Versatile Songwriter Sammy Lerner Dies at 86

Sammy Lerner, a Hollywood songwriter who wrote lyrics for such popular ditties as “I’m Popeye the Sailor Man” and “Everybody’s Laughing,” died Wednesday at a Los Angeles nursing home after a long bout with cancer. He was 86.

A spokeswoman for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers said Lerner died soon after he was released from UCLA Medical Center.

Lerner was a veteran lyricist who was as adept at nonsense cartoon lyrics (“I’m strong to the finich ‘cause I eats my spinach . . .”) as he was with the romantic and breezy standards of Tin Pan Alley. Among Lerner’s other contributions in the 1930s and ‘40s were “Is It True What They Say About Dixie,” a song immortalized by Al Jolson, and the English lyrics to “Falling in Love Again,” Marlene Dietrich’s song in the film “The Blue Angel.”

Lerner was born in Saveni, Romania, in 1903. His family emigrated to Detroit, where Lerner attended Detroit Central High School and later graduated from Wayne State University.

He started out writing tunes for vaudeville acts and soon was writing lyrics for Ziegfeld Follies stage shows in New York. Lerner followed those early successes by composing lyrics for cartoons in Hollywood. He also wrote songs for film musicals, including “Blondie Meets the Boss,” “The Lady Vanishes” and “Lady From Cheyenne.”

Lerner recalled that he came up with the theme for “Popeye” in less than two hours in 1932 for cartoonist Dave Fleischer. He did not expect the tune to burrow into the public’s memory. “When I saw that first cartoon, I wanted to crawl in a corner,” Lerner said in a 1977 interview. “ ‘Just do me a favor,’ I said. ‘Don’t put my name on the screen.’ ”

Besides the Popeye theme, Lerner also wrote the theme for Betty Boop and a number of “bouncing ball” musical cartoon songs. He continued writing popular songs as well, collaborating with such composers as Hoagy Carmichael, Richard Whiting, Gerald Marks, Irving Caesar and Burton Lane.

Lerner was a member of ASCAP, the Dramatists Guild and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Married 53 years, Lerner is survived by his wife, Dorothy.