A BUSY LIFE
From Betty Boop and Superman to Broadway Shows and Sinatra
“Sammy Timberg’s music flows and surges and revolves with…sweet inevitability, announced Mayor Jim Connors at the ceremony for “Sammy Timberg Day” in Scranton, Pennsylvania, just five months before the well-known entertainer and composer passed away in 1992. He was 89.
Sammy’s virtuosity spanned a broad range of musical genres from early Broadway show tunes and motion picture scores to the themes for such pop icons as Superman and Betty Boop.
At fifteen he was training as a concert pianist under Rubin Goldmark, whose best-known pupils were Aaron Copland and George Gershwin. Then his father died and for financial reasons, he was forced to join his brother, Herman, an established comedian and comedy writer, on the vaudeville circuit.
He was the straight man, composing the music and conducting the band for the show. In those days he was known as Fancy Pants and was on the road 40 weeks per year.
At that time, Sammy, Herman and their sister, Hattie were involved with the early careers of the Marx Brothers. Herman wrote the act, Sammy was the musical director, while Hattie, under the stage name Hattie Darling, performed with them and served as their business manager.
Timberg and his brother were innovators. They introduced the ploy of having members of the orchestra talk during the act. Any devotee of the Big Band Era knows it became a common gimmick.
Timberg wrote songs for Broadway musicals, including, THE STREET SINGER and DUTCHESS OF CHICAGO for Busby Berkeley and wrote, BROADWAY NIGHTS, WHITE LILACS and a series of revues called THE PASSING SHOWS for the Shuberts.
He also performed with Benny Leonard, the lightweight boxing champion, who between bouts did a vaudeville routine with the Timbergs. Some years later the brothers produced an act featuring an aspiring young comedian named Phil Silvers.
After 14 years on the road, Sammy got involved in the booming movie business, where there was a constant demand for short subjects and cartoons that accompanied every feature. Timberg is best known as a composer of songs and background scores for the classic animated cartoons of the Fleisher Studios (later Famous Studios), where he was also musical director. Cartoon characters whose celluloid antics his music has enlivened include Popeye, Betty Boop, Olive Oyl, Superman, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Little LuLu and Casper the Friendly Ghost. In early Fleisher shorts, starring Rudy Vallee and Mae Questel (the voice of Betty Boop), he composed the music and wrote the story with Sammy Lerner.
In his book, OF MICE AND MAGIC, Leonard Maltin writes,
“Many cartoons were built around songs by Sammy Timberg and Sammy Lerner. This steady supply of spirited songs written especially for the cartoons provided them with some of their most endearing moments.”
“The music had to be synchronized with the action. I worked with the artists from the first drawings up to the end. I would do maybe forty pictures a year. They were all seven or eight minutes long. It was a challenge. You had to write all kinds of stuff- Serious stuff, crazy stuff. You had to have a wide knowledge of music.” – Sammy Timberg
City people and city life were featured in these first animated musicals. Today they are considered classics. Sammy Timberg also contributed songs to two Fleisher feature-length films, GULLIVER’S TRAVELS and MR BUG GOES TO TOWN. His best known song, “It’s a Hap-Hap-Happy Day,” was featured in GULLIVER.
In Hollywood in the 1940s, Lionel Barrymore chose Timberg to compose the score for his dramatic recording of Dickens’, A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Timberg directed a 90-piece orchestra for the final well-received recording.
One episode of his life he chose to forget was when he was hired by Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, to head Screen Gems’ Studio cartoon branch. He left that position after four years saying, “Harry and I didn’t get along too well” – an understatement, since Sammy was a kind man and rarely made derogatory statements. Much has been written about the tough and difficult KING COHN as the book by Bob Thomas recalls.
As a composer of popular music, Timberg collaborated with noted lyricists Buddy Kaye and Sammy Cahn, among others. His song, “Help Yourself To My Heart” written with Kaye, was recorded by
Frank Sinatra in the 1940s and was part of a Sinatra retrospective album, “Sinatra – The Columbia Years 1943 – 1952”. In his vast catalogue of unreleased works, there are still four songs co-written with Sammy Cahn. One song, “It’s Christmas Time” is featured in a holiday CD, offered through the Songwriter’s Guild of America, entitled, “HOME FOR CHRISTMAS”. In Spring, 2004, a new CD was released called, Boop-Oop-A-Dooin’, The Songs of Sammy Timberg from Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman and Other Musical Classics.
Timberg’s classical compositions include, “Jazz Rhapsody”. Applauded by critics, he performed it in New York with a 100-piece orchestra at the Capitol Theatre in 1930. He never performed it again because of misinformation given to him regarding his contractual rights at the time. He also has a ballet and an unfinished bolero to his credit.
In the latter stages of his career, Timberg devoted his energies primarily to producing shows and managing performers. For a time, he managed a rambunctious young comedian, Jackie Gleason, a young singer, Eydie Gorme, and Don Adams of GET SMART fame. Sammy recalled: “I recognized good talent, but I have to admit I was not a great businessman”
Because of this, much of the popular music he created during his lifetime continues to lie dormant. Sammy tried to do it all himself, write the music, sell it and promote it. Nowadays, musicians of his caliber use agents, business managers and publicists.
His first marriage was to Ziegfeld dancer and magazine cover girl Rosemarie Sinnott, mother of his three children, Rosemarie, Bob and Pat. Rosemarie Sinnott was a featured performer in Ziegfeld’s, SPRING IS HERE, WHOOPEE, ROSALIE and a regular at the Ziegfeld Roof’s MIDNIGHT FROLICS.
Rosemarie was in two short subject films. Several McCALL’S and TRUE EXPERIENCES magazine covers are graced with pictures of her beautiful face.
Later, Sammy did an act in Scranton , Pennsylvania and married his second wife, Maria Davis, there. They continued to live in New York for many years, eventually settling in Scranton .
He wrote a song for the town, “Stand Up and Shout About Scranton, Our Friendly Town”. It became the city’s theme song, leading the mayor to proclaim, “Sammy Timberg Day”. Talking afterwards to a newspaper reporter, Sammy said:
“I liked it most of all when I was on stage with my brother. We played the Orpheum in Los Angeles. One night all the stars were there – Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin. We made them scream. To see all those great stars laughing. That was a great thrill. I did everything… Managed people, conducted, wrote music – Did everything in all ends of show business. It’s been a busy life.”
Sources:
Cabarga, Leslie: THE FLEISHER STORY
Maltin, Leonard: OF MICE AND MAGIC
Thomas, Bob: KING COHN