E
Edgar Smith
soundtrack, writer
- Birth name:
- Edgar McPhail Smith
- Born:
- 1857-12-09, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1938-03-08, Bayside, New York, USA
- Professions:
- soundtrack, writer
Biography
Brooklyn greeted Edgar Smith on 9 December 1857, and the borough’s restless energy never left his pen. Over the decades he stitched songs and sketches into Broadway scores, leaving his fingerprints on Old Dutch (1915), the wartime hit Sweet Rosie O'Grady (1943), and the fragrant melody cycle Song of the Roses (1929). Offstage, three women shared his surname at different times—Nanette B. Nixon, Estelle Bensel, and Marietta Lydia Oliver—each chapter adding new verses to a private libretto. The final curtain fell on 8 March 1938 in Bayside, New York, but the tunes he coaxed out of vaudeville and tin-pan alley still hum in the footlights’ glow.
