Ten years ago, Frank Music, the last grail and quirky hang-out for music lovers in Manhattan closed its midtown doors. That ended a memorable run of a business enterprise begun in the late `40s by – who knew! - composer and lyricist Frank Loe sser --1910-1969. Think Guys and Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and so many singles, among them “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Loesser regarded himself first as a “writer,” but he also became a corporation, a shrewd and forceful business man who had several companies under his wing in his heyday, which he watched over with a sharp eye. Not many music pros know about his businesses and how much they influenced productions here and abroad, including finding, mentoring and signing new talent such as Music Man Meredith Willson. Loesser composed at the height of Broadway and Hollywood. And he was right there, ready to develop, exploit and arrange for TV.
In a “portrait” of him 25 years ago, his daughter Susan quoted from an inscription on a gift from the cast of The Most Happy Fella: “To Frank: God, Genius and Monster.” He could be scathingly direct but never cruel, funny and supportive at the same time, and right on in his use of slang and Yiddish. In The Letters of Frank Loesser, just out, he comes across as an innovative and imaginative genius, an indefatigable letter writer full of advice – solicited and not. Even at his most insistent he would typically sign off with an affectionate closing. In a letter to Marlon Brando, wary of recording the film album of Guys and Dolls because of his terrible voice, Loesser wrote- you’d better do it or you’ll be “arrested next time you ring my door bell in the middle of the night.” It was signed, with love and thanks, “Frank Loesser the Monster.”
The book starts with wonderful notes young Frank sent to his half-brother Arthur, 16 years his senior, himself an accomplished musician, especially on piano,. The narrative continues, following the life of yet another musical son of Jewish immigrants, who not only made good but made waves. And tons of money.
Just before serving in the Army, he wrote the soon-to-be-famous “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” after the attack on Pearl Harbor. And to his good friend Hoagy Carmichael, a lawyer as well as collaborator on “Two Sleepy People” and “Heart and Soul,” he apologized for a delay in writing but said he had just gotten married to his second wife. It was to Jo Sullivan, who starred in The Most Happy Fella. “I don’t know if you ever met her, but I did, and look what happened.”
Deeply informed about the business of theatre production, The Letters are worth dipping into, if not read in their entirety. This is a big book – 672 pages, 38 photos and detailed footnotes. Truth is it’s too long. And the motives of its editors, both music professionals, Dominic Broomfield McHugh, an authority on Broadway and Cliff Eisen, a specialist in Mozart, are not clear. But the letters are remarkable for showing a music composer in full, as writer, producer, arranger, agent, director, collaborator, publisher. And for those who want to succeed in show biz today by really trying, they are invaluable and instructive.
