Al Dubin, Mack Gordon, and others, turning out standards that bands and singers kept alive long after the films left theaters. Unlike Berlin or Porter, he rarely became a household name, even as America hummed his melodies without knowing the credit. Los Angeles was both workplace and final home. Colleagues in the songwriters' guild knew him as a craftsman who treated deadlines like another instrument; audiences simply knew the tunes. He died in Los Angeles on September 22, 1981. Big-band playlists still open with his travel songs and lullabies. Warren's gift was industrial melody — studio-ready standards that outlasted the pictures they were written for. Notice Nearby keeps the death date so September 22 remembers the Brooklyn-born composer who soundtracked Hollywood's golden musicals from just offstage.