Songwriter Irving Berlin Dies

Irving Berlin gone at 101 in autumn’s first days--and he was much more than a “falling leaf” to me (Part I, Sept. 23). In 1943, when he was doing “This Is the Army” at the Palladium in London, I had to handle the press covering the matinee command performance before King George VI, his queen, and the two princesses. When in his plaintive voice, he asked the audience if they had any requests, there was an almost synchronized roar: “Alexander! Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Berlin looked up at the royal box and King George smiled and nodded, and “Alexander” he did one more time.

He was an insomniac, and several of us used to walk with him at night in London’s blacked-out early mornings--and listen to his stories. My wife, Vada, one of the original WACs, was then with the 12th Air Force in Foggia, in Italy, and the USO had Berlin scheduled to visit that Mediterranean theater of operations. He jotted down her platoon, saw to it that that small unit was added to his itinerary, and none was more surprised than WAC T-5 Corporal Vada M. Oldfield, when she was summoned to sit on his right at the platoon’s mess-hall table when he visited her unit!

Nobody ever spent 101 years better than he did, and because of his enormous musical catalogue, that creative time among us will extend into infinity.

BARNEY OLDFIELD

Beverly Hills