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Arthur Freed

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Arthur Freed (September 9, 1894 - April 12, 1973) was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was an American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer of Jewish descent.

Freed began his career in vaudeville, and he appeared with the likes of the Marx Brothers. He soon began to write songs, and was eventually hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. For years, he wrote lyrics for numerous films, many set to music by Nacio Herb Brown.

In 1939 he was promoted to the position of producer, and helped elevate MGM as the studio of the musical. Freed chose to surround himself with film directors such as Vincente Minnelli and Busby Berkeley. He also helped shape the careers of stars like Judy Garland, Gene Kelly. He brought Fred Astaire to MGM after Astaire's series of films with Ginger Rogers at RKO. His team of writers, directors, composers and stars came to be known as the "Freed Unit" and produced a steady stream of popular, critically acclaimed musicals that lasted until the late 1950s.

Freed served as associate producer of The Wizard of Oz (1939). His first solo credit as producer was the film version of Rodgers and Hart's Babes in Arms, in itself not a very distinguished film due to the fact that it gutted most of the original stage score. But it did feature Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, and was so successful that it ushered in a long series of "let's put on a show" "backyard" musicals, all starring Rooney and Garland. However, Freed did bring an outstanding amount of musical talent to MGM, including Howard Keel, Ann Miller, Lena Horne, choreographer Charles Walters, orchestrators Conrad Salinger, Johnny Green, Lennie Hayton, and many others. Among the film classics he produced for MGM are Meet Me in St. Louis, Easter Parade, The Band Wagon, Singin' in the Rain, Gigi, and An American in Paris. Among the stage musicals he was responsible for bringing to the screen were [[Girl Crazy" (1943 version), Best Foot Forward, Cabin in the Sky (a daring all-black film for its time),Good News (1947 version), Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat (1951 version), Brigadoon, Kismet, and Bells Are Ringing, his last musical film. Although the Freed versions of Girl Crazy and Good News were judged as being superior to the earlier film versions, the 1951 Show Boat was considered inferior to its 1936 predecessor, and Kismet, never a great musical, was considered perhaps the weakest of his stage-to-film musicals.

He allowed his directors and choreographers free rein, something unheard of in those days of committee-produced film musicals, and is credited for furthering the boundaries of film musicals by allowing such moments in films as the fifteen-minute ballet at the end of "An American in Paris", after which the film concludes moments later with no further dialogue or singing, and he allowed the musical team of Lerner and Loewe complete control in their writing of Gigi.


Two of his films won the Academy Award for Best Picture: An American in Paris (1951) and Gigi (1958). On the night that An American in Paris won Best Picture, Freed received an Honorary Oscar, and his 1951 version of Show Boat was also up for two Oscars that year, though it lost both to "An American in Paris". But what is now his most highly regarded film, "Singin' in the Rain", won no Oscars whatsoever.


He was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1972.


Freed left MGM in 1970, and died suddenly three years later.





Contents





Hit Songs



With Others

"There's Beauty Everywhere" (with Harry Warren)


With Nacio Herb Brown



Producing Credits



External links





















 





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