19 Facts About Dorothy Fields

Dorothy Fields was an American librettist and lyricist.

Dorothy Fields wrote over 400 songs for Broadway musicals and films.

In 1923, Dorothy Fields graduated from the Benjamin School for Girls in New York City.

Dorothy Fields's poems were published in the school's literary magazine.

Dorothy Fields's father, Lew Fields, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland who partnered with Joe Weber to become one of the most popular comedy duos near the end of the nineteenth century.

Dorothy Fields had two older brothers, Joseph and Herbert, who became successful on Broadway: Joseph as a writer and producer and Herbert as a writer who later became Dorothy's collaborator.

Hence, Dorothy Fields began working as a teacher and a laboratory assistant while secretly submitting work to magazines.

In 1926, Fields met the popular song composer J Fred Coots, who proposed that the two begin writing songs together.

Dorothy Fields wrote the lyrics for the songs in the 1936 movie The King Steps Out, based on the early years of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, directed by Josef von Sternberg.

Dorothy Fields returned to New York and worked again on Broadway shows, but now as a librettist, first with Arthur Schwartz on Stars In Your Eyes.

In 1945, Dorothy Fields approached Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II with her idea for a new musical based on the life of famous female sharpshooter Annie Oakley.

Kern and Dorothy Fields were signed on to write the songs in the show.

Dorothy Fields's last hit was from their second collaboration in 1973, Seesaw.

Dorothy Fields's lyrics were known for their strong characterization, clarity in language, and humor.

Dorothy Fields was an amateur pianist and a lifelong lover of classical music; the awareness of melodic lines that this fostered in her was of value in the task of fitting lyrics to melodies.

Dorothy Fields is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, inducted posthumously in 1988.

Dorothy Fields died of a heart attack on March 28,1974, at the age of 69.

Dorothy Fields was introduced to Eli Lahm by his close friend Herbert Sondheim, the father of Stephen Sondheim, who affectionately referred to her as Aunt Dorothy growing up.

Dorothy Fields married Lahm in 1939, and they had two children, David and Eliza.