Jimmy Van Heusen

James Van Heusen (born Edward Chester Babcock; January 26, 1913 – February 6, 1990) was an American composer. He wrote songs for films, television, and theater, and won an Emmy and four Academy Awards for Best Original Song. Many of his compositions later went on to become jazz standards.

Born in Syracuse, New York, Edward Chester Babcock began writing music while in high school. He renamed himself to Jimmy Van Heusen at age 16, after the shirt makers Phillips-Van Heusen, to use as his on-air name during local shows. His close friends called him "Chet". Van Heusen was raised Methodist.

Studying at Cazenovia Seminary and Syracuse University, he became friends with Jerry Arlen, the younger brother of Harold Arlen. With the elder Arlen's help, Van Heusen wrote songs for the Cotton Club revue, including "Harlem Hospitality". He then became a staff pianist for some of the Tin Pan Alley publishers, and wrote "It's the Dreamer in Me" (1938) with lyrics by Jimmy Dorsey. Collaborating with lyricist Eddie DeLange, on songs such as "Heaven Can Wait", "So Help Me", and "Darn That Dream", his work became more prolific, writing over 60 songs in 1940 alone. It was in 1940 that he teamed up with the lyricist Johnny Burke. Burke and Van Heusen moved to Hollywood and wrote for stage musicals and films throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Swinging on a Star" (1944). Their songs were featured in many Bing Crosby films of the era, including some of the Road installments and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949).

He also was a pilot of some accomplishment; he met Joe Hornsby, who worked for the FAA in Los Angeles (Hornsby was the son of Dan Hornsby and the father of Nikki Hornsby), because of his music career with his interest in flying. Joe Hornsby sponsored Van Heusen into an exclusive pilots club called the Quiet Birdmen which held meetings at Proud Bird restaurant at LAX; this friendship endured until Hornsby and his wife Dorothea died in short succession the late 1970s. Van Heusen remained close friend with Nikki Hornsby until his own death. Using his birth name, Van Heusen also worked as a part-time test pilot for Lockheed Corporation during World War II.

Van Heusen then teamed up with lyricist Sammy Cahn. Their three Academy Awards for Best Song were won for "All the Way" (1957) from The Joker Is Wild, "High Hopes" (1959) from A Hole in the Head, and "Call Me Irresponsible" (1963) from Papa's Delicate Condition. Their songs were also featured in Ocean's Eleven (1960), which included Dean Martin's version of "Ain't That a Kick in the Head", and in Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), in which Frank Sinatra sang the Oscar-nominated "My Kind of Town".

Cahn and Van Heusen also wrote "Love and Marriage" (1955), "To Love and Be Loved", "Come Fly with Me", "Only the Lonely", and "Come Dance with Me" with many of their compositions being the title songs for Frank Sinatra's albums of the late 1950s.

Van Heusen wrote the music for five Broadway musicals: Swingin' the Dream (1939); Nellie Bly (1946), Carnival in Flanders (1953), Skyscraper (1965), and Walking Happy (1966). While Van Heusen did not achieve nearly the success on Broadway that he did in Hollywood, at least two songs from Van Heusen musicals can legitimately be considered standards: "Darn That Dream" from Swingin' the Dream; "Here's That Rainy Day" from Carnival in Flanders.

He became an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.