Jimmy Van Heusen, Prolific Songsmith, Oscar Winner, Dies

Jimmy Van Heusen, who took his name from a shirt label and his melodies from a mirthful mind and gentle heart, has died at his home in Rancho Mirage.

The tunesmith whose “Swinging on a Star,” “All the Way,” “High Hopes” and “Call Me Irresponsible” not only won four Oscars but became national monuments, had celebrated his 77th birthday last month.

He died Tuesday, a spokesman for the Riverside County coroner’s office said Wednesday. His death was attributed to a stroke, and the coroner’s spokesman said he had suffered from cerebral vascular disease for about two years.

Born Edward Chester Babcock in Syracuse, N.Y., he was a mischievous boy who was expelled from high school for singing a mildly salacious song “My Canary Has Rings Under His Eyes” at a school assembly.

It probably was the only song he was ever identified with that he didn’t compose himself.

He grew to become a fun-loving adult who once told an interviewer “I dig chicks, booze, music and Sinatra--in that order.”

It was Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby who made famous his songs--”Aren’t You Glad You’re You” from Crosby’s film “The Bells of St. Mary’s”; “Moonlight Becomes You” from Crosby’s “The Road to Morocco”; “(Love Is) The Tender Trap,” from Sinatra’s “The Tender Trap” and “All the Way” from Sinatra’s “The Joker Is Wild.”

He was nominated for eight additional Academy Awards for such musical masterpieces as “The Second Time Around” from “High Time”; “Pocketful of Miracles” from the 1961 film of the same name; “My Kind of Town,” a Sinatra signature song from “Robin and the 7 Hoods” and more.

He won an Emmy for “Love and Marriage” from the 1955 production of “Our Town.” It since has become a leitmotif for the current generation of TV watchers who now hear it as the theme of the ribald “Married . . . With Children.”

If he helped make stars of Crosby (both as a priest and with Bob Hope in the legendary “Road” series of comedies) and Sinatra, he also helped make household words and friends of his many collaborators--Johnny Mercer, Johnny Burke, Eddie DeLange and most notably and recently, Sammy Cahn.

The son of a building contractor who played the cornet, young Edward Babcock was encouraged to seek a conventional education, even though he was more interested in music.

After leaving high school under circumstances his parents didn’t consider amusing, he enrolled briefly at a boarding school near Syracuse but left there when teachers found him more often in poolrooms than classrooms.

While still a student, Babcock (who never changed his name legally) landed a job on a local radio station for $15 a week. The station manager insisted that he change his name, and he appropriated Van Heusen from the shirt manufacturer and James because he said he just liked it.

He did attend Syracuse University from 1930 to 1932, studying piano and composition, and while there formed a partnership with Jerry Arlen, Harold Arlen’s younger brother.

His next-door neighbor in Syracuse had been composer Arlen, and when the man who was to write the music for “The Wizard of Oz” went to Hollywood in 1933, he asked his brother and Van Heusen to take over his composing duties at Harlem’s famed Cotton Club.

Van Heusen wrote “Harlem Hospitality.” The tune and the show it was written for flopped, but Van Heusen hung on in New York, operating a freight elevator at Park Central Hotel and plugging tunes.

One of his first compositions, “There’s a House in Harlem for Sale” was performed by the hotel orchestra and got him out of the elevator and into a job with a music publishing firm.

He met orchestra leader Jimmy Dorsey in 1938 and offered him his latest song, “It’s the Dreamer in Me.” The resultant recording became a hit and also sold 100,000 copies of sheet music.

Crosby also recorded it and, by 1940, Van Heusen had become one of Tin Pan Alley’s most successful composers, with 60 songs published in just one season. Next came Hollywood, and he joined with Burke for a songwriting team that became known as the Gold Dust Twins.

He composed his first film score with Burke for “Love Thy Neighbor” in 1940, which was widely recorded.

In a single week that year, Van Heusen had three songs on the Hit Parade, including “Shake Down the Stars,” “All This and Heaven Too” and “Polka Dots and Moonbeams.”

During the wartime summer of 1942, Van Heusen toured West Coast Army camps with Crosby, sometimes serving as the crooner’s pilot. He had amassed enough flying time to qualify as a test pilot for Lockheed Corp., taking war planes up for their maiden voyages between 1942 and 1944.

He owned aircraft and a helicopter during the 1960s, and his Yucca Valley ranch was equipped with a landing pad.

At one point Van Heusen and Burke were under contract to Crosby, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Columbia and International studios.

In 1955 Van Heusen teamed with Cahn and produced a string of motion picture scores that became hits. Their Academy Award-winning “High Hopes” was chosen as the official song for John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign.

The composer also donated the song “California” to the inaugural gala held for former California Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown.

Although he had tremendous success with popular tunes (seven Grammy nominations) and movie music, Broadway was one venue whose success eluded Van Heusen. The productions of “Swingin’ the Dream,” “Nellie Bly” and “Carnival in Flanders” were all acknowledged by the composer as flops.

(The durable jazz ballad “Darn That Dream” was one of the few bright spots from the 1939 “Swingin’ the Dream,” which starred Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman.)

“It’s a big, big gamble,” he said in 1965 before the stage production of “Skyscraper,” for which he was nominated for a Tony award. “You spend two years putting it together, and if six critics don’t like it, you’re out of business overnight. It’s that simple.”

He had shaved his head for years and cut a dashing figure with exquisite but casual clothes. He loved entertaining, parties, and, until 1969 when he married singer Bobbe Brock, being single. Friends said he was able to write songs with a party going on around him or while lounging by his swimming pool.

He also wrote songs for those same friends, including two for Sinatra’s daughters--”Nancy (With the Laughing Face)” and “Tina.”

On Wednesday, lyricist Cahn said by telephone from New York that when people ask him who is the most fascinating character he ever met, he always answers “Jimmy Van Heusen.”

“Then they say, ‘what about Sinatra?’

“I tell them Sinatra thought he was Van Heusen, but he couldn’t pass the physical.”

Services will be private.

VAN HEUSEN’S SONGS These are the compositions of Jimmy Van Heusen. It’s the Dreamer in Me So Help Me Deep in a Dream Heaven Can Wait Oh, You Crazy Moon Blue Rain I Thought About You All This and Heaven, Too Darn That Dream Imagination Dearest, Darest I? Isn’t That Just Like Love? It’s Always You Birds of a Feather Constantly Road to Morocco Ain’t Got a Dime to My Name Moonlight Becomes You Sunday, Monday or Always If You Please Suddenly, It’s Spring A Friend of Yours Polka Dots and Moonbeams Going My Way Swinging on a Star The Day After Forever It Could Happen to You And His Rocking Horse Ran Away Like Someone in Love Sleigh Ride in July Yah-Ta-Ta Yah-Ta-Ta Put It There, Pal Welcome to My Dream It’s Anybody’s Spring Personality Nancy Just My Luck Aren’t You Glad You’re You? My Heart Is a Hobo Country Style Smile Right Back at the Sun Apalachicola, Florida But Beautiful You Don’t Have to Know the Language If You Stub Your Toe on the Moon Once and for Always You’re in Love With Someone Someplace on Anywhere Road Sunshine Cake High on the List And You’ll Be Home Life Is So Peculiar Early American Here’s That Rainy Day Ring the Bell The Magic Window Moonflowers To See You The 86th! The 86th! Love and Marriage The Impatient Years Look to Your Heart All the Way Come Fly With Me Only the Lonely To Love and Be Loved High Hopes The Second Time Around Call Me Irresponsible September of My Years My Kind of Town I Like to Lead When I Dance Love Is a Bore Everybody Has a Right to Be Wrong I’ll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her The Tender Trap Indiscreet Pocketful of Miracles Come Blow Your Horn Where Love Has Gone Tina