Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin (born Israel Isidore Beilin on 1888‑05‑11 in Tyumen, Russia) was a Russian‑born American composer and songwriter whose work defined the Great American Songbook. He arrived in the United States at age five, escaping pogroms, and grew up in the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side, where he learned to sell newspapers and absorb the sounds of saloons that later shaped his popular melodies. By 1907 he published his first song ‘Marie from Sunny Italy,’ and the following year ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ launched him to national fame, establishing ragtime as a mainstream American style. Over a sixty‑four‑year career (1907‑1971) Berlin wrote an estimated 1 500 songs, scoring twenty Broadway shows and fifteen Hollywood films, and his catalog includes standards such as ‘White Christmas,’ ‘God Bless America,’ ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz,’ and ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business.’ Despite never being able to read sheet music, he famously performed only in the key of F‑sharp using a transposing piano, yet his simple, direct lyricism captured the heart of the average American. He served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army during World I, creating the revue Yip Yip Yaphank and the patriotic hit ‘God Bless America.’ After the war he co‑owned the Music Box Theatre, a Broadway house built especially for his revues, and he continued to write hit songs for films such as Holiday Inn and Annie Get Your Gun. His later years were marked by numerous honors, including an Academy Award, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement, a Tony, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal. Berlin married Dorothy Goetz in 1912, who died the same year, and later Ellin Mackay in 1926; the couple raised four children. He died on 1989‑09‑22 in New York City at the age of 101, leaving a legacy that continues to shape American music and culture.