Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,950

This is the grave of Fred Ebb.

Born in 1928 in New York City, Ebb grew up fairly middle class, worked his way through school, and graduated from NYU in 1950. He then went to Columbia for a master’s in literature. But his real interests were songwriting and theater and so naturally he became a leading writer for musicals. He won the job to write for the play Baker’s Dozen in 1951. He also started writing for more theatrical pop stars too. Working with Philip Stringer, he wrote “Heartbroken” in 1953, which Judy Garland recorded. They also wrote “I Never Loved Him Anyhow,” which Carmen McRae recorded. “Don’t Forget,” which Ebb wrote with Norman Leyden, became a successful song for Eddy Arnold in 1954. There was a lot of cabaret work in these years too.

Speaking of cabaret, let’s get to the point here. Ebb began to write with John Kander in 1962 and they began to have success. Their first effort at a full-fledged musical didn’t get made, but people saw the obvious talent. They wrote for the Liza Minnelli helmed musical Flora the Red Menace in 1965. Minnelli won a Tony but it was a financial failure and closed early. But then came Cabaret. Ebb and Kander wrote that. Generally, Ebb wrote the lyrics and Kander the music, but the division of work wasn’t so clear. This was of course a gigantic hit on Broadway and then Bob Fosse adapted it for the big screen, which became a huge hit in 1972.

Well, this put Ebb and friends into the stratosphere of the world of musical theater. Not everything was Cabaret, that’s for sure. There were failures out there. 1968’s The Happy Time, was a play starring Robert Goulet and it busted. So did Zorba, also in 1968, though it would later have success in revivals. But Ebb wrote a bunch of the material for Frank Sinatra’s 1973 comeback special. He wrote a lot for Minnelli too. Then came 1975’s Chicago, which I think is awful and in fact a lot of people hated it at the time too, but its 90s revival led to a hugely successful movie. In fact, Chicago is second all-time in most Broadway performances, only behind The Phantom of the Opera. So what can you say–Ebb made a ton of money at least.

Ebb and Kander wrote “New York New York” for Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film of the same title, which starred Minnelli and Robert DeNiro. This reminds their best known song. It’s also connected to the Yankees, which means I am constitutionally required to hate it. They wrote Woman of the Year for Broadway, which starred Lauren Bacall in a big comeback for her, and they won a Tony for it in 1981. They’d win their third Tony for Kiss of the Spider Woman, which always seemed like a strange thing to adapt for Broadway but I haven’t seen it, basically disliking the entire genre of musical theater and all. Anyway, they won in 1991 for it.

Ebb worked til the end, which came from a heart attack in 2004. He was 76 years old. His work with Kander is among the top pairings in American musical theater history.

Fred Ebb is buried in Green Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. Evidently, there are gay-themed tours of the cemetery now that start with Ebb, so that’s kind of cool. As for the grave, I’m not sure which man he is specifically Together Forever with. Could be both.

If you would like this series to visit some of the people Ebb worked with, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Kander still lives, in his mid 90s now. Eddy Arnold is in Nashville and Jill Haworth is in Valhalla, New York. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.