SAMMY CAHN

Sammy Cahn, the four-time Oscar-winning songwriter and acclaimed 20th century lyricist, began life as Samuel Cohen, in a humble Jewish immigrant family from Poland living on New York's Lower East Side. During childhood, he learned to play the violin and soon was performing in burlesque hall bands. At sixteen Cahn had written his first song and began a songwriting partnership with bandmate/pianist Saul Chaplin. Cahn and Chaplin built a successful business writing songs for vaudeville shows and performers, as well as short feature films. The two moved out to Hollywood but the partnership didn't last; they went their separate ways. In Los Angeles, Cahn began writing with Jules Styne and together they'd go on to compose music and songs for nineteen motion pictures between 1942 and 1951. In 1947, Cahn and Styne wrote the Broadway musical High Button Shoes. While Cahn also co-wrote with other songwriters, Cahn and Styne teamed up again and took home an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the title song of 1954's Three Coins In The Fountain.

Sammy Cahn was introduced to Jimmy Van Heusen through their mutual friend, Frank Sinatra, and the last major collaborative partnership of Cahn's career began. The team of Cahn and Heusen created songs for motion pictures, many of which were Sinatra vehicles (they took home an Oscar for the song "All The Way," from the 1957 Frank Sinatra movie The Joker Is Wild; won another Academy Award for the song "High Hopes" from Sinatra's 1959 film A Hole In The Head; the partnership's third Oscar win was for the song "Call Me Irresponsible" from the non-Sinatra film Papa's Delicate Condition.)

Additionally, many of the pair's compositions were original songs commissioned for Frank Sinatra records. Over the course of time, Cahn's longtime relationship with Sinatra led the Chairman of The Board to record 89 of Cahn's songs, several recorded more than once.

In 1972, Sammy Cahn was inducted into The Songwriters Hall of Fame and eventually took over the role of President of The Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1974, Cahn created a one-man Broadway show entitled WORDS AND MUSIC, which he performed on tour throughout the years, revisiting his songs and the stories that inspired them and sharing fond tales of his years working in Hollywood.

In total, Cahn was nominated for twenty-three Academy Awards (taking home the statuette four times) as well as five Golden Globes and an Emmy. He wrote for both Hollywood and Broadway and left a catalogue of memorable, timeless songs.

Sammy Cahn passed away in January 1993 at the age of 79.

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For more information, please visit: www.songwritershalloffame.org

MPCA is proudly owns a large variety of songs from the Sammy Cahn catalogue, a cross-section of compositions representing his work through many decades and songwriting collaborative partnerships.