JOHNNY GREEN - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 05/24/1977 - HFSID 178087

JOHNNY GREEN
The composer types a letter of thanks for the Gift Book
Typed Letter Signed: "Johnny", 1p, 7¼x10½. On personal letterhead. Beverly Hills, California 1977 May 24. To Radie Harris, New York, New York. In full: Though the Young Musicians Foundation Gala in my honor took place on April 1st last, this is my first possible opportunity to send you a personal acknowledgement of the letter you so very kindly wrote, under date of November 5, 1976, for the Gift Book that was finally presented to me only on the evening of the Gala. With 120 wonderful letters to acknowledge, I've been doing the best I could do, - so please forgive the delay. How I wish it had been possible for you to be present when the long- postponed Event finally did occur last April 1st! it was the kind of evening that would have been most particularly heart-warming to you, Radie dear, because it was so very different from the usual Hollywood event of its kin. While it was large, elaborate and financially enormously successful, any number of people were there have made the specific comment that they felt as though they were enjoying a wonderfully warm and delightful evening in a good friend's home. What higher compliment could be payed to an affair of this kind?! Wonderful as it was to for me, it would have been even more so with Radie Harris in the room. Your letter in the Book is especially meaningful to me because it dwells on the very real and unusual values of the kind of friendship that you and I have enjoyed throughout and adult lifetime. Surely you must be well aware of how very highly I prize and treasure our friendship. Thank you so much for writing a letter for the Book. Always your devoted friend," Johnny Green (1908-1989, born John Waldo Green in New York City) was an Academy Award-winning American composer, songwriter and conductor. Green wrote standards like Out of Nowhere, Rain Rain Go Away, I Cover the Waterfront and Body and Soul, as well as scores for movies, including his Academy-Award Winning scores for Easter Parade (1949), An American in Paris (1954), West Side Story (1962) and Oliver! (1969). Green was accepted into Harvard at age 15. Guy Lombardo heard his Gold Coast Orchestra between semesters and asked Green to create dance arrangements for his orchestra. He wrote his first hit, Coquette, in 1928 for Lombardo. After leaving college, he got a job as a stockbroker, but he didn't take to it and left to pursue a musical career. He started out arranging music for dance orchestras, but was commissioned to write works for larger orchestras in 1933 and, finally, was given his own orchestra, called Johnny Green, His Piano and Orchestra. He continued to play piano and to conduct, most notably at MGM, where he was responsible for changing the studio's overall musical sound with Conrad Salinger in the 1940s. Fold creases not near signature. Fine condition.