George Gard DeSylva (1895-1950) had two distinct careers, which overlapped. He was originally a Tinpan Alley songwriter, teaming up in 1925 with Lew Brown and Ray Henderson to become one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the time. They wrote many hit songs, including the standards ‘April Showers’, ‘Button Up Your Overcoat’ and ‘Look for the Silver Lining’. They also scored a major success with the musical Good News (1927) and other Broadway shows.
At the same time, DeSylva was a Hollywood producer, initially with Fox and later, and most significantly, at Paramount, where he oversaw, amongst others, some of Preston Sturges’s best films.
When MGM made its two versions of Good News, they retained some, but by no means all, of the songs from the original show.
Leave a Reply