Irving Berlin would be 130 in 2018. While the name may not be familiar to those of the younger generation, anybody who celebrates the holidays knows his songs through "White Christmas"; Anybody who is patriotic or goes to a baseball game knows "God Bless America" (jokingly referred to here as the national anthem), and anybody involved in the entertainment industry knows its anthem, "There's No Business Like Show Business". All songs by Irving Berlin, a Russian Jewish immigrant whose understanding of the human experience made him one of the most beloved song writers of the 20th Century. Once settled in his adopted country, Berlin embraced its heritage, mixed it with his own, and created some of the best loved melodies of our time, in pretty much every medium that embraces music. Theater, the movies, and later radio and television were given the gifts of his talents, and even though he has been gone for nearly the thirty years since this TV special, the memory of his songs stirs up smiles in those who are enlightened enough to know who he is.
Having started the organization that protects the rights of songwriters, Berlin was long in retirement and basically a recluse when this special in his honor was filmed. He had over 70 years of memories to reflect on in his golden years, and even since his death in 1989, his Broadway shows and movies have become more popular, thanks to revivals on stage, the popularity of TCM, and simply because he could do more with music and lyrics than most writers can do with simply a piece of paper and a pen. As initial hostess Shirley MacLaine acknowledges as the tribute opens, "Let me sing a happy song, and if I make you smile, that makes me happy." That's what Irving Berlin was all about, making his audiences happy, even going on stage himself to give the boys fighting overseas something to laugh about as he moans about how he hates to get up in the morning. Then, there's the legendary artists who sang and danced to his songs: Alice Faye, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe. Most of them were deceased when this special aired, but clips of their singing his songs indicates that thanks to the media that remains, their voices will never be silenced.
Marilyn Horne gets to beautifully perform "God Bless America", and Rosemary Clooney reminds us of "White Christmas". Jerry Orbach, Nell Carter and Maureen McGovern sing some of his many standards (too vast to ever be performed in one night), and Bea Arthur gets to be Ethel Merman for a night, along with Maryanne Plunkett and Barry Bostwick, in a tribute to the two shows Berlin wrote especially for La Merm: "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Call Me Madam". While the later show (thankfully released to DVD) is considered a bit dated for today's audiences (yet very nostalgic to us fans), "Annie Get Your Gun" is frequently revived. Two movie musicals that Berlin wrote the songs for ("Holiday Inn" and "White Christmas") were recently performed on Broadway, and there has also been a recorded revival of "As Thousands Cheer", the musical revue that introduced "Easter Parade". Here, Natalie Cole gets to perform the astounding and tear inducing "Suppertime" which Ethel Waters introduced, singing about her husband who had just been lynched, and whom would not be home for dinner.
There's a combination of holiday cheer, Broadway bravado and patriotic flag waving in the presence of several choruses, including a military chorus and the Boy-scouts and Girl-scouts of America singing "This is a Great Country!" from his last Broadway musical, the short-lived "Mr. President". The close-up of the smile on the face of the young black boy singing along with the rest of the Boy-scouts is a glowing testimony to how this music can travel from generations long gone to the generations growing up today. While we still get the occasional variety show today on network TV, this comes from an era when America still had pride in their country and their music, when nostalgia and things long past were not considered old fashioned, but equally as loved as the culture coming out in 1988. The audience in the still unchanged Carnagie Hall obviously became one people in admiration as Irving Berlin's music celebrates the common interests we all share, and if you can have artists like Willie Nelson and Ray Charles singing their hearts out in tribute to him, than it is obvious through music that anything is possible. Music is the ties that blind us all, and that is the legacy left from the massive music master himself, Mr. Irving Berlin.
Having started the organization that protects the rights of songwriters, Berlin was long in retirement and basically a recluse when this special in his honor was filmed. He had over 70 years of memories to reflect on in his golden years, and even since his death in 1989, his Broadway shows and movies have become more popular, thanks to revivals on stage, the popularity of TCM, and simply because he could do more with music and lyrics than most writers can do with simply a piece of paper and a pen. As initial hostess Shirley MacLaine acknowledges as the tribute opens, "Let me sing a happy song, and if I make you smile, that makes me happy." That's what Irving Berlin was all about, making his audiences happy, even going on stage himself to give the boys fighting overseas something to laugh about as he moans about how he hates to get up in the morning. Then, there's the legendary artists who sang and danced to his songs: Alice Faye, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe. Most of them were deceased when this special aired, but clips of their singing his songs indicates that thanks to the media that remains, their voices will never be silenced.
Marilyn Horne gets to beautifully perform "God Bless America", and Rosemary Clooney reminds us of "White Christmas". Jerry Orbach, Nell Carter and Maureen McGovern sing some of his many standards (too vast to ever be performed in one night), and Bea Arthur gets to be Ethel Merman for a night, along with Maryanne Plunkett and Barry Bostwick, in a tribute to the two shows Berlin wrote especially for La Merm: "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Call Me Madam". While the later show (thankfully released to DVD) is considered a bit dated for today's audiences (yet very nostalgic to us fans), "Annie Get Your Gun" is frequently revived. Two movie musicals that Berlin wrote the songs for ("Holiday Inn" and "White Christmas") were recently performed on Broadway, and there has also been a recorded revival of "As Thousands Cheer", the musical revue that introduced "Easter Parade". Here, Natalie Cole gets to perform the astounding and tear inducing "Suppertime" which Ethel Waters introduced, singing about her husband who had just been lynched, and whom would not be home for dinner.
There's a combination of holiday cheer, Broadway bravado and patriotic flag waving in the presence of several choruses, including a military chorus and the Boy-scouts and Girl-scouts of America singing "This is a Great Country!" from his last Broadway musical, the short-lived "Mr. President". The close-up of the smile on the face of the young black boy singing along with the rest of the Boy-scouts is a glowing testimony to how this music can travel from generations long gone to the generations growing up today. While we still get the occasional variety show today on network TV, this comes from an era when America still had pride in their country and their music, when nostalgia and things long past were not considered old fashioned, but equally as loved as the culture coming out in 1988. The audience in the still unchanged Carnagie Hall obviously became one people in admiration as Irving Berlin's music celebrates the common interests we all share, and if you can have artists like Willie Nelson and Ray Charles singing their hearts out in tribute to him, than it is obvious through music that anything is possible. Music is the ties that blind us all, and that is the legacy left from the massive music master himself, Mr. Irving Berlin.
