21 Facts About Otto Harbach

Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of nearly 50 musical comedies and operettas.

Otto Harbach believed that music, lyrics, and story should be closely connected, and, as Oscar Hammerstein II's mentor, he encouraged Hammerstein to write musicals in this manner.

Otto Harbach is considered one of the first great Broadway lyricists, and he helped raise the status of the lyricist in an age more concerned with music, spectacle, and stars.

Otto Harbach Abels Hauerbach was born on August 18,1873, in Salt Lake City, Utah to Danish immigrant parents.

Otto Harbach attended the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute, transferring to Knox College, in Galesburg, Illinois, where he was a friend of Carl Sandburg, joined Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, and graduated in 1895.

Otto Harbach then taught English and public speaking at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Otto Harbach worked at various advertising agencies, at an insurance firm, as a copywriter in advertising, and later as a journalist.

Otto Harbach would have to pull out of Columbia when he could not financially support himself.

Otto Harbach had not been interested in theatre but more in literary classics, but after seeing the show, realized he liked the lighthearted genre.

Otto Harbach set his libretto in contemporary Manhattan and Bermuda, which differed from the typical European setting for operettas.

Otto Harbach worked on projects with other collaborators during this time.

Otto Harbach collaborated with composer Louis Hirsch and scored his biggest success thus far in his career in 1917 with Going Up.

Also in 1917, he shortened his name from Hauerbach to Harbach to avoid anti-German sentiment caused by World War I Harbach and Hirsch collaborated on another notable Broadway production in 1920, Mary.

Oscar was an aspiring lyricist and book writer, and Otto Harbach became his mentor.

Otto Harbach first collaborated with Broadway composer Jerome Kern on Sunny, and they would continue to work together on subsequent musicals, including Criss Cross, The Cat and the Fiddle, and Roberta.

Otto Harbach's final major production was a collaboration with operetta composer Sigmund Romberg, Forbidden Melody.

Otto Harbach collaborated as lyricist or librettist with many of the leading Broadway writers and composers of that era, including Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, Louis Hirsch, Herbert Stothart, Vincent Youmans, George Gershwin, and Sigmund Romberg.

Otto Harbach became a charter member of ASCAP in 1914, and he served as a director, vice president, and president.

Otto Harbach was an inductee of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Otto Harbach died at his home in New York City on January 24,1963, aged 89.

In 1918, Otto Harbach married Eloise Smith Dougall of Salt Lake City, Utah.