John Murray Anderson

Biography

Director, producer, songwriter and author, educated at Edinburgh Academy in Scotland and Lausanne University in Switzerland. He studied drama with Herbert Beerbohm Tree. In World War I he served in the American Bureau of Information. On Broadway, he directed and wrote the scores for "Greenwich Village Follies" (5 editions), and "Jack and Jill", and directed "What's In a Name?" (also librettist and producer), "The League of Notions" (London), "Music Box Revue of 1924", "Dearest Enemy", "John Murray Anderson's Almanac" (1929, also producer, 1953), "Bow Bells" (London), "Fanfare" (London), "Ziegfeld Follies" (1934, 1936, 1943), "Life Begins at 8:40", "Thumbs Up!", "Jumbo", "One for the Money", "Two for the Show", "Laffing Room Only", "Three to Make Ready", "New Faces of 1952", and "Two's Company". He was the director at Radio City Music Hall in 1933, at the Great Lakes Exposition in Cleveland in 1937, at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe from 1938-1950, and for Ringling Brothers Circus from 1942-1951. He joined ASCAP in 1950 and his chief musical collaborators included Mitchell Parish, Walter and Jean Kerr, and Joan Ford. His popular-music compositions include: "The Girl in the Moon"; "Eileen Avourneen"; "That Reminiscent Melody"; "The Valley of Dreams"; "The Last Waltz"; "Come to Vienna"; "Some Day When Dreams Come True"; "A Young Man's Fancy"; "At the Krazy Kat's Ball" and "Annabell Lee".