Herbert Joseph Fields (1897-1958) became an actor as a young man, but by 1925 had converted to writing the book and/or lyrics for Broadway musicals. Over the years, Fields worked with Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Sigmund Romberg, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins and his sister, songwriter Dorothy Fields.
Altogether, Fields wrote twenty-one Broadway shows, the most famous probably being Annie Get Your Gun (1949). He won a posthumous Emmy in 1959 for Redhead (1958), his final collaboration with Dorothy.
Fields also worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, predominantly on ‘B’ pictures.
For MGM, Fields provided additional dialogue for Hollywood Party. A few years later, he wrote the story and screenplay for Honolulu, and was one of the myriad uncredited writers who contributed to The Wizard of Oz. He also worked uncredited on Strike Up the Band. In the early forties, two of his stage shows, Du Barry Was a Lady (1939) and Panama Hattie (1940), were crudely adapted into MGM musicals, and in the fifties his work was the basis for Annie Get Your Gun and Hit the Deck.
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